Peak Oil

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

hmm

Postby Dreams End » Mon Aug 01, 2005 10:41 pm

<!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>With you on the cash thing,as a left-of-center european it puts me off even more than most.But that seems to be the American way,and its hard to see when paying the bills morphs into buckets off money,because i do understand people need to pay their bills.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Hucksterism is, indeed, an American tradition. And making money off the end of the world (or at least predictions thereof) is also a cherished pasttime. <br><br>Ruppert charges 35 (I think he increased to 40) bucks for a subscription. He claimed 40,000 subscribers last I checked. He also has a book that is selling nicely and DVD's as well. He also picks up speakers fees. I can't tell you how much he gets there except for the 4000 bucks he admitted he got from known corporate scam PQI. Asked about his opinion on the fact that many of PQI execs were headed to jail, he simply replied, “Am I aware that some members of PQI have had criminal charges pressed against them? Absolutely! So have many dedicated patriots and whistleblowers throughout our country's history…” <br><br>Here's my point on the cash thing. If I had information that the world as we know it was going to come crashing down around our ears in 15 months or so....I WOULDN"T CHARGE PEOPLE FOR IT. <br><br>You must simply not have as many scammers and hustlers over there in Europe. <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

Re: illogical

Postby anon » Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:05 pm

how did fish get in this barrel? and why am i holding maggrwaggrs gun? with apologies to maggrwaggr....<br><br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>Quote: <br><br>I find a great lack of logical thinking when it comes to those who pooh-pooh the idea of Peak Oil.<br><br>Okay, let's play find the logic.<br><br>Quote:<br><br>It took us 125 years to use up the first trillion barrels of oil.<br><br>At current rates, we will use the second trillion in the next 30.<br><br>That's called exponential growth, and it continues.<br><br><br>Assumption one: the supply of oil in the ground is not enough to keep up with this demand for at least long enough to transition to other energy forms.<br><br>Assumption two: We can know, with reasonable certainty, how much oil is in the ground at present waiting to be discovered and withdrawn.<br><br>Assumption three: Oil is a finite resource. I am not qualified to engage that argument, but it is a logical assumption you've made and is disputed by some.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><br>dude, this is a game you DO NOT want to play. the quote from maggrwaggr made NONE of those assumptions. <br><br>assumption one? as far as the quote goes we can "transition to other energy forms" tomorrow. im not saying thats maggrwaggrs opinion. theres just nothing in the quote that excludes it. that means the quote doesnt make the assumption.<br><br>assumption two? you dont need to "know, with reasonable certainty, how much oil is in the ground at present" to say it took 125 years to use a trillion barrels and well use another trillion in the next 30. the one things got zilch to do with the other.<br><br>assumption three? it took 125 years to use a trillion barrels and well use another trillion in the next 30, therefore "oil is a finite resource"? oils finite alright but thts got zilch to do with the quote.<br><br>dude! what planet you come from? and how many more bertrand russells they got there? pipe down and hit the books.<br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
anon
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 7:27 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

re:

Postby Starman » Mon Aug 01, 2005 11:25 pm

Dreams End --<br><br>Look -- this is real simple. I'm responding to YOUR claims that the 'oil industry' has been banging the Peak Oil hysteria drum. This Just Ain't So. I grabbed the very first article from google on this issue -- there were hundreds I could have recommended or read-thru to find a dozen that made a stringer case. I didn't have to. My past reading was sufficient to show this was an absolute red-herring, only I got distracted in my previous posts and forgot to mention it.<br><br>I don't think you have a very good understanding of how major industries work and how information flow and data reports are crucial to financial services and industries, banks and scientific journals and academies and service providers. The reports which the oil industry uses for its business are not exclusively generated by the oil companies themselves. The whole issue of 'oil company insiders' being on the same page with pushing Peak Oil is just wrong. Investment analysts and engineers and geologists and banks don't stand to benefit if Peak Oil is true -- but they DO have an interest in using best-information to prevent being blindsided -- As Heralds was performing a fiduciary duty to their clients in using the most accurate information available to get to the bottom of what shape the biggest oil companies are actually in. Because a lot of this information is redundant and crucial for making informed decisions by large clients and other businesses, there's high confidence that its pretty accurate. Guaranteed? No -- but the best available.<br><br>Ruppert is NOT anywhere CLOSE to being the main spokesperson for Peak oil -- and yet I hear over and over the argument based on Peak Oil proponents as a cohesive class or group. You didn't point out such discrepancies if you disagree with them in Proldic's (sp?) post. Nevertheless, Ruppert has been of enormous benefit in popularizing and discussing a wide range of important issues --much more than I daresay you or I have been. In appreciation for his efforts on behalf of Truth and Social Justice, I am NOT going to be quiet when I hear/see him being, IMHO, being unfairly maligned or marginalized or discreditted. As I pointed out before, Ruppert was quite clear in stating his position on population control -- he's out of the loop -- It devolves to the best and the brightest we can organize and according to the highest moral principles. How can he be plainer than that? His personal views frankly aren't of any standing -- that's not what he's about. I just don't see the sinister aspect you feel is so freaky that he has to be disparaged and maligned, based on a very few comments that I feel are taken wholly out of context and emphasized to the exclusion of everything else he has said and written.<br><br>I don't have any fundamental disagreements with Wolf so don't see why I should take anything in particular up with him. Besides, what real difference would it make to anything if Woild and I agree that experts are in concensus on Peak Oil? Anyway, I don't see ANYBODY saying that Peak Oil is Here, NOW. That's NOT what Peak Oil means. But anyway, where Wolf said experts were in concensus that Peak Oil is a very real problem, that doesn't contradict anything he or I said -- as I showed, the experts are looking AT the oil industry, they're not a part of it. As Oil execs say they aren't commenting, HOW does that 'prove' they are deliberately manipulating or exploiting Peak Oil (if that's what you are suggesting)? Besides, much of the high-prices now being paid for oil are going to market-makers, futures and commodity traders, and other middlemen -- It's a gross oversimplification to suggest that the Oil Companies alone are able to demand high prices, since various markets directly compete among each other. Part of it involves OPEC quotas and different prices for different bourses and grades and delivery-points, and how booked-ahead producers and sellers are, based on market positions and projections. The Iraq war and resulting cut-backs due to infrastructure attacks and a crumbling industry that hasn't been properly maintained or kept-up with continuing investments has resulted in a reduction of at least 300,000 barrels (perhaps up to 500,000) a day -- since the oil industry is close to maximum capacity now, any interruption or slowdown is going to pinch supply and provide support for continued high prices. And perceived instability in regions like the Middle East and Columbia and Africa where there are civil wars and guerrillas fighting, also promote high prices because of dependability issues. I find it MUCH more insidious that US Militant Foreign Policy is tied to protecting and controlling oil resources than I am concerned about Ruppert's hidden agenda. Some 6 million people have been directly killed as a result of CIA interventions tied to US exploitive energy policy, and perhaps another 6 million died from being economic refugees and disease and exposure as a result. That's real-world ecocide that is still continuing, something that one can point a finger at and criticize which is happening NOW all around the world (with at least 500,000 economic refugees, and exploitation/slavery of persons, and environmental poisoning, and ruinous debt-peonage, etc. Comparatively, Ruppert is working for greater awareness and constructive change -- criticizing him while ignoring the institutionalized crime is an obsession that I just don't share.<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
Starman
 
Posts: 410
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 3:57 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Ruppert.

Postby Dreams End » Tue Aug 02, 2005 5:02 am

Let's let Ruppert's site speak for itself.<br><br>First off, I was amused to find this: (Someone go wake up maggrwaggr, as it's very late and I want him or her to read this part.) Remember this? <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>It took us 125 years to use the first trillion barrels of oil.<br><br>We'll use the next trillion in 30.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Guess where that quote comes from. Come on...everybody play. Yep, that's right...it is an ad taken out by Chevron in major newspapers including the New York Times. Big two pager.<br><br>Ruppert calls this ad "the boldest public admission of Peak Oil to date by a sitting oil executive." <br><br>So I guess at least ONE oil company is supporting the peak oil idea, though his ad certainly doesn't envision the nightmare scenarios in Ruppert's brain.<br><br>And why do I worry about Ruppert in the face of other ills, as Starman asks? Well, in this sad world of ours, there is often more than one thing to worry about, and worrying about one doesn't mean you have to ignore others. Or even that you worry more about it than any other issue. <br><br>Really, in this discussion, there are two kinds of people, those who worry about someone who calls for a group of the "best and brightest" to come up with a plan for world population reduction and those who don't worry about such a person.<br><br>I am the worrier. Yep. That's me. See, "population reduction" is a pretty loaded term as whoever happens to have the power gets to decide who is reduced. <br><br>Let's be clear. The die, says Ruppert, is cast. And whether he has prominence among "experts" he is widely read and influential in the progressive and activist communities and is the primary "popularizer" of the peak oil idea. And here's what he has to say:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Peak Oil is no longer on the way. It is here. Forget for a moment whether or not global oil production has actually begun (see below) its hopelessly irreversible decline. We will not know that for certain until sometime after it happens. The political fact, however, is that global inertia in response to Peak has driven our species, all of it, past the point of no return. There is no changing course for us. We have committed to a path of bloody destruction that can no longer be postponed or evaded. Energy investment banker Matthew Simmons - long a smoke alarm for Peak Oil - has said repeatedly, "The problem is that the world has no Plan B." Simmons is right. <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031005_globalcorp.shtml">www.fromthewilderness.com...corp.shtml</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Kinda different from starman's take on things. So there's no hope. Well, so what's the damage, there, barkeep?<br><br>Ruppert's sidekick Dale Allen Pfeiffer offers this scenario:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>None of this research (into the level of world population that is sustainable) considers the impact of declining fossil fuel production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after 2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along with the peak of North American natural gas production will very likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion people42 to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never experienced before by the human race.<br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil.html">www.fromthewilderness.com...g_oil.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>If you check the whole article by Pimental cited by DAP and posted at the charmingly named "dieoff.com" you say that Pimental's entire scenario suggests that the world population will be reduced to these numbers. What's interesting is that oil is only the subject of two paragraphs, with one paragraph only concerning oil's impact on the US. So, guess what, even without peak oil, we get the massive die off in less than fifty years. <br><br><br>But peak oil kicks in faster than that. DAP and Ruppert agree...2007 is the kickoff date. Ruppert calls that the cliff event. Wolf helpfully pointed out that Deffreyes says the peak comes on Thanksgiving 2005. I hope that extra degree of precision is meant humorously. And I haven't read that book, so I don't know if he means the same things by that as Ruppert means by 2007. <br><br>So, we'll be eating our young in just a few years. Think I'm misrepresenting again? Check out this article on Ruppert's site:<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/070105_world_stories.shtml">www.fromthewilderness.com...ries.shtml</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>(you have to scroll down to the "petro collapse" article.)<br><br>Here's a taste: <br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>There will be cannibalism for a few months at most, I figure, as the dust settles from petrocollapse.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>So can someone please admit that Ruppert...with the current number five book on Amazon's political bestsellers, and significant presence among activists... has a wide following and is putting out a "meme" if we must use that term, that is pretty disturbing? Did all of you who support his call for a committee to look at population reduction understand the numbers he was talking about? Do you understand that he's talking about a collapse that has basically begun? <br><br>If it were in isolation, that would be one thing. But some awful nasty people put out the same idea of population reduction. <br><br>Well, you can do some detective work if you want. Here are some examples. DAP's article about population reduction cites David Pimentel. He's on the board of the fine folks at the "Carrying capacity network. His wife Marcia co-authors papers with him and is on the advisory board of the "Carrying capacity network"<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.carryingcapacity.org/">www.carryingcapacity.org/</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> (look in sidebar to right)<br><br>Who else is on the board...why a lady from right here in my hometown, Virginia Abernathy at Vanderbilt.. This woman is...well, let her speak for herself:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"I'm in favor of separatism -- and that's different than supremacy. Groups tend to self-segregate. I know that I'm not a supremacist. I know that ethnic groups are more comfortable with their own kind."<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Virginia-Abernethy">www.nationmaster.com/ency...-Abernethy</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Hey, Abernathy pops up again related to Ruppert...though I admit you have to dig a bit...while ole Pimentel is just cited all over the place. Richard Heinberg and his book The Party's Over are cited approvingly in several places and an article or two by Heinberg is also on the site. I'm sure he's a fine fellow. But he should be careful of who he puts on his book jackets. Here's the site for his book. Check out who the jacket blurbs are by.<br><br>Why look...there's Abernathy and Pimentel. Now isn't that cozy. Hey, let's look at Abernathy's most well known book, Population Politics. <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.alibris.com/search/search.cfm?qwork=5238980&wauth=Virginia%20Abernethy&matches=22&qsort=r&cm_re=works*listing*title">www.alibris.com/search/se...ting*title</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Who is that who wrote the forward? Oh, Garrett Hardin. Where did I just see his name...oh I know, on this list of Pioneer fund Grantees. <br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.pioneerfund.org/Grantees.html">www.pioneerfund.org/Grantees.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>What's the Pioneer Fund? Well, they fund research into racial differences and eugenics. Let them explain about why they just get picked on so much:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> The fact that the origins of the Pioneer Fund lie in the Darwinian-Galtonian evolutionary tradition, and the eugenics movement has guaranteed us our share of controversy. Further, we have supported behavioral genetic studies which have shown that the genetic component in human behavior is about 50% and, even more controversial, that it is more likely than not that there is a genetic component to between-group (sex, socioeconomic, and racial) IQ differences.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>So we have Ruppert and DAP citing and quoting this little group of population nazi's so extreme that FAIR, the Federation for American Immigration Reform has denounced them:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The Federation for American Immigration Reform has spoken out in 2004 against the views of another reductionist leader, Virginia Abernethy, calling her views "repulsive separatist views," and called on her to resign from the advisory board of Protect Arizona Now in Arizona. The two groups closely associated with Abernethy, Population-Environment Balance and the Carrying Capacity Network, have been issuing statements since 2003 accusing FAIR and NumbersUSA of being "reform lite" and "undermining real immigration reform."<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.pioneerfund.org/Controversies.html">www.pioneerfund.org/Controversies.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>Can anyone now PLEASE see why the hell this population reduction talk gets my goat. Not only is this sort of rhetoric used by eugenics and separatist type folks, some of these folks are actually QUOTED approvingly on Ruppert's site. <br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

Re: Ruppert.

Postby anon » Tue Aug 02, 2005 2:18 pm

"Really, in this discussion, there are two kinds of people, those who worry about someone who calls for a group of the "best and brightest" to come up with a plan for world population reduction and those who don't worry about such a person."<br><br>really in this discusion there are two kinds of people. those who want to discuss the topic of the thread [peak oil true or false?] and those who want to hijack the thred change the topic and pretend they didnt. <br><br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
anon
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 7:27 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

re: Ruppert hijacked Peak Oil Thread?

Postby Starman » Tue Aug 02, 2005 3:38 pm

Anon said:<br><br>"really in this discusion there are two kinds of people. those who want to discuss the topic of the thread [peak oil true or false?] and those who want to hijack the thred change the topic and pretend they didnt."<br><br>Right-on -- The very same thought struck me as I was researching Chevron-Peak Oil info and looking at the 'cannibal' reference on Ruppert's site Dreams End suggested -- How did this thread become about Ruppert?<br>More specifically, an insidious obsession on Ruppert's hidden agenda re: genocide, which is assembled through meticulous cherry-picking among reams of posts and info to isolate the most damning indications -- and even then, I see a whole lotta smoke and little of substance.<br><br>Here's the post I had just prepared in reply to Dreams End:<br>**<br><br>Dreams End: OK: I looked at the article on Ruppert's site you recommended -- the cannibal reference;<br><br>Petrocollapse: <br>Can you live without indoor running water?<br><br>Written by Jan Lundberg <br>Culture Change Letter #101 <br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=14&">culturechange.org/cms/ind...iew&id=14&</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br>Itemid=2.html#cont<br><br>The average amount of water consumed per capita in the U.S. is 183 gallons a day (1990; U.S. EPA). This reflects public water supply usage, and it's twice as high in the western U.S. as in the east. One reason is that irrigation uses 81% of water in the nation. Problems with irrigation: huge energy demand for pumping; drawdowns of ancient aquifers, and salinization. <br><br>In Mesopotamia the salinization and deforestation once characterized the beginning of Western Civilization's illustrious march of degrading resources for profit and empire, culminating in today's occupation of Mesopotamia by the U.S. (The serpent is eating its tail.) Clean water is hard to come by in Iraq: 39% of the people don't have it. Deliberate bombing of water treatment and other such facilities has gone on through three U.S. presidents. Petroleum dependence for pumping, when petroleum is lacking in Iraq of all places, is another reason for poor supply. The contamination from petrochemicals and depleted uranium in Iraq is yet another matter for us water piggies in the U.S. to ignore as long as possible. <br><br>Back in the USA: picture the state of mind of ornery citizens if four in ten people had really bad or insufficient water. It will be over 9 in 10 come petrocollapse. This is because of the extreme dependence on massively complex and centralized water supply systems that are run with mainly energy or materials from oil and natural gas. Although most of the systems run on electrical energy, and coal is the largest source of electrical energy, there is still a petroleum infrastructure involved: necessary to keep coal supplies moving and for running any system in the U.S. today. Also, petrocollapse -- System Collapse -- is going to bring down the coal sector as well, although not as fast as bringing down the petroleum-supplied aspect of the grid. <br><br>Although "every effort" will be made to keep water systems pumping and purifying, when supplies of fuel run short and other systems in the economy are affected and come to a standstill, the basics of industrial progress will show their vulnerability to bad planning and overpopulation. [Community solutions, covered later in this essay, may hold some hope for water supply.] <br><br>Water "return flow" means supplies recycled, such as in grey water gathered for the garden, as opposed to lost as in irrigation. Next time you see someone using a gallon of fresh water to wash a spoon, ask the person if that water could be useful for growing tomatoes -- on the balcony if there's no garden. <br><br>The U.S. is going to have to throw certain laws and regulations out the window if people are going to use greywater and take other measures for sustainable living. If for some reason water privatization accelerates before petrocollapse, and price rates jump, the behavior of militant Bolivians could be the model in the U.S.A. The U.S. corporation in question was ejected from Bolivia by protesters, and the nation's official leadership lost almost all its clout. [Later in this column: water politics and water history.] <br><br>U.S. officials in power today will be laughed about in future, if they're lucky. One hears of future hatred for our whole generation, even of everyone alive today -- although that's going too far. <br><br>I try not to pay too much mind to the constant errors and schemes of the wealthy elite and power players. I wish I could say it's because I'm busy writing songs. My main job that I don't like to be distracted from is to point out the main runaway freight trains on the tracks: a collapsing economy and nature batting last. It sure would be nice if the little boys in DC and London (and in most capital cities) would behave themselves, but what can ya do? Vote for a different little boy? It's too late to stop the train wrecks starting to overshadow human drama of the so-called status quo. <br><br>I say "so-called" because the status quo of almost anything is going to soon become history. There's good and bad in that, but those many people and other species that don't make it are not going to appreciate the good aspects of complete collapse. <br><br>Running water will be cut off and "the pump don't work," not because, as Bob Dylan sang "the vandals took the handles." It will be because energy, usually petroleum, is used for pumping water from major sources a long way from and to the now-teeming cities and wasteful factory-farms. Meanwhile, even drawing some cold water out of one's tap means warming the globe due to pumping-energy. Oops, well at least "I turn the tap off when I'm brushing my teeth." <br><br>A more optimistic scenario would include the following techniques, contributed by a reader in rural northern California: <br><br>"People in cities and burbs will eventually turn on a tap and get nothing. But they won't panic if enough folks in the community know and teach about rainwater collection, cisterns, barrels, and tanks, bucket composting toilets, composting one's waste (including urine and shit) into fertilizer, greywater reuse, swales, pavement removal, community gardens on a massive scale. -- etc etc etc. Hell, in-depth permaculture training should be mandatory in every school (if only I were dictator, ahh!). Don't sit in the dark quaking with fear, light an olive oil lamp (I've experimented quite a lot with them, and have written an article on it--easily feasible but a bit messy). Plant olive trees now, line city streets with them, so every neighborhood has a local source of veg oil." <br><br>I did not ask if you could live without indoor lighting; most places have windows and you can go to bed when it gets dark. In the long run, really living off the "fat of the land" (Hah!) of today's stressed ecosystems may mean the lighting source is rare beeswax candles where olive oil is not handy. What's that you say, "Oh how unlikely!"? <br><br>I did not ask you if you could live without food, because you can't. Not for long anyway. You can read my fasting treatise if you like, Culture Change Letter #92 April 8, 2005. Maybe the experience of a long fast will have an unexpected advantage, that of appearing sick and emaciated to those looking for fresh food in the form of human meat. There will be cannibalism for a few months at most, I figure, as the dust settles from petrocollapse. I am not supposed to say this, many readers say, even if it appears certain. <br><br>Then we see the Long Emergency, as James Howard Kunstler calls it, although I don't share his visualizing much industrial activity and consuming based on reliance on coal for major electricity generation. Petrocollapse is going to put a massive, crippling monkeywrench into business-as-usual. The extent and degree of upheaval will be matched by its rapidity and apparent suddenness. It is too late to escape it no matter who were put in charge of economics and planning for oil-guzzling nations. Meanwhile, petrocollapse is close on the horizon but is officially ignored. Must that be the way such a watershed of humanity's experience is dealt with? We could call it The Big Oops. <br><br>"Peak oil" can almost be an interchangeable concept with peak human population. The correlations on a graph, with plummeting extraction of crude and plummeting population size, are worth contemplating. I would like to be wrong about how imminent and sweeping collapse will be. Still, even if I am a bit premature, it's not like the collapse will "just be our children's children's problem" -- that would be too optimistic as to putting the time off into the future. <br><br>As to the potential for large disruption to supply from a relatively small shortfall of petroleum, a recent simulated energy crisis found "It was striking that by taking such small amounts off the market, you could have such dramatic impact" on world oil prices, said Robbie Diamond, the president of Securing America's Future Energy. He participated in the mock crisis on June 23, 2005 in Washington, DC with two former CIA directors and several other former top policy-makers. Drawing from my work at Lundberg Survey where we predicted the Second Oil Shock in 1979, I have been saying for years that the next energy crisis will be triggered by a relatively small shortfall of petroleum. <br>(snip)<br><br>This excessive focusing on what at-most is an offhand reference to cannibalism in a worst-case scenario to the exclusion of the other issues raised in this article related to water-use and the west's reliance on complex systems which are at-risk from disruptions caused by even a small shortfall of petroleum seems to represent your whole project of discreditting Ruppert -- You may recall this thread was about peak oil -- How did it get derailed onto an attack on Ruppert for his thoughts on population pressure? I just don't get it. It's like Ruppert and his site is about NOTHING but 'population reduction.' I guess you'll never understand my point, that the US's energy policy emphasizing it controls and has exclusive access to abundant petroleum supplies has already resulted in ecocide and enormously destructive wars, political interventions supporting ruthless dictators, a wasteful military industry and devastating wars and low-level conflicts, biological and radiation weapons being used, devastating Afghanistan's and Iraq's civil infrastructure, sword-rattling threats on Iran, North Korea, Syria, Lebanon, and even China, the idiotic drug wars and now the War on Terror -- yet all you seem to 'see' is Ruppert's presumed agenda.<br><br>I don't guess there's anything I can say about my concern that your focus seems to be an obsession lacking wide perspective. I'm more convinced than ever that McGowen's obsession on discreditting Ruppert sure looks like classic disinfo. He's sure won a convert in you, eh?<br><br>I've found some interesting articles on Chevron and Oil Industry's position re: peak oil, I'll post on another comment so as to not overly complicate what is already a complex issue/topic.<br><br>Regrdz;<br>Starman <p></p><i></i>
Starman
 
Posts: 410
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 3:57 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: re: Ruppert hijacked Peak Oil Thread?

Postby robertdreed » Tue Aug 02, 2005 6:49 pm

"in this discusion there are two kinds of people. those who want to discuss the topic of the thread [peak oil true or false?] and those who want to hijack the thred change the topic and pretend they didnt."<br><br>Since I'm one of those with off-topic posts in this thread, I thought that I'd apologize to "anon", who was sufficiently disconcerted by it all that a protest was registered.<br><br>I had no malice aforethought. <br><br>Carry on...not a bad debate, for non-professional "educated laypersons" considering scientific/technological questions out of their areas of expertise. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 8/2/05 4:57 pm<br></i>
robertdreed
 
Posts: 1560
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 11:14 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

threadjack

Postby Dreams End » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:17 pm

Sorry if this seemed to be a threadjack. Here's why I thought it wasn't but I'll shut up about it after this.<br><br>1. Thread was about whether peak oil is real.<br><br>2. I suggested that Peak Oil is either wholly wrong or overexaggerated. Actually, proldic did most of that...I just grabbed a link or two to suggest why calling Peak Oil a "consensus opinion" might not be accurate. That seems on topic.<br><br>3. I suggested some reasons that some people were putting forward peak oil that made me nervous. <br><br>4. I focused on Ruppert because he's the most prominent. BELIEVE ME, you don't want me to start pulling in other examples of what other people are suggesting we do about peak oil. I think I saw the word Euthanasia tossed around rather cavalierly on a peak oil discussion site I just happened to click on. I intentionally restrained my conversation to Ruppert because he is more influential than some of these other sites.<br><br>5. I have suggested that the reason Peak Oil is coming to the forefront is not it's validity (at the very least, not in its doomsday variety) but because of other agendas. People who preach population reduction simply have some other agendas. It's just bewildering to me that, given the nature of this site, that doesn't register. If I had suggested "population reduction" was a plan of some Rockefeller funded site, I doubt anyone would have even blinked. <br><br>6. As for McGowan's "obsession"...dude, you have GOT to read the whole exchange. McGowan posted one article....ONE and Ruppert, preceded by, I think, Larry Chin, charged in guns ablazin'. Ruppert kept challenging McGowan to some silly private debate with three judges and they each had to put up a thousand dollars as some kinda bet or something. It was bizarre, over the top and typical of Ruppert's style. My own "obsession" really has come from my complete inability to get my concerns across as they never seem to be responded to. No one seems to have any concern that doomsday scenarios might be being put forward in various ways in order to set the stage for nastiness. <br><br>Therefore, I concede! I couldn't continue this discussion from a technical standpoint...and it's an important issue. All I have to go on is the trustworthiness or lack thereof of the messengers. Seemed relevant to me.<br><br>As I said before, we'll know soon enough. Thanksgiving 2005 is just around the corner. <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

re:sufficiently disconcerted by it all ../.

Postby hanshan » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:18 pm

<br><br><br>hear, hear robert<br><br>the unofficial hijacked thread award for<br>humor & aplomb in the face of madness:<br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://www.ftheworld.com/images/Orange%202.jpg" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--><br><br><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="color:blue;font-family:comic sans ms;font-size:xx-small;">carry on, good sir<br><br><br>....<br><br></span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <p></p><i></i>
hanshan
 
Posts: 1673
Joined: Fri Apr 22, 2005 5:04 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: re: Ruppert hijacked Peak Oil Thread?

Postby anon » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:31 pm

robertdreed - off-topic is one thing. hijack is another. and misrepresentation of what posters are "really" concerned or not concerned about is where i cry foul. i got no problem with off-topic posts like yours that dont stray into another galaxy. they can be intersting. i got a problem with hijack by someone who wants to be seen as a hero fighting to save the world from a menance the rest of us are too small minded and selfish to see. especially when he wants credit for saving us too. and especiallt when he pretends that was the real issue all along.<br><br><br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
anon
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 7:27 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

Re: threadjack

Postby wolf pauli » Tue Aug 02, 2005 7:56 pm

<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>we'll know soon enough. Thanksgiving 2005 is just around the corner.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br>In other words, you don't get Deffeyes' point (already quoted) that "It's a round-topped peak, so it doesn't just crash the day after Thanksgiving." You said somewhere that you don't get Hubbert curves or <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>any</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> curves; I see what you mean. For others, I'd repeat my recommendation of Deffeyes' excellent, not overly technical book. <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
wolf pauli
 
Posts: 122
Joined: Wed May 18, 2005 8:20 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

I withdraw my apology

Postby Dreams End » Tue Aug 02, 2005 11:49 pm

Not that anyone cares. <br><br>Here's what I noticed when I went back and reread this thread. This thread was started by Proldic. His first post was short and was mainly a link. A page or so goes by. proldic has some weird html troubles but starts a very long multipart post.<br><br>That post is completely about how peak oil is being used as an excuse for a variety of really nasty things. It even mentions "dieoff.com" which I spent some time discussing. Here's one quote from proldic's post, just to jog your memory.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>The End of Suburbia movie, websites dieoff.com, and books like Power Down are part of the same “fear-control” mechanism - now the threat is our suburban lifestyle and over-breeding third-worlders. Behind it, they are pushing for another radical depopulation of the 3rd world, the “balkanization” of America, the wholesale downsizing of the aspirations of the US working-class, the death of the “middle-class dream”, the ghetto-ization of entire lower middle-class neighborhoods, and the purposeful neglect of state and national government to provide for the needs of the masses of people.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Specifically, in his multipart post he questions peak oil's basic validity, discusses the manipulation of the oil market for political ends, discusses peak oil and overpopulation theories as justification poverty and genocide. He specifically mentions Garrett Hardin, whom I explained was funded by the Pioneer Fund:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>“ So we have US biologists such as Garrett Hardin counselling against famine relief so that starvation, ‘nature's last and most terrible remedy’, can reduce the population to carrying capacity, and sections of the Earth First movement hailing the AIDS epidemic as a potentially providential population control mechanism….”<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Indeed, this was the thesis of his entire multipart post. Disagree if you want, that's what this is all about. But exactly where do you people get off calling me a threadjacker? Blame proldic if you want, but it's his freaking post. I simply provided additional evidence. I focused on Ruppert because he's the most visible among the activist/9/11 crowds and has a book that is selling quite well. But I also brought in associated thinkers such as Hardin and the always lovely Abernathy. The idea I was trying to get across is the same one proldic was expressing. <br><br>So, since I find, as a jury of one, that I am on topic...it's time to deal with the drive by sniping of anon.<br><br>Let's start here:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr> how did fish get in this barrel? and why am i holding maggrwaggrs gun? with apologies to maggrwaggr....<br><br><br>Quote:<br><br>I find a great lack of logical thinking when it comes to those who pooh-pooh the idea of Peak Oil.<br><br>Okay, let's play find the logic.<br><br>Quote:<br><br>It took us 125 years to use up the first trillion barrels of oil.<br><br>At current rates, we will use the second trillion in the next 30.<br><br>That's called exponential growth, and it continues.<br><br><br>Assumption one: the supply of oil in the ground is not enough to keep up with this demand for at least long enough to transition to other energy forms.<br><br>Assumption two: We can know, with reasonable certainty, how much oil is in the ground at present waiting to be discovered and withdrawn.<br><br>Assumption three: Oil is a finite resource. I am not qualified to engage that argument, but it is a logical assumption you've made and is disputed by some.<br><br><br>dude, this is a game you DO NOT want to play. the quote from maggrwaggr made NONE of those assumptions.<br><br>assumption one? as far as the quote goes we can "transition to other energy forms" tomorrow. im not saying thats maggrwaggrs opinion. theres just nothing in the quote that excludes it. that means the quote doesnt make the assumption.<br><br>assumption two? you dont need to "know, with reasonable certainty, how much oil is in the ground at present" to say it took 125 years to use a trillion barrels and well use another trillion in the next 30. the one things got zilch to do with the other.<br><br>assumption three? it took 125 years to use a trillion barrels and well use another trillion in the next 30, therefore "oil is a finite resource"? oils finite alright but thts got zilch to do with the quote.<br><br>dude! what planet you come from? and how many more bertrand russells they got there? pipe down and hit the books.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>Well anon, the post was about "Peak oil" as this is a "Peak oil" thread. He did not state the conclusion explicitly because he assumed anyone could understand it implicitly. The conclusion was, "we are running out of oil." The points I was responding to were his premises for that conclusion. If this were not the case, he would have posted this helpful information in the "interesting facts about oil useage" thread. <br><br>Now this:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>really in this discusion there are two kinds of people. those who want to discuss the topic of the thread [peak oil true or false?] and those who want to hijack the thred change the topic and pretend they didnt.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br> <br>Unless you are suggesting proldic hijacked his own thread, you should seriously see a doctor about having that nasty attitude removed. It can be done, now. they have clinics and everything.<br><br>As I mentioned, go read Proldic's ENTIRE post...in all it's parts. his thesis was the same one I was interested in discussing. It's unusual that he's not here defending his own posts, but I'm guessing he was enjoying watching me get beat up on in this thread! Fair enough.<br><br>And as for this:<br><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>robertdreed - off-topic is one thing. hijack is another. and misrepresentation of what posters are "really" concerned or not concerned about is where i cry foul. i got no problem with off-topic posts like yours that dont stray into another galaxy. they can be intersting. i got a problem with hijack by someone who wants to be seen as a hero fighting to save the world from a menance the rest of us are too small minded and selfish to see. especially when he wants credit for saving us too. and especiallt when he pretends that was the real issue all along.<br><hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br><br>I'm not sure why you suddently got fixated on me here, but you are really the only one who has been obnoxious. And the idea that you think someone posts on a bulletin board with the idea of "saving the world" is a little, well, odd. You've contributed nothing to this discussion but to attack me. I mean, it's good to have a hobby but....<br><br>I'm not sure what happened in this thread. Somehow, I got blamed for hijacking a thread by discussing the exact point of it. I'll assume, except for anon, there was no malice intended. In fact, having gotten caught up in my own thoughts, I, myself, had actually forgotten about the content of proldic's multipart post.<br><br>I'm off this topic now. I just thought that I felt unduly criticized here.<br><br><br><br>Special note to wolf: I'm sorry for not including my <sarcasm> tags when I write. I'll be sure to do so from now on so you don't miss it.<br><br><br><br> <p></p><i></i>
Dreams End
 

re: I withdraw my apology

Postby anon » Wed Aug 03, 2005 3:58 am

"This thread was started by Proldic.....That post is completely about how peak oil is being used as an excuse for a variety of really nasty things."<br><br>ok. so you disagree with the poster who said<br><br>"Thread was about whether peak oil is real."<br><br>even though that poster was you. <br><br>"I couldn't continue this discussion from a technical standpoint"<br><br>you said it. showed it. and concluded by saying you were really just being sarcastic about it. dude recovred his technical skills. just like that<br><br>decide which one of you you want to be. then well talk.<br><br><br><!--EZCODE IMAGE START--><img src="http://ancientroadpublications.home.att.net/Janus.GIF" style="border:0;"/><!--EZCODE IMAGE END--> <p></p><i></i>
anon
 
Posts: 106
Joined: Tue May 10, 2005 7:27 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

US Foreign Policy and Peak Oil

Postby Starman » Wed Aug 03, 2005 6:57 am

Article Links and excerpts showing that the US's post-war foreign policy has always been tied to the premise of oil as a key strategic resource of limited supply that the US is willing to go to enormous extremes to control --and which has enormous consequences for the world, as the US has provoked conflicts and sold arms to unstable governments with severe human rights violations and supported many dozens of autocratic regimes, as well as planning and supporting coups and propping-up repressive regimes and waging genocide and subverting genuine democratic movements -- all for the sake of protecting access to foreign oil. <br>Starman<br>***<br>General Articles on US Economic Expansion - Empire? - Global ...<br>Foreign Policy in Focus believes links between the war and corporate ... As Threats to Oil Facilities Rise, US Military Becomes Protector (June 30, 2004) ... www.globalpolicy.org/empire/economy/generalindex.htm <br>--excerpt--<br>’Matt Simmons Bombshell: The Impending Decline of Saudi Oil Output (June 27, 2005) <../../security/natres/oil/2005/0627saudipeak.htm><br>The Bush administration and US oil experts base their energy strategy on one simple mantra: that Saudi Arabia’s oil fields can satisfy rising demand. But author and oil investor Matt Simmons refutes these claims soundly, arguing instead that Saudi Arabian oil output will inevitably decline in the near future. In this book review, Michael Klare warns that no other country has the reserves to match Saudi oil production. Ignoring such signs could fuel conflict and further devastate the world economy. (TomDispatch) <br><br>What Drives Support for This Torturer (May 16, 2005) <2005/0516uzbek.htm><br>Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray argues that US oil and gas interests in Central Asia steer Washington’s strong support for the repressive Uzbek government. In 2002, the US gave $200 million in military and security aid to Uzbekistan, a country where human rights violations and torture are widespread. (Guardian) <br>The Intensifying Global Struggle for Energy (May 9, 2005) <2005/0509energy.htm><br><br>With booming global energy consumption and decreasing world supplies of oil and natural gas, the international competition for energy intensifies. This TomDispatch article warns that these increasing pressures on energy sources could provoke new conflicts and wars in the near future. <br><br>Ring Them Bells (May 2005) <../../security/issues/sudan/2005/0500gosh.htm><br>This article draws attention to Washington’s oil interests in Sudan and the motives of proponents of a US intervention. President George Bush’s close ties with Sudan’s intelligence chief Salah Abdallah Gosh expose US hypocrisy over what the Bush administration has labeled genocide in Darfur. Although Gosh’s own government has accused him of directing attacks against civilians, Bush has forged close ties with him in the “fight against terrorism.” Gosh, described as “Osama’s designated minder in the 1990’s” could become a useful US ally, enabling Washington to chase oil profits in the name of humanitarian intervention. (Moscow Times) <br><br>Oil, Geopolitics, and the Coming War with Iran (April 11, 2005) <../intervention/iran/economy/2005/0411bloodoiliran.htm><br>Iran’s vast oil and gas reserves will play a large factor in the “world’s future energy equation” and dictate the Bush administration’s Iran policy, says author Michael Klare. Competitors China, India and Japan have all tapped into Iranian resources, but US firms still do not have access. While the US government may have evidence to support their claims over Iran’s nuclear capabilities, Klare warns that Washington used such an excuse in Iraq. These geopolitical oil concerns, he says, will likely make Iran the next target for the US. (TomDispatch) <br><br>Crude Politics: the United States, China and the Race for Oil Security (April 1, 2005) <2005/0401crudepolitics.pdf><br>The need for oil security has shaped historical events such as Pearl Harbor, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait and other foreign interventions. The Atlantic Monthly contends China’s increasingly common oil deals with “rogue states” such as Iran pose a new challenge to US economic power. This article and map demonstrate the competing interests between the US and China, warning that the two countries could “come to blows” if the cost and demand for oil continue to increase. <br><br>Why Wolfowitz? (March 17, 2005) <2005/0317whywolfowitz.htm><br>The tradition of the US choosing the World Bank President has allowed US corporations to have privileged access to developing countries, and the US has constantly fought efforts to democratize the world institution in order to maintain global economic power. Jim Vallette of the Institute for Policy Studies demonstrates that Paul Wolfowitz, the Bush administration’s latest choice for the top spot, is “steeped in blood and oil” and will only further increase US control over oil reserves. (TomPaine) <br><br>Green Imperialism: Wolfowitz, Wars and the Wearing Down of Sovereign States (March 17, 2005) <2005/0317greenimperialism.htm><br>The World Bank, the main organizer of development funds, can “make or break nations,” and US President George Bush’s nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as the Bank’s President signals yet another move of US strategic interest. This Common Dreams author believes “the World Bank is an indispensable tool of foreign policy that this administration wants to employ to the fullest extent to break the sovereign will of the third world,” by withholding aid to countries that fail to align themselves with US policy. <br><br>Playing the Democracy Card (March 17, 2005) <2005/0317democracycard.htm><br>Author Dilip Hiro draws upon examples of US involvement in the Middle East from the 1930s to the present, demonstrating that the US promotes democracy only for economic, military or strategic interests—such as oil or presence of US military bases. The obvious double standard, “blatant myopia” in Hiro’s terms, parallels past US foreign policy in Central and South America as well. (TomDispatch) <br><br>A Game As Old As Empire (February 16, 2005) <2005/0216oldgame.htm><br>In an AlterNet interview, John Perkins declares that Washington’s perpetual desire to control oil resources led the US to intervene in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Iraq, and also caused the 9/11 attacks. Pointing out that several US corporations beat out countries on the world’s largest economies list, Perkins laments that Washington has gone against the principles of democracy by overtaking foreign oil industries. “Oil is a curse to the world,” he says, yet too few US citizens understand how or why. <br><br>The Axis of Oil (January 31, 2005) <2005/0131oilaxis.htm><br>Access to cheap oil has often dominated and given leverage to US international policy. But as Washington’s attention remains focused on the Middle East and the Iraq insurgency, India and China have crept up on traditional US oil strongholds worldwide. This In These Times article warns of an inevitable “clash” as China and India let their energy needs dictate ties with Russia as well as Iran and other countries with strained US relations. <br><br>Oil, Guns and Money (September 2, 2004) <../analysis/2004/0902yeomans.htm><br>In an excerpt from Oil: Anatomy of an Industry the author argues that US troop redeployment is not about "fighting terrorism" and "ensuring global stability" but "making sure no one messes with American access to global energy resources." Considering the unstable nature of oil-rich regions and a less-than-favorable international climate, America may get the oil it needs, but at what cost? (Salon.com) <br><br>Deadlock in Georgia: An Incremental Gain for Russia (August 16, 2004) <../analysis/2004/0816deadlock.htm><br>The United States has established a military presence in the former Soviet republic of Georgia to protect its access to the vital oil resources of the Caucasus. Conflict over the region's energy supplies could eventually lead to overt confrontation between the US and Russia, but in the short term the rival powers seem content with preserving the status quo. (Power and Interest News Report) <br><br>US and France Begin a Great Game in Africa (August 11, 2004) <../../security/natres/oil/2004/0811competition.htm><br>France and the United States have engaged in a growing competition for favors in oil- rich North and West Africa. Both Paris and Washington are supporting African military dictators while seeking access to their natural resources. According to many analysts, “over the next five years a quarter of non-Gulf oil on the world market will come from sub-Saharan Africa.” (Inter Press Service) <br><br>Reinventing US Foreign Aid at Millennium Challenge Corp. (August 10, 2004) <../../socecon/develop/oda/2004/usaid.htm><br>The US takes a new approach in foreign aid through the Millennium Challenge Corp., an enterprise combining Wall Street savvy and conservative ideology to regulate and monitor impoverished countries’ use of US aid money. To receive foreign aid, countries must “qualify” in accordance with strict criteria. (Washington Post) <br><br>As Threats to Oil Facilities Rise, US Military Becomes Protector (June 30, 2004) <../../security/natres/oil/2004/0630protector.htm><br>Claiming to protect offshore oil wells from sabotage by terrorists, the United States assumed the role of “oil police” in the Persian Gulf. The Wall Street Journal argues that the US Coast Guard’s presence in the Gulf is only one part of a “globe-spanning and open-ended US campaign” to guard the world’s oil resources, a campaign that involves the work of US military forces in the Caucusus, Columbia and Yemen. <br><br>Dumping Crude (March 12, 2004) <../../security/natres/oil/2004/0312dumping.htm><br>This article argues that US insatiable need for oil from oil-rich regions, and its desire to protect its self-interest, have contributed to the political instability and conflicts in these regions, in turn fueling global terrorism. (TomPaine.com) <br><br>Conservatives Use Oil to Keep Heat on Mideast (March 9, 2004) <../../security/natres/oil/2004/0309heat.htm><br>In order to secure its long-term oil interests and to weaken the Middle East's oil dominance, Washington conspired to launch a "cutting world oil prices campaign" and to steer away from the region's oil. This article argues such a campaign could eliminate the possibility of an Arab oil "threat" to the US and therefore strengthen US hegemony in the region. (Inter Press Service) <br><br>Storm Brews Over US Trade Policies (February 16, 2004) <2004/0216storm.htm> <br>Former World Bank Chief Economist Joseph Stiglitz suggests that when it comes to international trade, the US commitment is not to free trade, but instead to “getting other countries to give access to American producers to their markets.” (BBC) <br><br>In Quest for Energy Security, US Makes New Bet: on Democracy (February 4, 2004) <../../security/natres/oil/2004/0204quest.htm><br>With US companies trying to secure long-term energy supplies, Washington has changed its Middle East strategy from maintaining political stability in the region to changing the political system in individual countries. The US uses the war on terror as an excuse to put “reliable” regime into place, as the case of Iraq has illustrated. (Wall Street Journal) <br>********<br>Africa Action: Africa Policy Outlook 2004<br>In the past year, the Bush Administration’s foreign policy priorities have ... value in terms of oil and access to military bases, and describing US-Africa ... www.africaaction.org/resources/ outlook/2004policyoutlook.php <br>--excerpt--<br>In 2004, despite the fact that two African Americans occupy both of the major foreign policy posts in the U.S. government, Washington will not give Africa the attention it deserves and requires. The U.S.’ Africa policy will continue to be characterized by a duplicity that has emerged as the principal hallmark of the Bush Administration approach to the continent. On the one hand, Africa’s priorities are being marginalized and undermined by a U.S. foreign policy preoccupied with other parts of the world. On the other hand, the Bush White House is callously manipulating Africa, claiming to champion the continent’s needs with its compassionate conservative agenda. <br><br>In the past year, the Bush Administration’s foreign policy priorities have negatively impacted upon Africa, both directly and indirectly. The U.S. preoccupation with the “war on terrorism”, alleged weapons of mass destruction, and Washington’s military misadventure in Iraq, has hurt Africa directly in economic and political terms. The White House has also turned Africa into geo-strategic real estate, defining the continent’s value in terms of oil and access to military bases, and describing U.S.-Africa relations once more in a Cold War era model. <br><br>More broadly, to the extent that U.S. actions undermine the very notion of multilateralism, they are directly at odds with Africa’s interests. Africa’s priorities – the fight against HIV/AIDS and poverty – are being ignored, as U.S. unilateralism threatens the principle of international cooperation. <br><br>At the same time, in the past year, the Bush Administration has sought to place Africa at the center of its compassionate conservative agenda. Starting with the 2003 State of the Union promise on AIDS, and continuing with the President’s first trip to Africa in July, this Administration has misled the people of the U.S., and the people of Africa. It claims to be taking action on African priorities, while in reality it is demonstrating the most negative leadership, masking broken promises and harmful policies with high-sounding rhetoric. <br>. . .<br>Oil & Strategic Military Relations<br>Under the Bush Administration, the real priorities in U.S. Africa policy are oil and strategic military relations, and this will continue to be the case in 2004. The Bush Administration will continue to deal with Africa on its own terms, and its policies will be driven by its interests in these areas in the context of the “war on terrorism”. <br><br>In recent years, the U.S. has become increasingly interested in African oil resources as an alternative to the Middle East, and the U.S. now defines African oil as a strategic national interest. The U.S. preoccupation with “energy security” makes certain African countries – like Nigeria, Angola and Gabon – important sources of oil. At present, sub-Saharan Africa supplies almost one-fifth of U.S. oil imports. The National Intelligence Council projects that U.S. oil supplies from West Africa will increase to 25% by 2015. This would surpass U.S. oil imports from the entire Persian Gulf. Studies indicate that the greatest increase in oil production globally in the next decade is likely to come from West Africa, and the U.S. is following this trend closely. In 2004, U.S. policies will continue to further its plans to secure access to this oil supply.<br><br>Increased U.S. interest in projecting military force into the Persian Gulf has led to a massive increase in the U.S. military presence in the Horn of Africa, and elsewhere. The Bush Administration is concerned with the counter-terrorism efforts of African countries, to the extent that they provide security for U.S. interests. In June 2003, Bush announced a new $100 million initiative to help East African countries increase their counter-terrorism efforts. In 2004, U.S. pre-occupation with security in Africa is sure to continue. While it remains uncertain whether or not the U.S. will establish a military base on the island of Sao Tome & Principe, as was rumored last year, it is certain that U.S. relations with Africa will become increasingly militarized, with a focus on energy security and terrorism concerns.<br><br>The trend that has become apparent since 2001, with these two agendas – oil security and counter-terrorism – forming the backbone of U.S. Africa policy under the Bush Administration, will be further reinforced in 2004.<br>(end excerpt)<br>****<br>The Dirty little War for Oil & Commerce<br>Foreign policy is made by default to private military consultants motivated ...<br>into a Transamazonian oil grab represent the darkest side of the US economy: ...<br>www.unii.net/dirtylittlewar.html <br><br>DRUGS - The Dirty little War for Oil & Commerce <br>The United States imports more oil from Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador than from all Persian Gulf countries combined. Thousands of Amazonian Indigenous people and peasant farmers are being driven off their land. -- And U.S taxpayers and consumers are paying the bill. <br><br>The main purpose of the United States Military in the Amazon is to secure access to oil. Without the "black gold" the U.S. economy would be totally unsustainable, living standards would plummet, the dollar would weaken, the available investment and loan capital would shrink and Washington would not be able to sustain its global empire. <br><br>Many transnational companies are leading the fight for U.S. military intervention in the Amazon nations enabling them to secure control of all future Amazonian oil fields. Transnational oil companies are eager to secure their exploration and production activities with U.S. military might, <br><br>Colombia's petroleum production today rivals Kuwait's on the eve of the Gulf War. And recently Colombia announced its largest oil discovery to date, with many other potential lucrative fields marked for exploration and exploitation across the entire northwest Amazon region. <br><br>Colombia is the world's third-largest recipient of U.S. military assistance. In 1996, BP Amoco and Occidental joined Enron Corporation, a Houston-based energy firm, and other corporations to form the U.S. -Colombia Business Partnership. Since then, backed by hefty oil and defense industry donations to political candidates, the partnership has lobbied hard for increased military intervention. They not only pushed for Plan Colombia, but have urged to extend military aid to the entire northwest Amazon region in order to "augment security for oil development operations." <br><br>The paramilitary phenomenon... is the spearhead of Plan Colombia: This is a terror tactic. The US, with the help of the ruling elites & governments, is waging yet another dirty war in Latin America to create territorial control and to control the civilian population. The US envisages a new inter-oceanic canal through the north of Colombia, to bypass the congested Panama canal. Its companies have identified billions of dollars' worth of oil and mineral deposits. So, to insure control of these resources, soldiers and paramilitaries have been murdering community leaders and expelling local people. The places identified for economic development by Plan Colombia are the places now being savaged by the paramilitaries. <br> <br>U.S. “counter-drug operations” in the Andean region have bloomed into a lucrative money making campaign that today brings about $1 billion a year to the private firms that take on the role of the U.S. military intervention in the Andes “drug war”. Far from eliminating drug production, this war will only make it worse. Plan Colombia funds the aerial spraying of coca and opium fields with Roundup, the broad-spectrum herbicide patented by Monsanto. Roundup destroys almost everything it touches, wiping out legal crops alongside illegal ones, poisoning rivers, shattering one of the most fragile and biodiverse forest ecosystems on Earth, precipitating both acute and chronic human diseases. It is the Agent Orange of America's new Vietnam. (Agent Orange, interestingly, was also a Monsanto product.) Now the US administration wants to take this ecocide a step further, by spraying the jungle with a genetically engineered fungus, fusarium oxysporum, a mycoherbicide which produces deadly toxins. <br><br>The “drug war” is a subsidy from U.S. taxpayers to U.S. firms to provide support for third world dictators who dutifully remove all democratic opposition to transnational resource extraction. <br><br> It can't be a drug program. If it was a drug program, it wouldn't be done this way, especially when the Colombian & Peruvian military are involved with drug and arms trafficking. <br><br> The Colombian & Peruvian military are involved with narco-trafficking and even the American army is. Just a year or so ago, they had to pull out the Colonel who was running the U.S. counterinsurgency program there because his wife was caught narco-trafficking. You just can't be in the elite in that system unless you're part of this. The military is in it and the paramilitaries are in control of a large part of it. <br><br>They have very harshly extended support for the whole counterinsurgency and repression programs using paramilitaries and terror against what used to be called "known Communist proponents" - which in the Latin American context means….anybody: peasants, human rights workers, priests, anybody who is out of line. <br><br> This has all interacted with the ongoing peasant uprisings and guerilla movements of not only Colombia, but Ecuador & Peru as well, which all have long histories of struggle for the rights to their land. And now in Colombia, the insurgency is out of control. FARC, the main guerilla movement, is very big and all over the place and even runs a large part of the country. You can argue about what this is, but officially, it is a kind of social democratic program which is enough to scare the daylights out of the ruling Colombian business community and the United States investment groups. So, they naturally impose a type of counterinsurgency program, and since you can't blame it on the Russians anymore, it's drugs. <br> <br>In Peru for 10 years the human rights movement was completely shut down by the harsh “anti-terrorist” measures of the dictatorial regime of Fujimori, and in Ecuador the emerging strength and social support for the Indigenous and peasant groups seeking legitimate rights to their land has the U.S. rapidly expanding Plan Colombia into “The Andean Initiative”, in an attempt to quickly squash out Ecuador’s citizen based Democratic uprising. <br><br>The Indigenous people & peasants in the drug producing areas and even the leadership of the FARC are saying 'look, we prefer to do alternative crops but we need some support. The only thing we can make money on is drugs. We don't want to produce drugs.' <br><br> One way to deal with that is to provide support for alternative crop programs. The U.S. is providing nothing. It's providing some, but not in the areas with guerilla control. In the areas of guerilla control not a penny goes to alternative crop program. <br><br>So, they were driven into drug production. <br><br>That's a consequence of the U.S. drug policy and is one of the main reasons why the whole land is blowing up. And then of course, the Colombian military, trained and funded by the U.S., comes in and kills everyone. <br><br>Private firms take on the role of U.S. military in Andes “drug war”. <br><br> As U.S. efforts to reduce “drug trafficking” out of the Andes escalate, more U.S. supplied equipment is flowing into the region and more Americans are becoming involved -- and occasionally coming under fire. But because of the growing privatization of U.S. military efforts abroad, their presence is often unseen. Increasingly, the U.S. government is contracting or licensing private American firms to carry out quasi-military functions in a practice known as ``outsourcing,'' a practice that critics brand as the hiring of mercenaries. <br>Congress and the American people don't want any servicemen killed overseas, so if contractors want to risk their lives, they get the job. <br>Opponents emphasize the dangers of carrying out foreign policy through private firms, claiming it is fraught with waste and conducted largely outside Congressional supervision or the public's view. There is little or no accountability in this process of outsourcing. This is a way of funding secret wars with taxpayers' money that has gotten us into a Vietnam-like conflict. Most of those involved in outsourcing know it is marred by occasional kickbacks and padding of bills sent to Washington, as well as back-scratching between firms and U.S. officials who supervise their contracts but hope to land a job with the firms after government retirement. <br><br> There's a lot of taxpayers money being wasted on counter-narcotics, and every kind of contractor and business executive imaginable is trying to get a shot at the feeding frenzy. Money, indeed, is what attracts the private companies, <br><br>There is just too much money coming down the pike to control this thing, <br><br>Privatization is a way of going around Congress and not telling the public. Foreign policy is made by default to private military consultants motivated by bottom-line profits, The Department of Defense is now estimated to have 700,000 full and part-time contractors on its rolls. <br><br>This is done primarily because the U.S. lacks popular support at home to commit military forces for these kinds of things <br><br>It is simply an attempt by the executive branch to escape Congressional supervision of the growing U.S. involvement in South America where the civil war in Colombia has claimed some 35,000 lives in the past decade, and during the same time period Peru lost 30,000 civilians to the fanaticisms of the U.S. supported Dictator and his U.S. trained fugitive spymaster; Fujumori & Montesinos, who between them managed to steal 2 billion U.$ dollars during their reign of economic terror which imposed deep poverty upon the Peruvian citizens and received praiseworthy support from the international community of transnational business magnates. <br><br>Countless U.S. firms are actively lobbying the U.S. government and giving hefty campaign contributions across the board to the Executive branch, the whole Senate and all of Congress in order to procure lucrative contracts in the National Disgrace known as Military Corporate Welfare. <br><br>A few of the Beneficiaries of US Government corporate welfare through Plan Colombia (Andean Initiative) are: <br> <br>United Technologies Corporation * Sikorsky Aircraft * Bell Helicopter * Textron * Honeywell* Kaman Aerospace Corporation* Northrop Grumman Corporation * Airborne Reconnaissance * Schweizer Aircraft Corporation * Ayres Corporation * DynCorp * Military Professional Resources Inc * Lockheed – Martin * DuPont * Monsanto * Agricultural Biological Control * Occidental Petroleum * Texaco * BP * Catepillar * Bechtel * Pfizer * AirScan * Aviation Development Corp. * Enron * <br><br>These new funding endeavors to expand the war into a Transamazonian oil grab represent the darkest side of the U.S. economy: <br><br>Blackhawk Helicopters * Huey II helicopters * T53 high altitude performance Engines * K-MAX heavylift helicopters * RC-7 Airborne Reconnaissance Low Multifunction aircraft * SA 2-37A surveillance aircraft * Glyphosate * herbicide * fusarium oxysporum, a mycoherbicide * early radar warning systems * S2R T-65 herbicide spray aircraft * Gattling guns* fumigation services * maintenance and support for drug crop eradication flights* Police training * Private military companies contracted to train troops * <br><br>This type of corporate welfare translates into: <br><br>The death of our earth’s miraculously diverse ethnic heritage, <br>The destruction of Biodiversity and <br>The displacement of countless peaceable communities. <br><br>For Americans it means “Jobs” and the continuation of a lifestyle known as the “American Way” <br><br> The U,S, and its corporate sponsors are desperately seeking ways to make the US invasion look like something rather different. <br><br> In other words, the US administrations have been desperately seeking political credibility ever since they initiated their plan, the participating governments are trying to disguise a program of state terror as humanitarian aid. <br><br>Mass killings, ecocide and the seizure of resources do not have a financial solution, but a political one. You cannot buy human rights, least of all from a scheme that's responsible for their abuse. The only help foreign intervention can offer the South American people is intense diplomatic pressure, exposing the atrocities of their governments and armies, denouncing the schemes which coordinates them and isolates its supporters. Instead, U.S. taxpayers have chosen to collaborate. At its best, the taxpayer funding is a waste of money. <br><br>At its worst, it amounts to complicity in crimes against humanity. How many of us would have agreed that our money should be used like this? <br> <br>PETROVIOLENCE <br> Transnational extraction of natural resources from the Third World promotes not economic and political stability, but violence and lawlessness. From Indonesia to Nigeria to the Amazon, mining and oil drilling have spurred the growth of leftist insurgencies, criminal gangs and rightist militias bestowing the unwanted gift of premature death upon millions of human beings while guaranteeing that the U.S. economy sustain its global empire for a few years more. <br><br> <p></p><i></i>
Starman
 
Posts: 410
Joined: Sun May 15, 2005 3:57 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

behind the consensus

Postby Sokolova » Wed Aug 03, 2005 11:48 am

Firstly, can I point out that neither scientific 'consensus' nor 'unanimity' can rationally be used as an <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>a priori </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->argument in favour of anything. Scientific consenus has a long and bewilderingly embarrassing history of being hugely and horribly - and often very noisily - wrong. In fact it sometimes appears that the unanimity of the consensus has a tendency to increase in inverse proportion to the solidity of the data supporting it. So it would be a very brave person indeed who tried to invoke consensus alone as a reason per se for accepting a given proposition.<br><br>More particularly, does anyone know how much consensus there truly is on this issue and indeed on the related one of global warming?<br><br>Do we have figures? Or have we just been told 'there is a consensus'?<br><br>Secondly, I have not researched peak oil, but I <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>have </em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->looked into global warming, and my understanding is (and I do speak as a Green here and not as a spokesperson for the petro-chemical industry) that the evidence in favour of anthropogenic CO2 induced climate change is far less convincing on close analysis than its presentation in the popular press can lead one to believe (I won't go into the details here, but perhaps I could start a different thread for that discussion).<br>I think it would be fair to say that the case for serious anthropogenic climate change has yet to be made, though it is hard to perceive that through the fierce slant placed on the issue in the media.<br><br>I am therefore open to the possibility at least that the same may be true with the issue of peak oil.<br><br>Has anyone seen the Emperor's New Clothes website?<br>There's an article here:<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/oil-1.htm">emperors-clothes.com/articles/jared/oil-1.htm</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br>that suggests the US presence in the mid-east has nothing to do with oil and everything to do with a political agenda to crush Russia.<br><br>I don't know if I believe this, but it is a well-reasoned point of view that needs to be considered in this discussion I think.<br><br>Thirdly - I think it is legitimate to ask <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>why</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> climate change and peak oil are receiving ever-growing publicity?<br><br>Let's not be naive.The media is tame. It reports only what it is told to report. It isn't putting these issues out there out of social responsibility. So, why climate change? why peak oil?<br><br>The question of why they are being so heavily reported, and why (in the case of climate change at least), the counter-evidence is all but ignored, is enmeshed with the other questions and can't be put aside. if both these issues are even potentially being used for social control purposes, then this must make us look behind the 'consensus' even more searchingly mustn't it?<br><br> Ellie <p></p><i></i>
Sokolova
 
Posts: 83
Joined: Thu Jul 21, 2005 2:20 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)

PreviousNext

Return to Energy Issues

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests