On This Date In 1901

Spindletop

On this date in 1901, a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produced a gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry. The geyser flowed at an initial rate of approximately 100,000 barrels a day and took nine days to cap. 

One hundred and 14 years later, American oil fields are producing about 7,500,000 barrels every day. 

Since 1901, the average surface temperature across the contiguous 48 states has risen at an average rate of 0.14°F per decade (1.4°F per century) largely because of the combustion of petroleum and coal.

At a time when the Republicans have saved the U.S. approximately $5.4 billion by suspending unemployment benefits for 1.3 million unemployed “slackers’, credible estimates of annual fossil fuel subsidies range from $14 billion to $52 billion annually.  Exactly how much is hard to discover, since this oil industry welfare is hidden in many ways.  The idea of subsidizing petroleum production dates back 100 years to 1913, when there was a real need on the part of the government to increase oil production. 

So, if we were to cut the welfare payments to the highly profitable petroleum industry and spend that money on producing jobs and making sure that the minimum wage can support life as we know it, while spending some more of that money on non-polluting sources of energy….