Talk:1973 oil crisis/Archive 1

article name
I moved it back.

The term "Energy crisis" was the only term used in print and broadcast media while the crisis was underway. I have never seen the "oil embargo crisis" term used anywhere up until your rename today.

Kat 01:48 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * I agree Randyc


 * I disagree with the move, while it was called this at the time there are many other energy crises that have occured, such as the one just recently in California, or the one a while back in eastern Russia. There is also much information on impending energy crises.  This should either be where it was or perhaps at 1973 energy crisis or perhaps OPEC energy crisis. SimonP 01:59 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

There is also an article on oil crisis. It should be at something that distinguishes them, e.g. Energy crisis (1973) or Oil embargo (1973), since this refers to a particular event. dmlIt should be at something that distinguishes them, e.g. Energy crisis (1973) or Oil embargo (1973), since this refers to a particular event. dml


 * Should there not be a general reference to Energy crisis, what is it. Then more information on specific ones throught history and the world? User:Randyc


 * Sounds like an excellent idea, perhaps we should move the current contents of this page to a more specific title and then, for now, put a stub on general energy crises here. SimonP 04:06 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)


 * sounds right, move this energy crisis to energy crisis (1973) or some such and then move text from oil crisis here and add some dml

The use of the term in 1973 and the following few years was ubiquitous. I do not believe that there have been any other events where the term "energy crisis" was applied contemporaneously in the news literature, or retrospectively in any well respected secondary sources. For example, for the recent electricity kerfuffle in California, the term "California electricity crisis" was most often used, with "California energy crisis" and "California electricity problem" also appearing; the term "energy crisis" alone was not used without "California" preceeding it.

As a compromise I would suggest Energy Crisis (1973) as a title if disambiguation is truly necessary; we could then have Energy Crisis (Russia) and whatever else. However, there is no point in doing this until we actually have articles on other Energy Crisis topics (c.f. Naming conventions.

Separately, the oil crisis article is poor as it contains errors of fact and omission, and is full of broad generalities that do not inform; the best portions of it should be merged with the energy crisis article and the rest binned.

Kat 04:25 5 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Move
Seeing the discussion above and noting a recent comment at, I moved the page to 1973 world oil shock, which I've been wanting to do for a while. I would've chosen this title all along, but when I started editing this article, it was found at 1973 energy crisis. Please revert the move if there are any strong objections. 172 22:57, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Wikipedia as a source?
- apparently Kenneth Pollack cites Wikipedia's article...I'm not sure I approve. john k 03:20, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * It's pretty-- let's say "interesting"-- to be cited by someone as prominent as Pollack for a donated article that I wrote with a pseudoanonymous account. I'm not sure how I feel about being caught up in what appears to be a horrible error of judgment, though... Wikipedia is a good way of sharing information; using it at your own risk, Wikpedia can lead you to other areas of inquiry and sources that are safe to cite. But I would not even use a Wikipedia article as a reference for a Wikipedia article; and I would not be too happy, to say the least, if I found, say, one of my students citing Wiki in a paper... He was probably getting lazy and did not bother to find another source using Google, let alone Lexis Nexis or JSTOR. It's pretty disappointing to see this from a serious commentator-- someone whom I would have likely cited myself before without much reservation. 172 19:27, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Cuts
I cut a dubious paragraph about Canada, in truth the increase in the price of oil did more than anything to undermine Trudeau's position. I also removed this rather vague and uncited passage:
 * Much of the frustration expressed on the part of oil-exporting nations in the developing world stemmed from the vastly unequal relationship separating rich and poor countries. The resentment, strongest where key resources and local economies have been exploited by Western multinational corporations, had had a major effect on world events. - SimonP 05:06, Dec 2, 2004 (UTC)

The analysis on Canada appears contradictory now
The paragraph begins:
 * "For the handful of industrialized nations that were net energy exporters the effects of the oil crisis were very different.... "

It ends:
 * " ....unemployment and stagflation hit Canada as hard as the United States despite Canadian fuel reserves."

Where "the effects" different or the same? The conclusion doesn't match the first sentence. We can equivocate the issue if unsure, but surely can't say two contradictory things.

Out of interest - if the Canadian economy was hit as hard as oil importing countrys' economies, was this because of internal disharmony or because of a slump in foreign demand?

Wragge 14:07, 2005 May 20 (UTC)

Strange text
I don't think this bit of text makes sense in the article in the paragraph about the ECC: "whilst the other six semen cover midgets"

Daylight Savings
In "Response in the industrialized countries" there is room taken up by a paragraph about Daylight Savings which does not in any way seem to tie in with the subject of the page or provide any explanation of its relevance. What did daylight savings changes have to do with the oil crisis? - should this paragraph be included in this page? If so could someone perhaps enhance it to provide an explanation? JohnGH

Opinion
Cut from article:


 * The U.S. continues to use energy in amounts out of proportion to its population, U.S. automakers continue to oppose legislation that would force them to increase the fuel efficiency of automobiles (see, e.g., "SUV"), and the U.S. continues to regard the supply of oil as a major national security concern. This has played a role in military action in the middle east (see, e.g., Persian Gulf War).

Who says its use is "out of proportion"? Who says automakers should be "forced" to increase the fuel efficiency? (Tell me so I can lend my voice!) And how has America's national security concerns played a role in the Persian Gulf War? (I thought Saddam started that.) Uncle Ed 03:45, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Political effects
I would love and would strongly recommend people who are knowledgeable enough to add information about the (ideological) political effects of this crisis, such as how this was a poart of the rise of neoliberal (libertarian) thinking in the western society. Mastgrr 01:26, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Rise of Toyota
Don't forget that one of the reasons for the rise of Toyota in the United States was because, after the 1973 Oil Crisis, many people realized all the gasoline it took to power their Crown Victoria LTDs and Pontiac GTOs that use up to 5 km/l (for comparison, that's what a V8 Lincoln Navigator uses, and a 2004 Honda Civic uses about 16 km/l). So many people wanted an efficient car that used little gas, and the Toyota Corolla Levin/Sprinter Trueno happened to be a car that met all those requirements. Da nuke 00:15, 25 November 2005 (UTC)

OPEC vs. OAPEC
Maybe I am completely confused, but to the extent of my knowledge there was no OPEC oil embargo against the West. It was OAPEC that made the embargo, while OPEC merely raised prices simultaneously. It was on the morning of the 16th of October in 1973 that OPEC was meeting and during its meeting America was caught giving military supplies to Israel. In response to these American actions, the Arab members stood up from the meeting, took their cups of tea (Arabs love their tea), walked down the hallway, and had a nice little OAPEC meeting, in which they decided to make an embargo.

Am I just stupid??? Daniel J. Forman 03:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

Vehicular misinformation
I just wanted to bring across a couple of points about the vehicles mentioned in the article.

The "archetype" clause for newer american front wheel drive vehicles isn't really nearly true in the terms of the '73 fuel crisis, nor is it entirely accurate that te VW Rabbit is the "grandaddy" of them all. The original "format creator" should be considered the Mini, though the Rabbit itself is styled after the Simca 1100, which was introduced in France in 1967, which was used to generate the Chrysler Horizon (1977) which eventually found it's way stateside with modifications.

Pointing to a large FWD revolution after the '73 gas crisis, or even really the '79 crisis, is misleading. There may have been a mass movement towards foreign vehicles but one must remember that until 1986 Toyota's small car platform was rear wheel drive, ALL the Datsuns were RWD, most of the other makes were RWD until later, the small cars around dring the gas crisis were predominantly RWD as well. FWD didn't take center stage until the mid 1980's.

The Pinto was not a result of the gas crisis, as it was introduced in 1971. Ford's other small car, the Maverick, was also introduced in 1971 (1970.5 for the purists). Chevy's alternative, the Vega, was also introduced in 1971, predating the crisis by 2 years.

Lastly, I'm not entirely sure why Ford's Fairmont is pointed out as a short-lived model when it isn't a large, gas-guzzling vehicle at all; it was a roughly 2700 pound derivative of Ford's "Fox" platform (very successful, lived on modified until 2004) fitted with either a 2.3L four cylinder or a 3.3L six cylinder engine; in fact the only thing that's not remarkably similar on paper to what's offered today as an economy option would be the boxy styling and rear wheel drive, and I dare say the fairmont wasn't any less boxy than most of the foreign competition of the day either. Remember that Honda's 1980 sedan offering wasn't some sleek, aerodynamic corner-burner like today's Hondas are touted to be, it was a bolt-upright three-box Accord.--Mfree 19:20, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Inflation
Could someone please fix the article to use inflation-adjusted prices. Taw 02:31, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

So, what was the peak price
The article states how gasoline prices increased from 38 cents per gallon in May 1973 to 55 cents per gallon by June 1974. Yet, I seem to have heard somewhere (can't say exactly where) that gasoline prices (that is, what consumers paid at a gas station when fueling their cars) were well over $1 during the winter of 1974, at the peak of the Arab Oil Crisis, then bottomed out to the 50-60 cent range by late spring. Is there a way someone can incorporate a sourced chronology of what consumers paid at the pump between October 1973 and late spring 1974, when oil started arriving in America once again? It might also behoove someone to research where gasoline prices were in the years following the oil crisis (such as 1974-1979, when the next crisis hit). Thanks! Briguy52748 00:02, 16 January 2007 (UTC)]]

Oil price graph
It's misleadingly captioned and not actually very useful as it currently is. --Dweller 14:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It's very important to have an oil price graph here, but the caption is still very questionable. It reads: "[...] doubled the real price of crude oil [...] caused massive shortages in the U.S". The US perspective is most interesting because the U.S. rationing 'caused' shortages (a situation in which no oil could be had at any price) that didn't occur elsewhere. Many factors (including the cost of supply) were causes, but the "shortage" at the pump (in the normal sense of that word) can't be solely (or mostly) attributed to supply price. I suggest that speculation on causes is completely removed from the picture's caption. Wragge 17:48, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Isn't the yellow line adjusted for inflation, not the blue one? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.170.142.17 (talk) 18:01, 14 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes. It was labeled wrong in the image.  It's fixed there, and now in the caption.  NJGW (talk) 02:02, 15 May 2008 (UTC)

POV, Vandalism
Has anybody noticed that some anonymous (notwithstanding me as well) nit had inserted an extra sentence in the "Decline of OPEC" section that states "perhaps this is why they cahrge us so much for oil nowadays", and some other nit amended it to "perhaps this is why they charge us so much for oil nowadays" (emphasis mine, to indicate correction of mispelled "charge").

This is clearly POV, and not very well inserted either. First seen at the last sentence of this version.

Addendum: The IP (User Talk:84.92.215.81) has a history of vandalism (on oil-related articles?). Administrators, this looks like a fixed IP considering the history, please block his/her ass off. --60.52.111.44 23:11, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review
This article is now up for Good Article Review and possible delisting of its GA status due to needing more references (especially where there are [citation needed] tags). -Malkinann 11:00, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The review is at WP:GA/R. Please include the review event in ArticleHistory only when the event is complete. Gimmetrow 11:46, 29 May 2007 (UTC)
 * The review is now complete, and the article has been delisted because of lack of inline citations, little discussion of the developing world and the embargo's impact on countries outside of Western Europe and North America, needing expansion and clarification of leadup and background and which organizations took part and which countries tried to stay out of it, which non-members, if any, might have helped, and a clearer explanation of how/when/why the embargo ended. The full review can be seen here. Please assume good faith and continue to improve the article. -Malkinann 00:46, 10 June 2007 (UTC)


 * It is not even accurate for the US, as it suggests more investment and research into alternative energy sources than took place. European nations made a real effort to change; the US went back to gas-guzzling and developing oil resources, but not to conservation - just consider the rise of the SUV, larger and larger cars, and larger and larger houses. It needs more data and balance in discussing the aftermath. France invested in nuclear power; Germany started working on sustainable buildings; and the US encouraged building large houses and buying huge cars and trucks, until recently.--Parkwells (talk) 22:36, 6 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Can you provide a cite to support your assertion that "European nations made a real effort to change" but that the U.S. did not? Your statements criticizing the U.S. seems based on feelings rather than facts. What did the U.S. (government?) do to encourage "building large houses and buying huge cars and trucks"? Yes, France did invest in nuclear power, clearly a smart move in hindsight, but again, can you provide a cite for your contention that the U.S. was alone in not making permanent or at least long-term changes? Incidentally, I lived through and remember this time and the way I remember it, many people DID buy smaller, more fuel-efficient (often Japanese) cars and only gradually did some people migrate towards large, gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks as gas prices fell and stayed low for a long time. ([anon]), 19 June 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.170.41.5 (talk)

Fair use rationale for Image:NixonandMeir.jpg
Image:NixonandMeir.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

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BetacommandBot (talk) 06:56, 1 January 2008 (UTC)