Unfortunately, not all of us are ablebodied enough to walk everywhere we go, even if every destination were "within normal walking distance." On a fixed income, it is nearly impossible to purchase a high mileage dependable car. Public transportation is quite lacking & expensive for the disabled. Carrying groceries & household goods while walking can be virtually impossible for some of us. If you want to know why we are dependent upon oil, consider a tidbit about solar energy which was in a petroleum journal a couple of decades ago. (I read it myself in an oil industry journal in my uncle's office in the Petroleum Building in Tulsa, Oklahoma)
    Just after turn of the 20th century (1900's), Soviet scientists met in the USA with other scientists of the world. The Soviet scientists offered their brilliant discoveries of solar energy to the "world."
    [If you recall, gasoline engines were being used in motorcars, motorcycles, et. al. at the time and the "powers that were" at the time had a great deal of their finances invested into the new (bacy then) fossil fuel-oil, natural gas, coal. There were already plans to build suburb type residential areas nearby factories & cities. There were already long range plans in development for highways.]
    The Soviet scientists were told, in short, thanks but no thanks.


    Now consider that automobiles were built, oil wells were drilled all over Texas, Oklahoma, Lousianna & anywhere they found oil, especially on "reservations" upon which dwelled indigenous Americans whom had been removed from their native lands-most of whom got no money as the mineral rights had been stolen from them. Housing developments were beginning to be built all over the USA to entice workers off the farms. The cars got bigger, and oil use increased until engineers sought off shore wells, and eventually went to the Middle East.

    A few years ago, the supreme court placed into office 2 Texas oilmen whose fortunes were established upon oil wells. The one known as "W" had a father who was once the head of the CIA & placed an oil buddy into office in Iraq. Then, his sons, who had a weapons business sold arms to that oil buddy in Iraq.
(this info has been on the news in previous years, & public knowledge, but evidently "forgotten" by most of the public during the elections)
    Now you know the rest of the story.