Carol Culver Rzadkiewicz, click
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Blogs by Carol Culver Rzadkiewicz
Running on Empty 7/6/2008 10:52:24 PM
Have you ever wondered just how much oil is left in the Earth?
Believe it or not, but at times I find myself contemplating some rather profound questions. For example, the other day I found myself mulling over the question of just how much oil is left in the Earth. After all, nothing lasts forever, does it? I mean, look at it this way: If I were to open a bag of Peanut M&M’s, there would be only a finite number of candies in that bag—so many red, so many yellow, so many chocolate, so many green, so many orange, and so many blue—and, regardless of how prudently I doled those colorful candies out to myself, that bag would eventually become empty, now wouldn’t it?
In fact, in order to prove (or disprove, as the case might be) this hypothesis, I decided to take the scientific approach and conduct a little experiment. After all, empirical data tells no lies. So, decision made, I drove to Piggly Wiggly (a trip of only a few miles, although it probably took at least $4.00 in fuel to make that short trip in my gas-guzzling Tundra), where I purchased a large bag of peanut M&M’s (specifically 21.30 ounces). Once back home, I then proceeded to open the bag of M&M’s and count its brightly colored contents, consuming only five in the process. In all, I had a total of 278 M&M’s. The uneaten 273 I divided into 30 little piles then found five buttons to represent the consumed candies (I hope Chet doesn’t intend to wear that shirt anytime soon); and, when through, I had 22 piles containing 9 candies and 8 piles containing 10 candies/buttons, for a grand total of 278 [9 x 22 (198) + 8 x 10 (80) = 278]. (And you thought I couldn’t do math.)
Staring down at those 30 piles of M&M’s and buttons, however, I soon realized that my experiment had brought me no closer to discovering how much oil was left in the earth than I’d been before I had begun my experiment. That being the case, I scooped up all the M&M’s, dumped them into a bowl, and popped a handful into my mouth. “Gak,” I screeched, spitting out the button and hoping I hadn’t cracked a crown. Then, after picking the buttons out of the bowl, I cradled it under my arm, and went to my office, where I plopped down in the chair in front of my computer; and as I crunched on another handful of M&M’s, I typed my question into Yahoo’s search engine.
After visiting several sites but not really finding the answer to my question, I was getting rather aggravated with the Web’s cornucopia of information when I stumbled upon a site called Popular Mechanics, where, after perusing an article, I shouted “Eureka,” followed by “Hallelujah,” which admittedly came out rather muffled since I had once again stuffed my mouth with M&M’s.
Are you ready? Well, ready or not, here’s what I learned from Popular Mechanics:Studies suggest there are 43 billion barrels of oil in proven reserves, and since the daily consumption on Earth is about 8 million barrels per day, a simple math equation shows that we are left with less than 15 years until the last drop of oil is pumped from this planet.
In other words, my friends, as I deduced, the supply of oil is finite. And if that isn’t enough to make you lose your M&M’s, I don’t know what is.
