What does oil have to do with slavery?

Besides the crude (excuse the pun) observation that both slavery and oil forcefully extracted (dark) resources from (often) Southern continents to 'advance' industrialized economies, there is quite a peculiar and interesting relationship between a coveted object and the attempt to objectify human beings.
For one thing, our modern economy was based - for better and for worse - on both of these things. Both have caused the immense wealth of a few at the cost of many (especially if one counts the not-just-humans populations, but also the poor people who live next to and among petro-chemicals, waste heaps, Katrinas, and other effects of petroleum).

For another thing both are ammoral - one destroys people, the other, the very planet we need to survive. Perhaps someday, the movement towards a clean green economy will be regularly compared to the movement to eradicate slavery on moral - as well as practical - grounds.
Today, this is an important reminder - the anti-slavery movement was the first ever global movement. The pro-green-jobs might be the next major global movement - one that isn't just about 'activists' but is about entrepeneurs, government, civic society and regular people - from Mali to Milwakee - making a difference.
Slavery was an entrenched system. In fact, it was argued repeatedly in Parliament that abolishing slavery would kill the economy. Many firmly believed that doing the right thing was, simply, bad for business.
The great thing is - they were wrong. It turns out that slavery hurt the slave owner as well as the slave. Economies not only grew, they boomed.
We don't know what a non-oil based economy would really look like - that is, we don't know about it unless we've spent some time in non-oil based economies in the africa, which are few and far between (especially with the spread of petroleum-based fertilizer). It's not just that the green economy is a great solution for a financial crisis: it's that it's a great situation for a de-moralized civilization.
Because when it comes to making profits that can support sustained well-being, doing the right thing is, well, the right thing to do.