A Thirsty World: Running Low on Oil and Water?

Worries about our supply of oil make the headlines all the time. Will water shortages become an even bigger crisis? What is the real solution for this thirsty world?

“The Truth About Oil,” says the cover of the latest issue of Time (April 9, 2012). The article looks at the breakthroughs that are allowing oil companies to tap “extreme oil.” The record high price of crude oil has made it profitable to pursue ever-deeper offshore drilling and to try new technologies to find and extract oil from previously inaccessible places.

Delaying the inevitable

These breakthroughs have delayed the shortages that experts have long predicted. But “demand for oil is still rising—set to grow 800,000 barrels a day this year despite a still sluggish global economy” (Time, p. 30). And the amount of fossil fuel buried in the earth is not going to increase. The lines of increasing demand and limited supply will inevitably cross.

Currently, countries like the United States are benefiting from the new techniques, which are helping reduce oil imports. “Americans spent $331.6 billion—the size of the entire agriculture industry—on oil imports last year, up 32% from 2010. Cutting imports keeps that money in the U.S., reducing the trade deficit that hit $560 billion last year” (Time, p. 34).

But can the United States really achieve energy independence in a globalized economy? When the U.S. owes the world trillions of dollars, can it really claim independence? God says, “The borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7).

Volatility

In our interdependent and dangerous world, oil prices seem sure to stay high and to be volatile.

The world doesn’t have to run out of oil to have a disastrous oil crisis. Conflicts in oil-producing regions will continue to cause panic in the markets and fluctuations in the prices.

What if Iran does block the Strait of Hormuz? What if Russia uses its oil and gas supplies as a weapon? Unrest in countries like Iraq, Libya and Nigeria fuels worries about future disruptions in oil production.

Can Saudi Arabia fill the gaps?

In the past, Saudi Arabia was able to ramp up production to make up for disruptions. “At one time or another, the Saudis have been called upon to replace exports from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and, most recently, Libya,” wrote Jim Krane, who researches Gulf energy policy at Cambridge University (“The End of the Saudi Oil Reserve Margin,” The Wall Street Journal, April 4, 2012).

Mr. Krane believes Saudi Arabia is becoming less and less able to fill such gaps, partly because of skyrocketing demand at home. “Saudi Arabia now consumes more oil than Germany, an industrialized country with triple the population and an economy nearly five times as large.”

What are the implications? Mr. Krane concluded, “America’s Middle East confrontations have long depended on Saudi spare capacity. Without it, as the faceoff with Iran already shows, Washington—and the world—will be less free to intervene in the region without raising gasoline prices at home.”

Worries about water

Oil may be the lifeblood of the modern world economy, but another developing shortage is even more worrisome. In many areas of the world, access to clean, fresh water is approaching a crisis level.

Even T. Boone Pickens, who made billions in the oil business, has said the fossil fuel era is over and that water is the new oil (“There Will Be Water,” Businessweek, June 12, 2008).

New intelligence reports highlight the dangers of our water woes:

“Competition for increasingly scarce water in the next decade will fuel instability in regions such as South Asia and the Middle East” (“U.S. Intelligence Says Water Shortages Threaten Stability,” Bloomberg.com, March 22, 2012).

“North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia will face major challenges coping with water problems” such as shortages, poor water quality or floods, the intelligence report said.

“Annual global water requirements will be 40 percent more than current sustainable water supplies by 2030, according to a 2009 report by the 2030 Water Resources Group, a World Bank–sponsored collaboration.”

The real hope for a thirsty world

Behind the looming oil and water crises are multiple stories of mismanagement, lack of wisdom and human greed.

Beyond that is the fact that humanity as a whole has not recognized the source of all of our resources. The Creator God is the One who provides rain in due season and gives us the power to get wealth (Deuteronomy 28:12; 8:18). But He makes it clear that ultimately these blessings are dependent on our obedience to His beneficial laws. God looks for righteousness—obedience—from people of all nations (Acts 10:34-35). When we ignore God and break His laws, we bring penalties on ourselves.

God warns: “But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments and His statutes which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you” (Deuteronomy 28:15). Among the curses are drought, hunger and thirst (verses 24, 48) and worse.

God also uses physical thirst as a metaphor for humanity’s underlying problem—spiritual dehydration. He freely offers the real solution to those who will repent and draw close to Him:

“Ho! Everyone who thirsts, come to the waters,” God offers (Isaiah 55:1). As Jesus Christ put it, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6).

But the Bible warns that humanity will continue to pursue unrighteousness instead, bringing this world to the brink of destruction (Matthew 24:21-22). Thankfully Jesus Christ promises to return and save us from ourselves. Then, as His way of living spreads around the world, physical and spiritual blessings will spread as well (Isaiah 11:9).

What can we do?

What can we do now? The apostle Peter said, “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things” (Acts 3:19-21).

Refreshment and restoration—that’s what this thirsty world really needs!

Mike Bennett is a writer and editor for the Church of God, a Worldwide Association, and attends the Cincinnati/Dayton, Ohio, congregation with his wife, Becky, and their two adult daughters.

Related reading:

• What Is Repentance?
• Rumors, War, Oil and What They Will Cost Us
• The Mystery of the Kingdom