Costs of Consumption
Oil, the basis of our current energy system, sits at the center of our greatest environmental, health, human rights and security challenges today. It drives our global economies and is fully integrated into the structures, apparatus, and rules of governments. Continued and increasing use of oil and other polluting energy resources is dramatically impacting our ability to decrease dangerous levels of pollution from our environment and to reduce the devastating effects of a warming earth. Delay in total commitment to disconnecting from our oil-driven economy will increase the severity of societal disruptions already being experienced across the planet as sea levels rise threatening coastal regions where millions live, as air and land temperatures kill or alter species and their habitats, and as humans continue to experience a frightening increase in diseases and illness caused by the toxic byproducts of the global economy for which they also depend.

Massive oil-generated profits, regional and global power, and greed have lead to a plethora of human rights violations around the world, impacting numerous communities and entire regions, resulting in death, displacement, and the disintegration of family.

Our dependence on oil has wrecked havoc on our health and the physical environment. The longer we wait to change our behavior, the greater the cost of reducing the impact on our health and environment.

From meager beginnings in Pennsylvania, the oil industry has grown into a powerful global industry. The oil business, encompassing exploration, extraction, refinement, distribution and the production of countless goods and services, has developed into a trillion-plus-dollar-a-year business.

Presently, oil is the world's primary source of energy. It is used to power our massive transportation and agricultural sectors, produce countless commercial goods and services, and, in many parts of the world, to produce electricity.