Reader mail: Don't go calling ExxonMobil stingy

I, too, would like to comment on Mr. Fox's column on ExxonMobil's stinginess.

Fox's column only tells half the story. The other half of the economic disincentive to search for more oil is left untouched.

According to California attorney Matt Savinar, author and presence behind "Life After the Oil Crash" [ http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/ ], oil companies are not investing as much in exploration because of the law of diminishing returns.

According to Savinar and his geologic sources, we have already crossed the "peak oil" threshold. Savinar, a self-styled Paul Revere, has been hitting the talk radio circuit for the past three years with a disturbing rallying call: "Deal with reality or reality will deal with you."

His message? Get ready of more of the same — higher oil demand, more profits for the oil companies as supply runs short, and eventually economic chaos as oil-dependant consumers in the First World learn a hard lesson about the price of unchecked consumption.

One of the biggest oil finds in recent years, he pointed out on a June 23 interview with AM radio talk show host Art Bell, is located five miles beneath the ocean's floor. Compare oil finds such as this to the relative ease of tapping oil-rich hillsides in California during the 1950s, or the Texas oil fields during the 1960s.

At some point it takes more energy, both in oil-powered drilling equipment and manpower, to extract the earth's ever-obscure oil deposits than the return on those oil fields can yeild. To paraphrase Savinar, there is only so long before an oil company is willing to spend eight billion to extract four billion dollars worth of oil.

ExxonMobil, I suspect, is only the first of many such oil companies to realize that a limited refined oil supply is both the best way to induce rationing, and the best way to profit from limited supply.

The problem, particularly in California and parts of the West, is that our civic infrastructure is built around single-car commutes ranging from an hour round trip to as much as four hours worth of daily driving. Unlike Chicago and New York, many necessities, not to mention jobs, are not within reasonable walking distance. And we have the obesity statistics to prove it.

Regardless of what one believes about peak oil, the reality is that energy questions are not going to become any easier as world population increases and Third World citizens, such as those living in China and India, continue on their frenetic industrialized paths toward westernized, high-consumption lifestyles (to emulate life as seen in Hollywood entertainment, America's greatest export to the world).

As much as I prefer smaller government to larger government, I believe the economic "damage control" must begin before the brunt of these economic changes decimates the already endangered middle class. Particularly in the West, motivation to move the population toward a sustainable economy must begin now.

I'm no economist, and certainly no politician. But for what it may be worth, why not offer tax incentives to urge more people in Western states to live within a reasonable distance of their workplaces? The millions of drivers who hit the freeways in Southern California, for example, do not enjoy long commutes and extra fuel and maintenance costs associated with putting 100,000 miles on a new car in as little as four years, but it has become an economically entrenched tradeoff in exchange for the lure of cheap housing in outlying desert areas. For many families, the reality of homeownership will not materialize in costly Southern California without accepting the reality of a rediculously long daily commute. But Southern California is not alone. The Sacramento/San Francisco areas are following suit — placing millions of commuters on the road as they commute from housing developments that are springing up along Sacramento Delta floodplanes and prime agricultural land in California's Central Valley.

Why not consider a combination of tax incentives or lower rate loans for couples who can demonstrate the desire to buy, say, within 20 miles of their workplaces? In this way, perhaps we can make living and working within reasonable distances affordable to those who might otherwise resign themselves to a lifetime of filling their gas tanks two or three times a week.

Laugh at the idea now, but government has done far worse — and can do far worse by refusing to acknowledge the economic changes that lie ahead as oil supply tightens and costs continue to skyrocket.

The easy thing to do is set forth simplistic explanations about profit-hungry, market-gouging oil companies like ExxonMobile, and to write off peak-oil messengers like Savinar as "alarmists". The harder thing to do is to realize that ExxonMobile executives are reading the writing on the wall.

So should we.