Summary 1
The invention of the car helped to shape our culture into what it is today. With a personal automobile, the nation became open to the public like never before. When Henry Ford created the assembly line and began to mass produce cars, like the Model T, he turned the car from a rich man’s leisure activity into mainstream mode of transportation. Automobiles were seen as the future by almost everyone. Car companies began to buy and kill public transit like electric trolleys and trains. Plus, the government created funds for highways and gave loans to car makers, but not to public transit. Throughout the early twentieth century cars began to dominate. Also, they helped to mechanized farms, which would lead to rapid overproduction and ultimately the death of many farms. Then, after the Great Depression hit, the building craze of highways through Long Island by Robert Moses helped to cement the car’s reign over culture. Moses was able to gain large loans to use as he wanted to create the roads he wanted and turn areas into “parking lots.” He also refused to include any future public transit plans into his work. Along with highways, the government and banks gave post war loans to private homes just outside of the cities. It was more cost effective to buy a house in the suburb than rent. Massive suburbs spread across the landscape, and the only way to travel between work and home was a car. These factors helped to establish the car as the dominant figure in society. Consequently, with such a dependence on cars, society’s backbone was made by oil, the lifeblood of cars.

Summary 2
Hydrocarbons are the basis of modern society. Just about every daily used object is made from hydrocarbons. Our culture is founded on hydrocarbons. Oil, particularly, is the biggest hydrocarbon used today. The problem with such a strong dependence on oil is that it is not a renewable source. Over the decades of extensive use, oil reserves have begun to deplete. M. King Hubbert predicted that Peak Oil would strike around present time. Peak Oil is when the energy used to retrieve oil is higher than the energy used to from the oil. As an oil well is tapped and the pressure drops, the cost to drill the oil climbed above the profits from selling the oil. Already the US and Russia have passed their Peak Oil and soon around 2010 the world’s Peak Oil will be reached. Besides oil, natural gas, another hydrocarbon, is being used as a fuel source. While drilling for natural gas is usually cheaper than oil drilling, there is not enough natural gas to cover national energy needs. Natural gas is less dense than oil, so much more is needed for the same energy levels, but there is just not enough gas to be obtained.

With the fall of oil, the fall of agriculture will follow quickly. At the moment, only two nations are major exporters of grain, the US and Canada. Higher population and decreased oil fuel could cause at least the US to stop exporting grain, hurting the economy and possibly starving millions of people to death. The agriculture system needs to undergo changes to prevent such a catastrophe. Changes like renewable energy sources, environmentally friendly methods, and population control need to be considered to save the world from a major disaster. North Korea is an example of what type of disaster is waiting for the rest of the world. With little oil resources and poor soil, North Korea was dependent on imports from the Soviet Union. After the Soviet collapse, North Korea’s oil supplies dwindled and could not support their agriculture and industry infrastructure fell apart. Soon people were out of work and starving and North Korea has to rely heavily on outside help. The whole world could suffer the same collapse and there is no outside help for the rest of the world.

Answers:
The car/tractor craze helped to shape American culture by allowing people to “escape” from the rest of their lives, allowing rapid mass production of agriculture products, it gave the ability to see the country and to live further away from their work, helping to produce the suburbs, and killed public transit, creating the oil backbone that is still present today.

Energy contributed to the post war housing boom and development by allowing for effective way to heat and run houses and appliances, creating the ability to live in a private home and by fueling cars, allowing people to live outside cities because they could now commute to work over distances.

Questions:
1-How exactly was Robert Moses able to gather so much capital and stay outside the government’s check system to make southern New York into his own image of the future? Also, did he have any oil company connections?
2-Why did the government decide cars were the future of America? Was there outside pressure from political contributors with oil ties?
3-Were there any government interference, from progressives, on car companies gaining such a control on transportation in the society?
4-Will passing the Peak Oil mark speed up the possible crash of the national agriculture infrastructure so that it is too late to save?
5-How did North Korea’s communist policies directly affect how oil was used in North Korea’s economy?
6-Have the use of hydrocarbons become the downfall of the world as the heavy reliance cannot be easily switched off and the hydrocarbon source cannot last?6-Have the use of hydrocarbons become the downfall of the world as the heavy reliance cannot be easily switched off and the hydrocarbon source cannot last?