I'm reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma (long overdue, and overall a great book, even though I don't agree with everything). One common meme he perpetuates that I find very irritating, though, is the one that says the U.S. gets all of its oil from the Persian Gulf. Here are the real numbers. For most of the last two decades, the Persian Gulf as a whole has supplied <20% of total U.S. imports, and Canada has been the single largest source (~16%). Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are tied for second at ~13.5%, with Mexico (12.2%) and Nigeria (7.4%) not far behind.
Not to mention that in declaring that chicken feed is Joel Salatin's only outside input, he conveniently ignores electricity and fuel. But I'm sure once I've finished the book I'll have a much longer set of gripes, so until then...
Update: To give the complete picture, imports accounted for 59% of total U.S. petroleum consumption in 2007. This means the Persian Gulf and Saudi Arabia were responsible for 9.5% and 6.5% of total U.S. oil consumption in 2007, respectively.
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