Open Access Article Originally Published: January 22, 2007
"You'll forgive me if I sound a little shrill," began Professor Michael T. Klare, the author of "Resource Wars" and its sequel "Blood and Oil", who directed his presentation at the 2006 Association for the Study of Peak Oil conference at Boston University to the families and loved ones of young people under 25 "who may chose to or be coerced to put on the uniform of the United States military."
Volatile words that could easily be construed as un-American, but meant to "speak truth to power, " as another speaker at the conference, Randy Udall of the distinguished Udall family of politicians and environmentalists, put it.
Klare pointed out that there are two aspects of peak oil: the famous "Hubbert's Peak" of the oil production bell curve in which less and less oil is produced as oil fields and oil provinces go into depletion; and the fact that all the easy, safe oil is pumped first and the harder to reach, more dangerous, heavy oils are left to exploit later. The latter point, he contended, is not talked about as much. This is the oil in deep waters and Arctic regions and in politically unstable regions of the world that will be very costly to extract technically, monetarily and politically.
"We have used up all the easy-to-get-at oil," he stated. "It is gone." He noted that this is the position taken by ChevronTexaco's Chairman and CEO David O'Reilly who initiated the Will You Join Us? advertising campaign, issuing a series of ads, one which reads, "Energy will be one of the defining issues of this century. One thing is clear: the era of easy oil is over."
Klare contends that of the remaining trillion or so barrels of oil that is left, 62% of the reserves are located in predominately Moslem nations, some like Iraq with long histories of religious and ethnic strife that predate the discovery of oil. He believes that as more and more of the world depends on petroleum and gas from this part of the world (see chart below), that it will only further enflame violence in the region.
"The pursuit of oil, itself, is the source of violence, because it divides faction against each other. Take Iraq. What is the driving force of violence today? It's not just Sunnis against Shiites against Kurds. It's the fact that the Kurds and the Shiites want control over the oil revenues exclusively for themselves... freezing out the Sunnis. That's what the constitutional changes they propose are all about. The Kurds already effectively have control over oil production in the northern zone. The Shiites are now ramming through the Parliament effective control over oil production in the South. This will exclude the Sunnis from any oil revenues whatsoever. it is hardly surprising therefore that the Sunnis are the driving force behind the... insurgency in Iraq."
It is this struggle over who controls the oil of Iraq that is the driving engine of the violence there and is putting American lives at risk.
"The more we pursue their oil (in the Moslem world), the more resistance there will be to the United States."
"What has been the response of American foreign policy elites to this situation," he asked?
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8 comments so far...
22-Jan-2007
45845
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Why can't our government leaders understand the consequences of peak oil ? They are abandoning our feature generations on the road to ruin .
Posted by: John Hurt
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24-Jan-2007
46094
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Politicians have never been known to think of the future. The next election is more important, here and now.
To win this, one must appease the 'dollar' so that contributions can hire the greatest spin doctors who know not to allow the truth to be in the way of achieving the set goals.
Appeasing means allowing the contributors to make profits so that their contributions (or kickbacks) will strengthen THE cause.
This is what has been happening since human settlements were established. AND War is the best money spinner for the moneyed contributors.
Stop arguing about the environment, the future or anything else of interest to YOU. For the moneyed and their puppet politicians you, me, we, are the fodder that feeds the cannons, the factories and what ever else is making them money. Nothing else matters.
Cynical? Plenty, but also true. If you do not believe it, check how many soldiers in Iraq for example are sons / daughters of politicians and / or rich families.
Is it not odd that all of these sons and daughters have other 'duties' elsewhere but not where our leaders, their parents lead us?
May your god go with you and give you patience and strength to forgive.
C.G.
Posted by: Curra Gundi
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23-Jan-2007
45916
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My area of interest in college (college of resource development) was resource economics.
What everyone needs to remember is that we use so much petroleum because it is so cheap. It is cheap because it is abundant. If that changes the price rise and it will not be so hard to reduce consumption.
Posted by: jw Ogden
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25-Jan-2007
46156
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This country needs a carbon tax . The delicate balance of world climate depends on reducing carbon use . All anyone has to do is test drive a high performance EV and they will come away with the mindset that the ICE car is obselete technology with thousands of high-cost repairs .
Posted by: John Hurt
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28-Jan-2007
46524
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Folks ask why can't our leaders understand.......Why can't our leaders do.... etc., etc., etc.. Call me a cynic but looking around at humanities rapacious consumeristic appetites and juxtaposing this against our total dependence on petroleum (not just for energy but for chemicals of all sorts and sundry other lynchpin needs) I say it's much too late to stop what history will come to see as a collapse of our civilization. We've built this house of cards over the last 100 years, and we from the beginning we sat it on non-sustainable underpinnings. It will inevitably collapse. So it isn't that our leaders can't do or understand this. They KNOW this. They're just keeping the band playing as long as they can before it all comes down.
Posted by: John Curtis
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24-Jan-2007
46026
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Yes, but by the time we achieve this new economic equilibrium at a higher oil price, we would have paid a lot of costs in terms of lives lost and money spent - the point is this money is better spent on sustainable long term solutions (like batteries, H2, whatever) instead of fighting a losing war
Posted by: Al Jenx
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27-Jan-2007
46373
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Dear friends, your Governments now what is going on whit peak oil. They now what will happens in a few year, but what can they do.
If they tell their peoples what will happend when oil will be to expensive and consequenses of Peak oil and Peak Water and Peak Climat you will se upprisings.
The new laws in many countries against terror is a preparation for coming days when die off starts.
Posted by: Lars Andersson
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24-Jan-2007
46052
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Al Jenx one of the conclusions that can be drawn from of my point is that we do not need Middle East oil. The Carter doctrine and bush doctrine are the result of politics and economic ignorance coming together. The Middle East is of little strategic importance to us. Further a drop in demand for oil would probably not improve the situation in the Middle East. Some of the worst countries in the Middle East have no petroleum Syria, Egypt (second most 9-11 Terrorists and the birthplace of radical Islam), Lebanon, Pakistan (not quite in the middle east) and some of the better countries do have petroleum Kuwait, Qatar and the UAE. The petroleum income tends to strengthen the pro west fractions in the Middle East countries, if we would just but out for a while I think that thinks would get better.
Further a drop in demand in the USA would cause a drop in price and more petroleum use in the developing world and while this would be a good thing in that it would help the standard of living in the developing world it would not achieve the goal of some of cutting the Middle East off from petroleum income.
BTW I do not see 20,000 radical Islamists as a major world threat, worth much action. The Bush administration IMO has grossly overreacted to a limited threat. Politicians tend to do that.
Cheers.
Posted by: jw ogden
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