===Energy===
Americans discovered crude oil (petroleum) near Titusville, Pennsylvania, and drilled their first oil there in 1859. It began yielding 25 barrels a day.<ref>By the end of 1859 the flow of oil from this first well had slowed from 25 to 15 barrels a day.</ref> The world would never be the same again. By 1906, American oil production had reached 126 million barrels a year. Today petroleum constitutes 40% of Americans’ overall energy consumption in the United States, with coal being the other big source of energy. Most But most of the cheap, readily accessible oil in the world is under the control of Muslims in the Middle East.
To keep the price of oil higher than it would be in a free market, Middle Eastern countries formed OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) in 1960. The original members were Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq and also the Latin American country of Venezuela. African and Asian countries later joined OPEC too. Angered by American support of Israel during the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, OPEC placed an embargo on the shipment of oil to the United States. Prices jumped by a multiple of four in two years, and there were many long lines and shortages at American gas stations. The worldwide economy was hurt by this shock in energy prices, aggravating a problem with inflation and unemployment late in the 1970s. Japan, which relies heavily on oil imports, was hit hard. But OPEC’s influence has steadily declined due to increased competition by other countries. Mexico and Russia have become large oil-producing nations, and they have not joined OPEC. In 2007, the net revenues from oil to OPEC nations will be about $500 billion, while the non-OPEC nations will have net oil revenues of about $225 billion. The United States imports about $170 billion-worth more of oil than it exports.
Many claim that the involvement of the United States in the Middle East is to protect the cheap oil there. In late 1990, Saddam Hussein of Iraq invaded and conquered Kuwait, a large oil producer. In January and February 1991, the United States (with the support of the United Nations) responded with Operation Desert Storm, and liberated Kuwait in this Gulf War. Saddam Hussein, in retreat, lit fires on the Kuwaiti oil wells and dumped two million gallons of oil into the Persian Gulf. This seemed to anger environmentalists more than the loss of lifedid! The environmentalists called this action by Saddam Hussein “environmental terrorism.”
In the late 1990s, politicians and some scientists began to cite a warming trend in the earth’s weather as evidence of insist that there is a “global warming” caused by the burning of oil and the release of chlorofluorocarbons, a chemical. They blamed factory smokestacks and automobiles, and especially refrigerators and air conditioners. The loss of trees in rain forests was also supposedly a cause of global warming. Regulators began banning the use of certain chemicals in hairspray, and the Kyoto (Japan) Treaty was proposed to limit the pollution each country could generate each year. Political opposition in America prevented But the United States from ratifying Senate has never ratified the Kyoto Treaty.
In the first decade of 21st centuryfact, worldwide temperatures (as measured by satellites) have not increasedin nearly 20 years, and record cold temperatures have been recorded in many parts of the past few years the average world temperature has actually been decreasing at a rapid rate, such as in the United States during this past winter. Proponents of “global warming” (including Al Gore) refuse to debate this, however, and insist that the science is settled in favor of their theory, and that more governmental controls of energy are needed. This is a familiar pattern by someliberals: they always seek theories for expanding government and ways to increase governmental controltheir own power.
President Barack Obama has called on Congress to pass a law by the end of May 2009 laws to place limits on energy production, particularly the production of coal, supposedly to help reduce the so-called “global warming.” After years of evidence that the world is not warming, liberals began to use the term “climate change” instead.
===Technology===
Advances in communication technology, such as the internet and cell phones, have created a worldwide culture that increasingly prefers English over local languages. English is easier to type into a computer than Asian languages, for example. At the same time, the cultural varieties of distant places such as India and Southeast Asia can be appreciated more in the Western world. Restaurants featuring foreign food are prevalent across the United States now.
Improvements in jet propulsion and rocketry made travel faster and easier than ever before. Such advances were spurred on by the World Wars. The urgent need for pressurized stratospheric bombers like the B-29 and advanced ballistics like the V2 missile advanced human knowledge by several decadesresulted in technological progress. By 1956, airliners replaced ocean-liners as the primary means of trans-Atlantic travel. Remnants of Nazi Germany's scientific community fueled both American and Soviet space programs, ultimately culminating in the first manned spaceflight, by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961.
Technology has brought some medical advances, most notably in the expanded use of antibiotics after World War II. Physicians say that most of medicine today was discovered in the past 70 years. The modern inventions of the MRI and CAT scan have improved the ability to view the human body, and treat illness. Other modern developments, such as widespread vaccination and insecticides, are more controversial. Preventive vaccination is credited with eliminating the terrible diseases of polio and smallpox, but other, newer vaccines are opposed by many parents.
Proposals to spend taxpayer money on embryonic stem cell research are controversial and open to much criticismopposed by pro-lifers. In Germany, where the people experienced the horrors of the medical experiments connected with the Holocaust, the people are strongly against embryonic stem cell research. Private investors show little interest in spending their own money on this even in the United States. But a political movement linked to the [[abortion]] industry demands that taxpayer money be spent on this research, without any evidence that any good will ever come of it. If embryonic stem cell research were so great, then why wouldn’t there be many private investors spending money on it?
The United Nations promotes abortion worldwide through its U.N. Fund for Population Activities. Even though the world population will peak and begin to decline in the 21st century, the promoters of abortion continue to demand more and more killing of unborn children. This is promoted using taxpayer money. The United Nations also pushes its pro-abortion agenda through the World Health Organization (WHO).