If you’re anything like me, you’ve probably adjusted, however begrudgingly, to the current price of gasoline, diesel, heating oil, and/or natural gas.

Today.. the price of Oil continues to hover around $61 for both the NY and London Brent markets.

However, the security of that ever-present stream of oil is, as always, under threat. Whether it’s Iraq, Russia, Venezuela or Nigeria… there’s quite simply a lot of uncertainty about keeping the flow steady.

Nigeria has always been a most terrible example of corruption and greed based solely on oil exports. Today, it seems the Niger Delta, where all of Nigerian oil emanates, is set to explode (literally) into all out war.

The Oil Drum has continuing coverage of the goings on in the Niger Delta. They also have some excellent links to stories covering the poverty that surrounds the oil installations. In their words:

while oil workers who run the Shell facility and Nigerian troops who guard them live in air-conditioned comfort, the Utorogu community nearby manages without electricity, potable water, and health amenities.

It is no wonder these communities are the source for the rise of the The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.

The Oil Drum says:

David Goldwyn, a former US assistant energy secretary who now consults in the region says, “the loss of more Nigerian oil could send the price to $80 or $95 per barrel or higher…. The likelihood of a significant disruption always has to be counted as relatively high”. If MEND makes good on its promise to reduce Nigerian exports by 30% in the near future, that will have a significant affect in the US and other importers of Nigerian oil.

Well, they’re well on their way after having blown up an oil pipeline on Monday that took 20% (equaling about 500,000 barrels) of Nigeria’s daily oil production offline.

We’ll see how the markets react to that news on Tuesday.

So, do *you* want to keep the price of oil and gas at a reasonable level? Do *you* want to do something that might help not only your own lot in life, but also those of millions of Africans who live without electricity, running water, and basic services?

Maybe it’s time the buyers of that Nigerian oil (Europe and the US split it roughly in half) require some conditions to be met.

Hold on, maybe I’m onto something here. Maybe any country that wants to sell the US and Europe oil, should meet certain “standards” of their own. God forbid we try to impose a certain standard of Human Rights on those from whom we buy our consumer goods?

Are you unhappy with the way the UN Human Rights Commission handles human rights issues? Well… put your money where your mouth is, and demand better. It is clear that those who control most of the worlds oil, in Saudi Arabia, Kazakstan, Nigeria, Iran and other places place far more importance on lining their own pockets, rather than helping relieve the plight of their own countrymen and women.

I am cynical (big surprise)… my feeling is that we will simply continue on our way, we may grumble and will try to ignore the rising price of the commodity as we hurry to bring about it’s eventual exhaustion.

We will ignore the direct links between inequality, poverty, instability, wars and high prices!

YES this is OUR problem. These are OUR companies. This is the fuel that goes into OUR cars. OUR planes. OUR way of life.

If we are so arrogant as to think that these wars in Africa have nothing to do with our own actions, then we absolutely deserve to have our economy fall off a cliff as the resource dries up and instability reigns. And we will have only our own leaders, and thus ourselves, to blame.

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