Oil Addiction

Photo taken about 1973. Boy in line with gasoline can.

Scribble by City Editor, Fort Pierce News Tribune

In the late 1960's I ranted to blank stares against the "new" plastic/paper diapers, plastic baby bottles, plastic in general, and then polyester clothes--all made from oil. "It's not a renewable resource!" I'd explain impatiently. Little did I know I was already battling a societal addiction. In the 1970's came the gasoline shortages, resulting in one of my best "human interest" photos. By the 1980's I was able to fully indulge my preferences for organic foods and clothing made of cotton, silk, and wool. Never in all those campaigns did I realize I was also battling the rise of militant Islam, as Thomas Friedman explains in The World is Flat.

[journalism]

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