Blind Squirrels

Last year I wrote about the newfound respectability of Michael Moore. While I thought him to have once been a big, fat slob, he seemed to have cleaned up his act and toned down his rhetoric to promote his healthcare propaganda film.

On Larry King today, Moore was back to his unkempt shenanigans. Touting anti-Bush blather and other socialist talking points. However I want to highlight one point he made.

In a discussion on gasoline prices, Moore rightly dismissed our obsession with fuel prices to focus on a seldom discussed topic: the other uses of petroleum. Plastics may, as the commercial goes, make is possible, but what makes plastics possible? Hmmmm. That would be oil. Everything from clothing to eyeglass frames to shampoo bottles rely on petro-chemicals: i.e. substances derived from and dependent upon oil.

But this can be taken-- and Moore did take it-- another step. Most agriculture fertilizers are petro derived. That's right. The most common source of our most common fertilizers is natural gas. In fact, a major shift has occured under the radar as fertilizer production has shifted offshore to low-cost natural gas markets. We now import natural gas derived fertilizer rather than producing it in North America. By the way, I know this not because M.M. says so, but rather because I worked in the industry for 6 years.

For those who are not familiar with the industry, natural gas-- being a gas-- tends t0 be less fungible than oil-- a liquid (really a goo). Therefore, natural gas has tended to be far more local in production, price, and delivery. An easy demand destruction has already taken place in the fertilizer industry. Becasuse natural gas is now so valuable, shifting fertilizer production to overseas sources was an easy fix.

This avoids the underlying issue: the primary source of fertilizer for our domestic agriculture comes from a diminishing global petro-based product. As oil and natural gas become more expensive to recover-- if not outright more scarce-- we do not endanger simply our transportation fuel, but our food source and our source of one of modern societies most important materials. We may replace oil with nuclear or solar power, but where is the replacement for plastic? How do we grow food-- or make ethanol!!!-- without petro based fertilizers?

There is no easy answer. Michael Moore emphasized this very point on national television. While I continue to loathe his political views generally, even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally.