What would happen if a war was declared on oil?

Who is ‘we’? When do ‘we’ stop buying oil? I’ve never bought actual oil, I always buy products derived from oil. Am I exempt then?

Well, if it’s anything like the war on drugs, we would imprison millions of low-level gasoline pumpers while further enriching sheiks and Russian oligarchs.

It would require first entirely re-ordering the lifeways of a good third or more of the humans on the planet, who basically depend on the stuff. After all, you can’t expect people to fight something on which their lives depend.

To me, a “war on oil” means pumping all the money that we currently spend on war on alternative energies, such as LENR/CANR.

First off, it would affect me personally because I just got a job in offshore drilling which I’d lose and be pretty pissed about.

On top of that, auto makers, salesmen and several others in the auto industry would lose their jobs. People would need to figure out another way to get around since the world is becoming smaller and smaller everyday. Because of oil, you can get halfway across the world in just a matter of hours. It’s pretty essential in our lives today. The list of essentials we need basically go:
1. Water
2. Food
3. Shelter
4. Oil
And the top 3 all use oil in someway to get it to us.

Until another energy source is found, we can’t have a war on oil. That would be like having a war against your own arms or legs. We need it for now.

I want nuclear fusion, and I want it now!

@gmander – Me too! Fusion will totally solve our energy woes. I envision a “cold fusion” generator as an appliance in everyone’s basement (next to the furnace and water heater). Your local electric & gas company will be obsolete. And best of all, the fuel for fusion is deuterium, which can be easily extracted from tap water—i.e., install a deuterium extraction appliance in your basement fed off your water line into your fusion generator, and generate electricity totally for free. Go here

You make this question very passive. How about what if WE declared a war over oil? We are probably the world’s biggest consumer and probably still the top military power in the world. No one else would or could do such a thing.

I believe that we would turn the world against us.

OOPS—I misread—my bad.

@Randy that’s the gist of the question. Our world is so dependent on oil and the oil is controlled by the riches of the rich. Shouldn’t “we” be trying to do something else instead of depending on some ’rich bitch’ to tell us gas is going to cost $10.00 a gallon. Like @HungryGuy stated there are other options to consider.

@anartist – So, ‘we’ is the USA. Ok, by default I am exempt then.

Oil isn’t only an energy source. It is also used for plastics. Since I very much doubt we’re ever going to stop using those, we would have to invest in alternative means of producing them as well as alternative energy sources.

@SavoirFaire
We could go back to wood, or we could use carbon fibre.

@ragingloli I don’t think they’re as useful for cars and medical supplies as plastic. Especially not wood!

Hmm, that would be a little crude.

@SavoirFaire
All the really high end cars today use carbon fibre for the bodies and certain structural components and real wood for the interior.

Actually, plastics can be manufactured from other sources than oil. It’s way more expensive, but we could produce plastics from plants. So we can still have plastics without oil.

@HungryGuy I realize that. That’s why I said “invest in” not “discover.”

@ragingloli Well, I haven’t ever had a new car in my life, so I suppose I’m behind the times on that. Not sure about the medical supplies, though. When I worked in a hospital, the research physicians always liked going on about the medical miracles brought about by plastics. I doubt they’d want to give them up.

When you boycott motor or any type of oil, you are also boycotting gasoline. Can you imagine, the number of vehicles on the side of the interstate, that would run out of gasoline, simply because of the oil boycott? It would be senseless and dangerous from the getgo.

And, lets not forget the other uses of oil, like in plastics and medicene.

A boycott is not the answer.

@john65pennington I don’t think anyone mentioned a boycott. Just as the War on Drugs did not immediately end the use of drugs, a War on Oil would not immediately end the use of oil. It would presumably take steps as quickly and drastically as possible to limit how much oil we use with an end goal of buying no more oil.

I don’t think we’ll ever stop using oil until we run out of the stuff, but the innovations that might be part of reducing how much we can use would be very interesting.

Go ahead and stop buying oil. I won’t stop you.
I will probably continue to buy petroleum products until some genius (not me of course) comes up with a workable substitute and sells it.
But hey, if I can get around in a vehicle, use certain products and potions that are currently made of petrochemicals, then that would be OK. Oil is dirty, expensive and risky to harvest and is the center of all sorts of geopolitical shenanigans.

Most of the wars you mentioned above are related to oil. We are not embroiled in the Middle East for the hommus. Whatever the stated motivation, it would not be happening if there was no oil there.