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Garner Ted Armstrong
SPIAKS OUT!
OurEnergyBinge lsOver!
azingly enough, there are stil l
people who continue to main-
tain that the energy crisis is
merely a contrivance of the big oil
companies to drive up the price of
gasoline. Such persons refuse to
believe that this nation, and in fact
the whole world , is confronted with
an
emergency
situation with regard
to dwindling nonrenewable energy
suppl ies. They refuse to believe this
world is finite; that there are no new
petroleum and natural gas deposi ts
being built up with in the ea rth
today. They like to believe we have
thousands of years of energy re–
serves left, instead of, in tact, com–
paratively few.
The view of these people notwith–
standing, the energy crisis is
real.
The Western world has been on a
three-decades-long energy binge,
and a massive hangover is just
about to strike!
Over half ot
the energy that
Americans and other Westerners
consume so liberal ly comes from a
single source- oíl. Since the end
ot
World War 11, the consumption of oi l
by the Western world has risen with
reckless abandon. As far as energy
was concerned, we thought there
was no tomorrow. The hard reality
of the energy situation didn't really
dawn on most Americans unti l they
were torced to begin waiting in end–
less lines for their gasoline tollow–
ing the Arab oi l embargo
ot
November 1973. That embargo
marked a turning point in the
course
ot
modern history, signaling
an end to the days
ot
cheap and
The
PLAIN TRUTH June 1977
plentitul energy that Western so–
ciety had so blissfully enjoyed tor
three decades.
Whether we admit it to ourselves
or not, our energy joyride is over. In
the future, says former U.S. Com–
merce Secretary Peter C. Peterson ,
the days of cheap and easy energy
"will be an era on which we wi ll
look back with nostalgia, but no
amount of wistfulness and senti–
mentality wi ll bring it back. "
Many do not realize, moreover,
that the energy problem is far more
than just one ot explorat ion, of de–
velopment, of prices. We are facing
a crisis in energy because of tunda–
mental shortcomings built into the
very fabric ot our modern society.
We are literal ly
hooked
on an en–
ergy-guzzling way
ot
lite!
Just press a button, flip a switch,
turn a key, or push a lever, and
automatically something is buzzing,
humming, or whining away-blend–
ers, juicers, mixers, electric can
openers, garbage disposals, elec–
tric razors and additional dozens
ot
app l iances and conveni ences
tound in most American homes
today. And, of course, there is that
biggest " toy"
ot
all-our inetficient,
gas-guzzling automobile, tor which
we continue to import increasing
bi ll ions of gallons of oil.
In the past 30 years, the wor/d
has consumed more power than
was used in al/ of history befare
1940!
With only six percent
ot
the
world's population, America alone
has managed to consume a wall–
oping
one-third ot
the world's an-
nual energy and mineral
production . To Americans today,
power is not simply a luxury; it is a
vital
necessity.
We could not tunc–
tion without it. We depend upon it
not only to run all
ot
our electric
conveniences and to fuel our auto–
mobiles, but also to grow and dis–
tribute our food, heat and cool our
homes, and ignite the turnaces of
industry. We have literally become
slaves
to energy.
Compounding the problem, most
of the major reserves of our primary
energy source, oil, lie beneath the
sands
ot
the politi cal ly volat i le
Middle East. As wealthy and pow–
erful as the nations of the West are,
they líe today at the merey of a few
small , potentially unstable states
which most Westerners couldn't
even pinpoint on a map.
"One does not have to be a
prophet of doom," states the lnter–
national lnstitute for Environmental
Attairs, "to toresee the emergence
in the not-too-distant future of polit–
ically divisive competition among
high energy-consuming nations tor
access to dwindl ing fuel suppl ies
. [or] even temptations to resort
to the use of force to assure reliable
supplies
ot
energy materials . . . "
And that's precisely the way
things are going today.
The solution to this multifaceted
problem involves a total change
from top to bottom in society itself–
a change we have thus tar retused
to make. Yet, for over tour decades,
this magazine has been predicting
just such a change. lt has been pro–
claiming a message of
hope
for the
future, a way out of the snarled
mass of problems besetting the
earth today. To be sure, we are liv–
ing in a time of global social , eco–
nomic, political and military chaos,
of which the energy crisis is but a
part. But there's coming a new, a
brighter, a ditferent , and a total ly
better world than the one we know
today-a prosperous, peacetul, re–
structured World Tomorrow under
the government of Jesus Christ.
And that's
good news!
But until then, we may have to
learn sorne impo rtant lessons
through hard experience. o
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