Clueless

As my readers know, I have been concerned about the Fossil Fuel Depletion Crisis for sometime. What has been old news on the internet, is starting to hit the main stream. Last night I watched an amazing movie on FOX/FX called Oil Storm. … Today, I received notification that Matthew Simmons’ new book Twilight in the Desert has shipped, and I am currently reading Richard Heinberg’s Powerdown, it makes an excellent companion piece to Kunstler’s The Long Emergency. Seriously, this is stuff every human needs to know.

Cluelessness over the the world energy / economic predicament fogs the public discussion more than ever as we approach summer. The New York Times  ran a big story in the Sunday news section about India’s soaring energy needs and its future plans (Hunger For Energy Transforms How India Operates). India is the world’s fifth leading energy user. Dig this: they import 70 percent of their oil. India’s government predicts that the country will have to import 85 percent of its oil two decades from now.

So what’s India’s plan? According to Energy Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar, the solution is “to persuade China to cooperate rather than compete.” Okay, and your bargaining chip would be. . .?  Also consider this: The US, Japan, Europe and China will all have to import more than three quarters of their oil supplies. Does this suggest that the world is going to remain an orderly place?

Another plan to keep the lights on in Mumbai (where power outages are routine) is a 1600-mile natural gas pipeline from Iran, through Pakistan, to India. Has anyone noticed A.) that India and Pakistan have been deadly enemies for over half a century, frequently threatening to blow each other up with nuclear missiles? B.) that Pakistan is the world’s largest unstable country, and that its rugged terrain is home to many of the world’s most rabid and violent Jihadist groups, and C.) that such a proposed pipeline across Pakistan would be utterly indefensible?

The Times’ story about all this is so devoid of critical analysis that it appears to have been written by an 11-year-old child.

The Times’ star columnist Thomas Friedman is making hay this season with his new book, The World is Flat, about the global economy. His book asserts that current trends will continue indefinitely—China will continue to manufacture ever more of America’s household products, Americans will continue to enjoy cash-out home equity loans to buy plastic patio chairs made in China, WalMart will keep running its warehouse-on-wheels at a thumping great profit, and all impediments to global trade will be vanquished by telemarketing, computer technology, and confident corporate can-do spirits. I am tempted to ask how Friedman manages to type on a laptop with his head so far up his ass, but this blog is dedicated, above all, to a high-minded brand of politeness so we’ll just say that he is not paying attention to a gathering global energy shitstorm that is going to change absolutely everything—including global economic relations which pundits foolishly maintain to be permanent conditions of life.

Here in the States, the price of a barrel of oil is back over $55 and we are only one week into the summer vacation driving season. President Bush is running a scam on the public by pretending to push Congress to act on an energy bill that offers nothing to realistically address the nation’s oil addiction and, especially, its car dependency. He doesn’t dare, I suppose, because he must know that the American economy is about little more than car dependency. But just watch: as the price for a barrel of oil heads north past $60, Bush’s abject leadership failure will become self-evident and the public mood will appear to shift overnight. The oval office will become a very lonely place indeed by this coming fall, and its occupant will have three long and terrible years left to suffer there.