Addicted To Oil

There is a very interesting interview on the Wired.com news site with Terry Tamminen, who wrote a book called Lives Per Gallon: The True Cost of Our Oil Addiction. This is the first I've heard of this book, but after reading this interview, I'm putting it on my list to read.

Here's a taste:

Wired News: How many casualties do petroleum products cause each year?

Terry Tamminen: Nationally about 100,000 people die every year from preventable air pollution, and another 6.5 million go to the hospital with respiratory and other diseases related to smog and polluted air. But that's probably just the tip of the iceberg, as many people die of heart disease or heart attacks caused by hearts or lungs strained by air pollution and restricted airways.

People outside of the U.S. also pay for our oil addiction because of the damage done to their environment at the sites where oil is drilled. There are entire villages where the tribes were decimated because there was virtually no environmental regulation, and oil pipelines broke and huge fires swept up communities.

Also, many people die in conflicts over oil rights as local rebels and warlords fight to get oil companies out of these places through kidnappings and terrorism. And then there's the military lives we expend when trying to protect our oil interests in places like Iraq.