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The Revolution
This is a revolution. If you want to shut an airport then stop flying.
Want an end to factory farming? Grow your own. An end to pollution?
Change to renewables. An end to war & poverty? Microgenerate. Life
for your childen? Stop needing oil. YOU have THIS Power. You do not
need Government. Seize the initiative. Bring democracy to your
community. Be an example to your children. Take responsibility.
Change for good today. |
Energy Security
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At the height of US engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq the
Pentagon released a report that suggested that Global Climate
Change and Resource Depletion will be a far greater threat to
world peace and security that Terrorism. This idea has been
echoed around the world by the great and the good. It is an
essential modern truism.
We only have to
switch on the TV to see what a crazy world we live in. CNN will
report on the carnage wrought by Tornadoes in Florida, with no
mention of Climate Change, then their next story is about
Security measures at the Super bowl. If only our leaders can
whip the population into such a frenzy about energy policy
rather than terrorism... We might get something done. Fossil
Fuels are running out. Shall we fight to the last man so that we
can take someone else's? Scared? Read on.... |
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You need ANOTHER Reason?
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 Carbon Cutters
cite several reasons why we all need to take action to
restrict our use of Fossil Fuels. Most people believe that
it is Climate Change that is the prime driver. This is a
good reason but only one of them. We also discuss Peak Oil
as a reason for transition away from finite resources. There
is some controversy about both of these reasons. We think
that not everyone will believe all the reasons all of the
time. Everyone needs their own motivation. We don't really
care what you believe in - whatever way you turn the
conclusion is the same.
So if you spurn
the Scientific advice on Climate Change and believe OPEC or
USGS numbers future Oil Production you are sitting pretty.
Nothing can hurt you. Apart from security, terrorism and
war. These effect us in the following ways:
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Security - as we run low on our own
local fossil fuel supplies we have to import more and
more oil & gas from further and further away. We are
hostage to every country through which it travels and we
are vulnerable to breaks in supply.
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Terrorism - war by the weak against
the powerful (as defined by the powerful). Powerful
nations support authoritarian and undemocratic regimes
in oil producing countries in order to guarantee oil
supplies. This breeds resentment amongst the population
as they believe their natural wealth is being drained by
foreigners. This wealth is not benefiting them. They
mount 'terror' attacks against the cause of their
grievances.
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War - terrorism by the powerful...
When Government fights Government for access to, or
ownership and control of, Fossil Fuels.
These are all
quite natural truisms that we can read about in the papers
and see on the TV News every day. It doesn't matter which
side of the political spectrum you come from. Powerful
forces have been lining up to take control of energy
supplies since well before World War Two. This has only lead
to suffering. |
Oil and Poverty
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Oil makes you poor - fact. and you can't eat it either. This has
been observed and written about since the mid 1990's. Our
popular image of oil discovery, from experiences in the West and
Middle-East, is that it is some great endowment from God that
makes everyone rich beyond belief. Then everyone lives happily
ever after. This is fantasy and is not borne out by reality in
most places in the World. Entirely the opposite. Economists
Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner found a negative correlation
between a Country's wealth and its oil exports. Most Oil
Exporting Countries suffer from high rates of poverty,
malnutrition, child illiteracy, corruption, authoritarianism,
civil war and indebtedness. This is systemic. The reasons are
known. In order for a third world country to exploit its mineral
wealth it has to call in foreign oil companies and foreign
capital to pay for it. The precondition of all such arrangements
is that most of the profits will be sucked out of the country.
Even worse the Western Companies and
Governments will encourage the kind of regimes that will prevent
the Nationalisation of 'their' assets in the interest of the
impoverished people in those countries. It is in their interest
to ensure that none of the money leaks out of the pockets of a
rich and corrupt minority who maintain an iron grip on the
population. Likewise it is in the interest of rich Northern
investors to prevent any inward investment in infrastructure,
ie, schools and hospitals but, rather, to develop a complete
dependency upon the rich Northern countries for other luxuries,
such as weapons. The idea is to recycle the profits OUT of the
poor country. A noteworthy exception is Venezuela and the
Government of Hugo Chavez who is using the petrodollars in the
interest of those who elected him. Obviously he is very
unpopular - but only in the rich Northern countries. |
Security & Climate Change
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 If you believe in
man-made Climate Change (and most of us do) then you will be
concerned with the secondary effects of Global Warming on
Security. Experts in Global affairs now point out that the mass
migration of Climate Refugees could become a significant risk to
world order. A flash point could be nuclear-armed Pakistan and
how it would react to a million refugees from India if the
Glacier ice Melts fail to form the Indus river. What about
flooding in Bangladesh? Sooner or later somebody somewhere may
choose War - not for Oil - but just so that their population
will have somewhere to run to.
Resources of every
kind could become very valuable commodities in a World where the
available agricultural land is diminishing. The War in Darfur is
already claimed to be as a direct result of the drying up of
inland lakes. Suddenly everyone's security is locked into
everyone else's. And everyone else is running away from the
results of Climate Change.
To learn more visit this excellent web site:
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I'm not taking it any more!
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Post-Carbon Man is on the warpath again.
You'll find him everywhere. Don't get him started on
why leaders can't lead! He has had enough and he isn't taking it any
more.
Learn what he has to
say by clicking right
here Make sure you have
enabled popups! |
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Read this Book
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ISBN 1-84354-121-1. Published by Atlantic Books in 2003.
Subtitled "Blood and Oil in Central Asia". Reveals the politics
and military engagement in the Caspian Sea area and how the
post-9/11 world has been opened up by so called 'national
security' issues. Politicians in both the west and north
(Russia) are fighting over the oil resources and clashing with
the i nherent
Islam in the area. Politicians struggle to control Central Asia
and nobody asks whether it is ethical, right or wrong. Such
morality is thrown out of the window in an orgy of corruption,
bribery and under-hand dealings. All the Great Game players are
joined for battle - the USA, Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran.
Out goes the rule book as each power-bloc seeks the ultimate
prize - power, money and oil in Central Asia. Complete review
here.
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Diverting Resources
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 The saddest part of
our "Blood for Oil" culture in the West is that it leads to
incredibly high opportunity costs. The term "opportunity cost"
comes from economics and explains the cost of something by what
you could have been doing instead. It is, quite literally, a
waste of time and energy! It is not an investment in the future,
it only forces us to face the difficult decisions sooner. In the
meantime we have increased someone else's suffering.
The figures for oil
wars are quite astounding. A US web site published a
calculation of how many wind turbines could have been erected in
the continental USA if all the money spent on the War in Iraq
had been diverted to renewables. So much additional power would
have been generated that it would have supplanted any need for
such foreign adventures. It appears almost self-defeating to
spend money on military power when spending it on something
else would significantly ease the problem.
Al Gore cited
another example in his "Inconvenient Truth" when he spoke of the
US Automobile Fuel Efficiency Standards. He too pointed out that
if the US had simply kept up with the rest of the World on
Automobile Fuel
Efficiency Standards then would be no dependency upon foreign oil.
They would have all the security they needed simply by changing
the law.
Auto-efficiency is
not the only example. One US Politician was famously quoted that
energy efficiency measures might be a sign of personal virtue but
they were "not a basis for a National Energy policy". Many have
pointed out that there would be no National Energy
 problem if
the Country had focused on efficiency measures instead of
expanding supply.
Thankfully European
Nations have acted with slightly greater wisdom. The message is
simple. Wars for Oil are a waste of money. Our problems can be
solved peacefully. To
learn more visit this excellent web site:
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Millablog
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Last night Mummy and Daddy watched a documentary about a nice
warm country called Cuba. They are an island which has been
prevented from trading for reasons I don't understand yet. They
have no oil and can only import a small amount because they are
poor. Yet they have the same life expectancy and education as
rich countries. They use organic permaculture to grow their
food. They ride a lot of bicycles and wait for buses. Strange. |
War on Terror? Get real!
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There is no War on Terror. Sir David King,
the UK Government's Chief Scientific Adviser, said once that
Global Warming is a far greater threat than any Weapon of
Mass Destruction. It is also said that to reduce terrorism "we
should stop participating in it". The powerful nations have
dominated the people of weaker nations throughout history
but it is only recently that the weak & powerless have yielded significant
weapons against the powerful. Practically all international
Terrorism directed against developed countries is, in some
way, blowback for earlier mistakes or actions, be they
colonial, imperial, military or economic. This blowback is
often a response to perceived injustices resulting from the
powerful securing supplies of Oil. For the powerful to respond with arms
against the weak will
only to escalate the problem and increase the
insecurity of the populations of the 'powerful' nations.
Violence will lead to violence.
The simple truth
is that citizens of developed countries are far more likely
to be hit by lightening that ever be the victim of a
terrorist attack. Our fear of terrorism is vastly
exaggerated. In comparison to the threat posed by Peak Oil
or Global Climate Change, terrorism doesn't even rank.
Terrorism kills a few thousand people every year. Most of
these unfortunate victims are civilians within the
developing-world. Victims of low-intensity conflict. The
numbers are insignificant in comparison to the numbers
killed in outright wars for oil or by 'natural' disasters.
Floods, famine, desertification, severe weather, crop
failure, you name it, will kill hundreds of thousands. IT IS
ALREADY DOING SO.
So, please, let
us all get our priorities right. If you can't break your
addiction to fossil fuels then terrorism will be the least
of your problems. There is no War on Terror. Only War for
Oil. |
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| References: |
- Oil Change International 2007 as quoted in Ethical
Consumer Magazine March/April 2007
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