Chronicle

The PASCAL ChronicleENGLISHOil CrisisOil is so embedded in our lives and economy that most of us barely notice that it’s actually there. If we take a lookaround us, we’ll be shocked to discover that everything we use is made out of oil: our mobile phones, our clothes, thesoap in our bathroom and even our food!!Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached; scientists believe that we’vereached peak oil in 2006! The world produces 80 million barrels of oil per day; and we use 88 million barrels each day,this means that the oil supply at some point will decline.Oil prices increase day by day but some believe that we’ll look back to this time and remember the time that oil wasstill cheap. There is not much crude oil left and we should all start thinking what the world would be like without oil.This valuable substance is now essential in our lives but not that good for our planet. Oil causes pollution, thereforeGlobal Warming. This immediately affects our health in many ways. Pollution causes acid rain, breathing problems andalso the death of millions of animals including birds and fish.Global Warming causes the Ozone hole to expand and this is responsible for many types of cancer. Another seriousconsequence we face is that the ice in Antarctica has begun to melt and as a result the sea level increases and at somepoint entire countries will be covered in water and will slowly disappear. Without oil, cars, planes and boats will notwork and we won’t be able to travel far from home or abroad. So we will basically be trapped.One of the most important things is that without oil we will not have electricity. Electricity is a major chapter in oureveryday lives and without it we’ll definitely not last for a long period of time.Rather than sitting there waiting for this disaster to come we might as well start doing something to prevent it! Yes, wecan prevent it, if each and every one of us starts doing everything we can to save oil. In order to achieve this there arealternative energy resources that are quite popular these days.Solar panels are a way of collecting energy from the sun and later using it in the form of electricity in our household.Most developed countries now also use wind and water turbines. What they actually do is that they use the wind orwater to spin large turbines that collect energy from this simple procedure. This energy is called kinetic.Hydrogen is additionally used instead of petrol. There are some hydrogen-powered cars that do not cause pollution,are safe for the environment and help save oil. Nowadays the use of technology is rising every second, that’s why scientistswere able to invent cars that work with solar panels and batteries! To encourage people to buy them, somecelebrities own one in order to make it more popular all over the world. These cars are a great way to save oil!The easiest and most common way in which we can prevent oil from disappearing is to recycle. It’s really easy andquick. We can recycle plastic, aluminium, glass and even our clothes and food. Recycling has become more than easysince trucks pass by our houses each week to collect the recycling bags!In conclusion we see that it is up to us whether or not we’ll run out of oil within the following years. We certainly havetime to do something to prevent this from happening but we had better hurry!Chrystallo Andreou 3E60