The war for oil
What can we find in common between Sudan, Bolivia, Venezuela, Irak, Oriental Timor and Afghanistan?
On a global scale right now, there is a race against time for the control of the remaining resources of oil and natural gas. On one side we have the Americans and the Brits who invest hundreds of billions of dollars in military (the Americans don't realize that the price at the pump is only part of the bill. They pay the rest in taxes for the army) in order to protect their actual oil interests, to take control of new regions where there is oil wells (Irak, ex-Soviet Republic, Africa) and/or attack whoever is not on their side. On the other hand, Russia, China, Iran, India and an increasing number of southern American countries (that are fed up of being exploited by the United States) try to protect their gas and oil interests, sign agreements between each other in order to defend against the pressure put on by the Americans. Between these two groups are the French, the Italians, the Canadians, the Japanese, the Germans and other minor players who feed themselves from both sides.
At the beginning of this year, during an interview broadcasted on Radio-Canada in which I was assisting on the theme of the end of the oil, there was a spokesperson from that industry that was present, and to whom I've mentioned that our enormous oil dependency had the impact, among others, of starting wars and causing thousands of deaths just to satisfy our thirst for black gold. All he had to say was: "We do what the people want."
Is this really what we want? Do we agree that people should die just so we can keep consuming at this same pace?
We often have a tendency to think that discovering oil or natural gas is a gift from above. However, more and more people now consider the discovery of oil or natural gas as a curse. Recently, an African government refused that oil companies go in and prospect on their land. They politely answered that they prefer living a little less wealthy, but peacefully.
Scraping the drawer bottoms
Whichever angle we look at the energy situation from, the reality is the following: we're soon going to be scraping the bottoms of drawers to find some, because the world is in need, and just like junkies who are in need, the strongest ones will do anything to win their battle for that last fix remaining on the planet, and the weaker ones will perish.
Global economy and the impacts of the rareness of oil
It is estimated that within the end of this decade, the decrease of global oil production will raise the price of a barrel to about $100. In a few months, supply will start going down as demand will continue to rise. If this prediction realizes itself, and everything indicated that it will, the price of about everything found on the market will increase, and we'll enter a phase of inflation that will shortly precede a recession with millions of layoffs, bankruptcies, and the whole string of misfortunes that's associated with it.
That's why it's important to realize how our lifestyle is more and more unbearable, because we're tied to this resource that made us so dependant, and now we're literally hooked on oil.
What can we find in common between Sudan, Bolivia, Venezuela, Irak, Oriental Timor and Afghanistan?
- All these countries are related to oil or natural gas in one way or another.
- The vast majority of people who live in all these countries, who should be living well on oil and natural gas revenues, are poor.
- All the people who live in these countries have sustained violence and war for the control of oil and/or natural gas.
On a global scale right now, there is a race against time for the control of the remaining resources of oil and natural gas. On one side we have the Americans and the Brits who invest hundreds of billions of dollars in military (the Americans don't realize that the price at the pump is only part of the bill. They pay the rest in taxes for the army) in order to protect their actual oil interests, to take control of new regions where there is oil wells (Irak, ex-Soviet Republic, Africa) and/or attack whoever is not on their side. On the other hand, Russia, China, Iran, India and an increasing number of southern American countries (that are fed up of being exploited by the United States) try to protect their gas and oil interests, sign agreements between each other in order to defend against the pressure put on by the Americans. Between these two groups are the French, the Italians, the Canadians, the Japanese, the Germans and other minor players who feed themselves from both sides.
At the beginning of this year, during an interview broadcasted on Radio-Canada in which I was assisting on the theme of the end of the oil, there was a spokesperson from that industry that was present, and to whom I've mentioned that our enormous oil dependency had the impact, among others, of starting wars and causing thousands of deaths just to satisfy our thirst for black gold. All he had to say was: "We do what the people want."
Is this really what we want? Do we agree that people should die just so we can keep consuming at this same pace?
We often have a tendency to think that discovering oil or natural gas is a gift from above. However, more and more people now consider the discovery of oil or natural gas as a curse. Recently, an African government refused that oil companies go in and prospect on their land. They politely answered that they prefer living a little less wealthy, but peacefully.
Scraping the drawer bottoms
Whichever angle we look at the energy situation from, the reality is the following: we're soon going to be scraping the bottoms of drawers to find some, because the world is in need, and just like junkies who are in need, the strongest ones will do anything to win their battle for that last fix remaining on the planet, and the weaker ones will perish.
Global economy and the impacts of the rareness of oil
It is estimated that within the end of this decade, the decrease of global oil production will raise the price of a barrel to about $100. In a few months, supply will start going down as demand will continue to rise. If this prediction realizes itself, and everything indicated that it will, the price of about everything found on the market will increase, and we'll enter a phase of inflation that will shortly precede a recession with millions of layoffs, bankruptcies, and the whole string of misfortunes that's associated with it.
That's why it's important to realize how our lifestyle is more and more unbearable, because we're tied to this resource that made us so dependant, and now we're literally hooked on oil.