We’ve already defined addiction as any relapsing behaviour that satisfies a short-term craving and persists despite its long-term negative consequences. The long-term ill effects of our society’s addiction, if not to oil then to the amenities and luxuries that oil makes possible, are obvious. They range from environmental destruction, climate change and the toxic effects of pollution on human health to the many wars that the need for oil, or the attachment to oil wealth, has triggered.
