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December 12, 2014 38 mins

We always hear stories about Big Oil and other conspiracies, but are any of these true?

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Episode Transcript

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs two, Ghosts and government cover ups. History has
writtened with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to now. Hello,
and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt
and my name is Ben. I have a little bit
of a story to open the show up with. If

(00:22):
you'd like, Matt, I'd love it all right, great good,
that worked out so once upon a time right before
we record this podcast. Uh, you are already here in
the office. I am, I've I've written an outline. I'm
driving up to the office when I notice the traffic
has slammed. And there's something about driving that makes us

(00:44):
all a little bit inhumane. You know, you you see
a big car accident and your first question is not
are they okay? Your first question is why the hell
would somebody get in my way? I've got important places
to go and things to do. Those jelupez don't eat themselves, right.
But we rarely, you know, we rarely ask are those

(01:05):
people okay? Or something like that. But I noticed as
I took these absurd Labyrintine back roads, I noticed that
the interstate was pretty much at a standstill, and this
one car had overturned, so the entirety of the northbound
side of the interstate was closed. And it made me

(01:26):
think yet again about how dependent our society is on cars,
and how dependent our society is on oil. So oil
black gold, Texas t Well lem tell store about a
man named Jed. So where does it come from? It's, uh, well,
a little stuff of genius there. Um, Well, it's petroleum. Yeah,

(01:51):
that's what we generally called the oil that we use
in our vehicles, at least here in the US. Petrol um.
It's a refined version of crude oil. Um. The word
comes from the Greek petro, which means rock. And then
I don't know how to say this. I think the
L A I n, which means oil. I've seen it

(02:12):
referred to as specifically olive oil. So petroleum is literally
rock oil or rocks oil. And the use of this
phrase dates way back to the tenth century. This is
something that has been used for a while. Petroleum is
a naturally occurring liquid. It can be anywhere from a
yellowish color all the way a pitch black. You find it,

(02:32):
of course beneath the surface of earth. But not all
oil is made equally. It can consist of varying hydrocarbons
and a lot of other organic compounds that can either
increase or decrease I guess the purity of the or
the ability to burn. Right. Yeah, great point, because that's

(02:53):
why there are so many different terms for oil, like
sweet crude, sweet Texas crew. Um. We should also point
out how oil is formed. You often here that oil
is dinosaur juice. Well, we have some good news. There
is a grain of truth to it. Oil forms when
large amounts of dead organisms are buried beneath rock and

(03:14):
subjected to a lot of heat and a lot of
pressure at the same way that coal transforms to a
diamond or a similar way. Uh. Usually though, most of
these organisms that we're talking about are just a great
mass of very tiny things. Yeah, you're talking about zooplankton,
algae and other things. And you know, sure, there's some
dinosaur juice in your oil, maybe a little bit, but

(03:35):
not nearly as much as you were probably told as
a kid, or at least jokingly told, and then you
just took it, like me to be Those guys at
Royal Dutch Shell and BP and Standard Oil all missed
their chance man to sell dino juice you know, I
would love for there to be a dino juice corporation
that overthrows countries. Just the name change would make a difference.

(03:58):
Spoilers US. So today we know that there are numerous
different types of oil, and the vast majority of these
are retrieved through some sort of drilling or underground extraction method.
There are historically natural oil springs, but they're quite rare.
So this ideal we have of a beech soaked with

(04:19):
oil and and hopeless liking otters and what's another thing,
um and the animals? Yeah, you know, definitely birds. Yeah,
that could have happened thousands of years ago as well,
and naturally. So humans have used oil since ancient times.
But but how ancient? Right? Uh? It goes back to

(04:42):
three a d back in China when they're the earliest
wells known at least were drilled. China, you invented everything
that's true today. Oils used for all kinds of things,
from gasoline for vehicles to asphalts so that vehicles can
drive on things. Uh, plastics, pharmaceuticals, especially plastics. If you

(05:03):
think about just the number of things in whatever room
you're sitting in or walking past, there's so many oil.
The oil is made to use pretty much everything you're
looking at. Um, the world is completely and utterly addicted
to the stuff. What do you mean? Well again, think
think about this. We consume ninety million barrels of oil

(05:27):
each year. That's and that's globally. Um, it's a fairly
huge number. And what we are realizing now more and
more is that this supply of this stuff is becoming
more and more. Well, it is finite, but it's becoming
less and less. Um, it's dwindling. But there are people
who would argue that it's not dwindling. They're all these

(05:49):
unlocked vaults of oil around the world. However, and we're
going to get into that. But you know, you, it
isn't created in a a fast way, right, as we said,
It takes a long process to create the stuff. Like
one of the reasons that we often are able to
have clean drinking water in so many parts of the

(06:11):
world is that there is a water cycle. Now, of
course I'm not downplaying human ingenuity, but my point is
that this water cycle on Earth happens at a much
faster rate than this than this cycle of turning dead
matter into oil. So we are using it faster than
it can replenish. Absolutely. So there are a lot of

(06:33):
negative things about our use of oil, but there are
also a lot of positive things. Um and that's sometimes
stuff that you don't think about, at least things that
I don't think about very much. And it depends on
your perspective too, and just maybe how you grew up,
what your parents taught you, where you are in society,
maybe what college you went to or if you went

(06:54):
to college. Um. So here here's some of the great
things about oil and so ownership of oil reserves have
enabled countries and sometimes you know, families assaulting BRUNEI, oh yeah, sure,
to accumulate just absurd amounts of money, wealth beyond anyone's

(07:16):
wildest dreams. There's a con here, though. As good as
it is for some parts of society, it's also bad
for the planet. Oil is bad for the planet and
most things that live on it, which is why you
know nobody is lining up to take a bath and crude,
and yes they're forced to. It's not only bad if
you happen to wait into a pool of it, or

(07:38):
maybe a small pool gets thrown onto you and your
ecosystem is bad when it's burned. Yeah, we know that
the compustion upon which numerous engines, not just car engines,
rely can create some dangerous pollutants, and not all countries
are regulated. Here's here's a funny story about how I

(07:59):
came to appreciate eight catalytic converters and emissions, and it's
super short. I noticed when I was living in j Loo,
which we've mentioned on the show before. I noticed it's
in Guatemala. And I've noticed a couple of really interesting
things about the vehicles. One people with Frankenstein a vehicle

(08:19):
out of like spare parts, magic, I don't know, a
lucky journey. These the mechanics that were really, really good.
And another thing I noticed was that they must not
have had a mission standards or those weren't enforced, because
Matt after walking around just for a day. So you're

(08:39):
spending a Saturday walk around, you go to the park,
you learn some stuff, you meet some people, you have
a sandwich. You're walking home. I blew my nose and
the snot was black because of the level of pollution.
And I wasn't up there, you know, I wasn't like
huff in the end of the tail pipe. I was
just walking, So yeah, hopefully we won't. You know, there

(09:00):
are parts of the world where that is just the reality,
um like in jail, I guess. And that is another
terrifying aspect, just thinking about cities in China where the
pollution and small gets so bad that you have to
shut down the city for a little while. Yeah, and
some of it there is due to weather patterns. It
can be there can be a lack of wind that

(09:21):
would ordinarily sweep the small way. But that is one
that is one con of oil if humans are not
careful about it. Another positive thing about oil is that
it's great for manufacturing and business from that aspect. So
we've talked about before on this show and I think
you've talked about it as well on Car Stuff that
the first automobiles were electric true story. Yeah, and uh

(09:45):
where what's the best way to find that? Just look
on iTunes for car stuff. Yes, we're on iTunes. You
can also visit us at car Stuff show dot com,
where you can see a handy list of some videos
that Scott and I do, as well as a blog
and every single episode we've all we've ever done. We
also cover the history of so many cars where you

(10:07):
will hear some crazy stories, you guys, including the stories
of the very first vehicle which was electric and additionally
you can check out some conspiratorial stuff. So much like
a any old car these days, electricity gets it started,
but oil really fuels the thing. Hey hoho, thank you

(10:29):
for doing that joke. Yeah, you gotta um. And it
has fueled a great deal of the modern age today.
Oil supplies of the vehicle fuel needs for yeah, for
the globe, which is still a pretty scary number considering
how much pushed there is to get alternative fuel vehicles
out there. Um. And oil is responsible for of the

(10:52):
total energy consumption inside the United States. Now there's a
con here too. We said that oil is great for
some parts of society. It's also terrible for parts of society.
It is a death knell at times. It is uh,
the bell tolling for you, depending on where you are
in a society. And we'll tell you why that is

(11:12):
the case after a brief word from our sponsors. Okay,
and we are back, ladies and gentlemen. Before the break,
we said that oil is great for some parts of
society and terrible for some other parts of society. And

(11:32):
this brings us to a continually hot button type issue. U, Matt,
I'll give you the honors. War wars are fought to
gain control over oil resources. And once you're embroiled in
a war, you need kasolene for all those vehicles. You

(11:53):
need oil for all sorts of things. It's a it's
a powerful component in so many things. Um, when you're
trying to fight a war, it's it's crazy to think
just how much is used in a battle, right, And
you'll often hear these claims about wars for oil. Dismissed
this conspiracy theory, so we thought we'd give you some specific,

(12:14):
historically accepted examples of wars for oil. One early example
is the Choco War of through thirty five. This is interesting, Matt,
because Bolivia and Paraguay fought over control of this place
called the Chaco Boreal and this was a you know,
a rich oil field area. Many historians, however, trace the
conflict ultimately not to Bolivia and Paraguay, but to two

(12:38):
international companies in conflict, Royal Dutch Shell backing Paraguay and
Standard Oil backing Bolivia. Yeah. Oh that's dishing. That's how
it really happened. But that's not the That's not the
only example we know that, even when they're not entire
wars fought for oil resource, there are still humorous instances

(13:01):
or campaigns where possession of an oil field or refinery
plays a key role. Oh yeah. During World War Two,
both sides understood this, and they would bomb refineries and
try and gain control, strategic control over oil field so
that they could have the oil for their tanks and
their airplanes and everything. Then, even if you jump forward
to when the US and the Soviet Union were having

(13:24):
their fun little Cold war and proxy wars, uh, the
activities in Afghanistan were fueled by oil concerns. Surprise. Yeah,
the US was concerned or worried that so many Soviet
troops that close to the Persian Gulf could disrupt oil
supplies and and stop the trade because oil around the
world is like spice and dune. Right. Oh, you had

(13:44):
to flow, yeah, if you and if you control it. Right.
And that's why today you often hear people claiming that
one war or another was really fought over oil. And often,
as sad as it is, these people are not listened
to or they are dismissed. It is that wars are
ultimately over resources. Um, you know, whether this is the

(14:06):
sole motivation for war? You have to answer that on
a case by case basis. But one thing's for sure. Yes,
oil causes conflict. So why not use something else? Why
don't we just say, Okay, this oil stuff it's toxic
in so many ways, including politically, let's just move to
something else. Why don't we do it? Yeah, and let's uh,
by the way, have a big hand for our super producer,

(14:28):
Noel Brown. Noel, I'm buttering you up because I'm gonna
ask for sound cube. Can we get something like sunshiny
for what we're about to announce? Oh? Yes, friends, something
does exist, and it's called alternative energy. We're talking nuclear,
We're talking solar, hydroelectric, geo thermal, and there are so

(14:49):
many others. Well, there's a problem, of course, which is
if all this stuff is so amazing, why aren't we
using it now? With nuclear, that's a little bit of
a special case. We're talking like Fukushima, Chernobyl, They're they're
accurate concerns about that. Hydro Electric really depends on where
you are in the world, as does geothermal. It's not
gonna work for everybody. Uh, Solar, just right, now is

(15:13):
not efficient enough. There's a problem though, It's threefold when
we look at alternative energy and why the world still
uses oil. The first is that the world's infrastructure is
already built for oil. We have a massive sunk cost,
so to switch from that would be um I'm sure
that there is a number of how many dollars that

(15:36):
would take for the entire world to switch, But I'm
also sure that that number exists as a mathematical concept.
I'm also sure that this these numbers exist as a
mathematical concept, and it may be more money than actually
exists in the world. And you know, as we said,
the second problem that other forms of energy just don't
have the same bang for the buck efficiency right, Well,

(16:00):
are you sure about that or do the right exactly?
We'll get to that research. The third problem here is
the research into alternative energy is often politicized in the West,
especially in the United States, and this tends to hamper
any kind of progress. You know, of course, it's this
goes back to the idea of framing a debate. I

(16:20):
think we can all agree, really, if you think about it,
that having other forms of energy production is a good thing. Yeah,
I don't see many cons to that, unless maybe you're
one of the controlling interests in a massive empire built
upon oil. Now, you know, ultimately, what we know about

(16:40):
human beings shows us that if alternative energy or some
form of it ever cracks the case and becomes as
efficient as oil, then ultimately people will make companies like
standard oil, and you know, I'll just be standard wind
stand right, Yeah, exactly. Um, they'll never get to do
that dino juice joke though. That's so it's a shame.

(17:01):
But but we do know, of course, guys, you have
seen this if you've ever watched news in the United States,
there are people who would go out and say, well,
you know that wind turbans are way more dangerous than
you think. They altered the surrounding temperature. That's right. They
killed birds, and they do kill birds. They kill a

(17:21):
lot of births. That part is true. But but we see,
you know, we see people take a stand against it
because they have a political stake in it rather than
an objective stay, which leads us to I don't know
about you, guys, but this is my favorite part of
the podcast today. Um. Oh, but before we get to it,
we should have a word from response m here's where

(17:48):
it gets crazy, all right, Ben, Let's get to the
good stuff. Let's get to the oil conspiracies. So let's
just get started here. One of the ideas is that
oil companies, or at least their owning interests, actively work
to suppress the alternative energy. We're talking about energy suppression here.
We've done a couple episodes on this on the video side,

(18:09):
even an audio podcast on this. UM. It's a huge topic.
You can look at examples like zero point energy that UM,
from what we can find, probably doesn't exist as of yet, UM,
but it might and if it did, then perhaps it
was suppressed and people were killed. That's a conspiracy theory.

(18:31):
Another is a so called free energy examples including things
like Thomas Moray's device that he created that was suppressed.
And there are numerous other conspiracies. So let's look at
the automotive side here. Uh, there's this conspiracy idea that
automotive manufacturers conspired to prevent viable alternative energy cars from

(18:54):
hitting the markets. And you can see some great examples
in this and something called who Killed the Electric Car.
There's also the Great street car conspiracy, and uh, that's
that's a fascinating topic to me. And we can hear
us covered on car stuff as well. Um, I think
we have we have a video about it somewhere we
do now I can round. There's another example from the
world of automotives, the water powered car, which we also

(19:17):
talked about. Oh man, that one's fascinating. Check out our
video on that. Uh. And we also had Scott from
car Stuff come on and talk a little bit about
some of this stuff. That's true, we did. Yeah, he's
a good fellow. Uh. Okay. So there's another idea here
that I know we're kind of blowing through these Uh.
That's just so that you guys can you know, get
a little tidbit and then go research in other ways. Um.

(19:40):
But there's an idea that most Middle Eastern conflicts, stuff
like the our war in Afghanistan, the recent one also
again going into Iraq, Um, that it's ultimately the result
of colonization and resource extraction rather than any kind of
ideological or religious concerns. Yeah, so let's look at this.
I think we have talked about this before in some

(20:03):
of our videos. But right now, if you are an
alien and you land on planet Earth, or you're just
you know, screw it. You stay on the moon and
you're just watching the news before you go in go
into the planet right or into civilization, which is the
smart move if you're listening extraterrestrials. So so let's say
that you turn on the news and you notice that

(20:25):
things seem pretty dicey in the Middle East, and there's
a country called Iran, and there's some other countries Saudi Arabia, Israel,
and the United States which do not like Iran. And
Iran is you notice surrounded on all sides by a
US basis. You'll probably hear a lot of people talking

(20:45):
about religious values right, more abstract ideological things, But you're smart,
you'll also notice that Iran is the country controlling something
called the Strait of Horda moves where a great deal
of the world's oil passes, and Iran has the ability
to shut down this straight uh. The United States and

(21:09):
Saudi Arabia spend a great deal of time and money
making sure that they have boats that are in the water.
So imagine, imagine that something valuable was coming out of
the Gulf, and then the US controlled the Gulf, but
there was another country much stronger than the US, like

(21:29):
China sixty years from now sends ships to the Gulf
of Mexico to prevent any kind of shutdown. That's similar.
That hypothetical situation is similar. So this idea now is
that most of the Middle East conflicts are ultimately a
result of colonial powers and ownership of oil resource extraction.

(21:53):
It's a it's dirty, dirty stuff. Yeah you can. I'm
trying to think if there's a good place on video
you can learn more about that. I don't think we've
covered that in particular with stray hor moves or anything. Well,
you can look at the Yeah, you're right, we haven't
covered that yet, but you can find some great stuff
if you look into uh who set up the shaw

(22:14):
of Iran and later the fall of the Shaw, UH,
the involvement of energy companies in both the involvement of
British oil companies in the area historically and how much
influence they welded over state making. So do some Iran research.
Another thing that we just looked at this week on

(22:35):
video is our classic series on peak oil and whether
or not we've reached this point of peak oil where
we are not producing uh enough to meet demand or
where are where our supplies are dwindling and dwindling where
we can't make that ninety million barrels one. And that's
a scary thing because, as we know, the developing world
is thirstier and thirstier for oil. People have more machines,

(22:59):
people want more consider humor goods, and they're just more people.
Oh yeah, a lot more people. And the conspiracy lies
within whether or not we've already hit this point of
peak oil, whether we you know when we will hit it,
if we will hit it, or if it's a hoax
yeah by the left because Alaska, man, there's so much
oil under Alaska. Well, you know, not to make light

(23:19):
of it. But the point that we're making here is
that there are people on both sides of the peak
oil debate who believed that there is a conspiracy afoot.
And the biggest thing for me is do we really
want to continue to burn all this oil? Come on, guys,
I got really scared by newsroom. Dude, the newsroom did
that piece on climate change. Did you have never seen

(23:43):
news Okay, alright, well, newsroom did this small piece on
climate change where they interviewed I don't know if he
was just an associate director or something of um the
E p A. And then I did some research after
that aired, and the results about the amount of CO
two in the atmosphere is pretty scary. Now, Newsroom, is

(24:05):
that the show written by Aaron Sorkin? That is correct? Okay, good,
just because the way we're talking about it for a
second made me think that it was an actual news show. Yes,
it's an HBO show. I apologize. Oh, no worries, So
I'll check it out. Huh. I would recommend anyone check
it out, just because it's one of those doom and
gloom things where it just seems awful and you're watching

(24:27):
it on this fiction fictionalized TV show, But then when
you realize that the information that's being used in there
is nonfiction, Uh, it's pretty scary. There's another scary thing
and we'll be talking about this in a video that
you can check out this week to probably right after
you listen to this episode. There is an organization called

(24:48):
o PACK right and yeah, who are they? Right? And
OPAC is a consortium that controls oil prices in general. Now, recently,
if you have into the news, you have noticed that
oil prices are plummeting. There are a couple of reasons
for this. But here's the thing that's kind of conspiratorial

(25:09):
that I really enjoy. It's that maybe OPEC and the
Western Powers are conspiring to drive down the price of
fossil fuels from crude oil to natural gas, not to
save US money at the pump, not because they care.
That would be really nice if they did, That would
be you know what. Maybe maybe I'm wrong for the holidays,

(25:31):
maybe it's for the holidays, and maybe I'm being a jerk,
But I also proposed that maybe this is an attempt
to weaken countries like Russia and Iran, both of which
rely on fossil fuel exports to power their economies. That
whole situation right now is heating up between Russia and
a lot of other places in the world, especially the

(25:53):
United States, and Russia was questioning Israel earlier this week
because they bombed Syria. Yes, um, there's just so much
interesting stuff going on there. I watched you watch Vice
News at all. I've seen it before. I've been trying
to just keep up to date. They have some embedded people,
well not embedded, they're just there. Uh, they're not embedded

(26:13):
with any group. But yeah, they's just really interesting to
actually see the news coming out from that kind of thing. Well,
it's important, especially when we talk about any kind of
international affair. It's it's crucial to check multiple news sources.
Anytime that somebody questioned your source, your individual source, it's

(26:34):
just good practice to have another one you can show.
I mean, I read RT just like the Russian Times
all the time. I also read the official uh state
web page of North Korea, the DPRK. I might be
the only one who does that. I do not currently,
but um does Google Translate work pretty well with it?
They have an English section. Oh wow, okay, yeah, making

(26:56):
the English section in the Korean section. Check it out.
You'll see some interesting stuff. But so I'm saying, I'll
check state mouthpieces. Right, Arguably Al Jazeera is a state
mouthpiece to right, um, and let's see, are they in
cutter I believe yes. Also, the BBC is essentially a

(27:17):
state news site in the United States. Is a little
bit different because you know, Fox will speak more for
the right, MSNBC will speak more for the left. Often
both can be disingenuous, and usually it's a corporation. Yeah,
you know, I hate to be that guy, but you're
you're ultimately getting pr a lot of times. It's true

(27:37):
that an ad driven news people can shut something down
if an advertiser has enough power and they don't like it,
or just the conglomerate that owns the media company has
any arm. So you're talking really, I feel like if
I'm looking into your head right now, I'm seeing the
Saturday Night Live video that was shown once they're taking
off the air. I mean a bit at least bits

(28:00):
and pieces. I have an unfortunate bias against US news
in that way. So are any of these conspiracies true?
I think bits and pieces of most of these are true. Uh.
I think it's difficult. It would be extremely difficult to
prove hands down any of them. Um, just with actual

(28:23):
hard evidence. So are any of these conspiracies we've heard
so far true or do they have a grain of truth? Well,
of course, it would be extremely difficult to prove with concrete,
inarguable evidence that oil companies are conspiring to, let's say,
suppress any of this innovation. But we do know that
large companies can and will act unethically to ensure not

(28:47):
only their continued survival, but the continual survival of let's
say that market or that businessman. Yeah, that huge business moan.
So yeah. One example of this, it probably hits home
for a lot of you out there listening on the internet.
I know it makes me furious, is the suppression of
superior fiber optic networks by telecoms. If you have been

(29:09):
on Reddit or the subreddit for technology, then you have
seen so many stories about companies that originally refused to
build a fiber optic network taking legal action to prevent
a town or city from building their own. Yeah, because man,
you can't step on my profits like that. Or the
suppression of let's talk about this too, while we're at it,

(29:31):
of online video services like Netflix and Hulu by cable
companies who don't want consumers to use another more convenient,
more affordable way of watching TV. Now, okay, these examples,
of course, I know, I know what everybody's saying. Of course,
these have nothing to do with gasoline. These are just

(29:51):
examples of what can happen when a company is large
enough to affect legislation. Right, So, there is a dangerous possibility.
I'm not saying it has happened before that an oil
company would suppress an innovation, but I am saying that
it could happen, which is terrifying. Well, one of the

(30:12):
other things that we do know for sure is that
auto manufacturers back in the day were found guilty of
destroying America's electric street cars. And we're talking about the
street cars that were in San Francisco, um and maybe
Chicago all other cities. Um. Yeah, they were found guilty
of doing this. And guess what, Ben this is something

(30:34):
I learned from your show. What's that they were fined? Um,
just a little bit. They were just find a little
bit of money, one dollar, they'll find one dollar. You guys,
the big three auto manufacturers, and I think there was
also a tire company that was active in this, uh,
purchased various street car systems and then later dismantled them.
Now you will hear people say that these were already

(30:58):
hemorrhaging money, or they were bad invest mints or something
from the beginning, and that the other companies had no
choice but to dismantle them. However, you know, it's okay
if you believe that, if you like to believe that
sort of thing, but the court doesn't agree with you,
which is like the most diplomatic way I could put it.

(31:19):
You're so kind of bad. Thank you. So conspiracy theories
about auto power are almost as old as the Model
T going way back there, and that's you know, there's
no surprise about that. But while we don't have concrete
proof of the suppression, like we said before, we do
know that there are various electric cars that came and

(31:40):
went under this same kind of let's say, mysterious circumstance.
Talking about the e V one. If you've ever watched
Who Killed the Electric Car, Uh, you'll know what we're
talking about. Have an episode on that as well. Um
that that center and EV one is so crazy, especially
when you go back and you watch the interviews with
I think Tom Hanks was one of the interviews people.

(32:01):
So here's how the EV one worked. People could not
outright by it, they could lease it. And at the
end of the least period people were going nuts and bananas.
They loved the Saturn EV one, but Saturn destroyed the
ev ones when they were returned from lease, and which
GM destroyed it. Yeah, excuse me, and you were allowed

(32:23):
to renew your lease. It was very very dodgy business. Uh.
Here's another thing that we talked about a little bit
at length. The idea of oil driving conflict in the
Middle East. It's fairly certain a great deal of conflict
in the Middle East can be traced back, as we said,
to colonialism to control of these resources. Because you have

(32:44):
ever wondered why some parts of the world are so violent,
really should look at um colonialism and the ways that
it grouped modern nation states without much consideration to the
people who already lived there in tribes or communities. So
these would be cut in half, and then people who
are enemies of one another arrivals would be in the

(33:05):
same new state, which explains a lot of the conflict,
but not all of it. And it's a little too
simplistic sometimes to just say that a war has fought
only for oil. Um. But it is a huge factor,
maybe way bigger than what people might imagine. It's part
of establishing, you know, hedgemony, controlling resources. There are a

(33:27):
few facts that most people don't know about the United States,
though we have a lot all these misconceptions that are
still trumpeted by pundits on the news. Uh. First one
that we should bust The United States does not get
most of its oil from the Middle East. Nope, we
get it from the North, from good old Canada. Yep,
true story. You guys, for a while Canada had been

(33:50):
our number one source of fossil fuel imports, and we
also produce a lot of it here. Um, it's so weird.
Then you go back to talking about earlier that oil
is this large contributing um factor in going to war
in places in the Middle East, and you know, if
we don't, maybe we don't need all that oil. Ben

(34:11):
we're getting it from other places. Right. The discovery of
fracking and extraction from shale has been a huge shot
in the arm for the US industry. But then that
brings us back to, uh, the old peak oil idea, right,
because if we're counting improvement in production by finding new
means of extraction, we're not finding more oil. We're just

(34:33):
we're getting better digging it out of Earth's nooks and crannies,
more complicated ways to get it out right, and maybe
less safe. But what what does this mean about peak
oil old peak oil conspiracy? Well, it means we're not
talking about whether or not it's going to happen. We're
just talking about when it's going to happen. Um. I mean,
it's true that various oil companies and let's say let's

(34:55):
call them pro oil senators. Uh, you know they got
money in the family or the you know, they've got
family who's in with the oil which happens and which
is not illegal, No, not at all. Bushes. So they've
argued people have argued that climate change or global warming,
is this myth? And you know, it's made to extend

(35:16):
government control over private industry. So you can tax the
companies and you can tax the people for using carbons,
which is which is weird to me, Like I get
this idea, especially with one world government conspiracies. But it's
also true that if you look at the laws and
the legislation process, at least in at least in western countries, um,

(35:37):
private industry actually wields more control over the state than
many people would like to think. And we we bring
this up all the time. Yeah, we look at lobbying,
we've looked at just the various controls that you can
have in an election process. And let's not forget the
oil companies really have spearheaded invasions and toppled regimes to

(35:59):
keep that i know, juice and the profits flowing. And
now before we move on, I'm going to say something
that a lot of people might not expect. It's just
a question have oil companies done more good or more harm?
Because it's super super convenient for us to live in
this world made of all these amazing plastic and petroleum products,

(36:21):
to drive in our cars right, or ride in a
m in an electric train which is probably powered by
a coal plant. It's super easy for us to have
all those things. And then, you know, say oil companies
are terrible and bad. I just feel like it's uh
that a lot of people don't consider you kind of thing.

(36:43):
I see that. Uh. Well, let's say I would say this,
the world is a much more convenient place thanks to
oil and oil companies. Uh, it's a much more it's
a healthier place in some ways due to things like plastics, um,
due to things like pharmaceuticals that are created from that. Um.

(37:07):
Most of what we have right now that we consider
modern modern conveniences are directly from oil. Which is strange
because that leads us to a question that Matt and
I have for each other and also for you listeners,
what role will oil play in the future of civilization?
Thanks so much for listening. You can let us know
on our Facebook and Twitter where we're making moves, doing stuff,

(37:32):
posting things, tweeting. Yeah, so please like and subscribe to
our shows so that our bosses don't fire us. Uh
and that would be huge, honestly if you subscribe to
the show. Yeah, And also, hey, share it's the it's
the holidays. Share this stuff with your with your families.
I just would love to see the reaction of your
grandmother when you show are one of our videos. You

(37:55):
can find them all It's stuff they don't want you
to know dot com. We're also on YouTube and if
you want to send Matt and I suggestion for an
upcoming episode, please let us know. You can reach us
if you don't want to do the social media on email.
We are conspiracy at how stuff Works dot com. From

(38:19):
more on this topic, another unexplained phenomenon, visit YouTube dot
com slash conspiracy stuff. You can also get in touch
on Twitter at the handle at conspiracy stuff

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