Energy Policy

Iran – possible implications of an oil embargo

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Does Thursday’s announcement that the EU is considering to ban oil imports from Iran epitomise the draining of power from west to east? The big winners here will be China and India, who do not fear rising Iranian influence and who will gladly soak up any additional oil exports they may have to offer. However, ending this small dependency upon Iranian oil imports in Europe does clear the way for military action without the need to ponder the immediate consequences on oil imports.

Review: The Wealth of Nature by John Michael Greer

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Having written extensively on occultism and the esoteric, and himself an adept in ritual magic, John Michael Greer is an eager student of the unexplained. Yet he’s also a sharp observer of the unexamined assumptions that people make about the physical world around them, and how these assumptions have helped land the world in its present crisis. One common presupposition is that nature is independent of the world of human economics, and thus can be treated as a disposable resource. An environmentalist and a devout follower of the druid path, Greer knows better, and he’s written several books seeking to dispel this mistaken dismissal of nature.

Nuclear – Dec 6

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-Contaminated water found leaking at Japanese nuclear plant
-Japan nuclear meltdown maybe worse than thought?
-Cesium Detected in Baby-Milk Powder Made by Japan’s Meiji; Shares Tumble
-A Waste of Waste
-UK government shared intelligence with nuclear industry, documents show
-France admits lapses after breach of nuke reactor security

Playing with fire: Obama’s risky oil threat to China

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When it comes to China policy, is the Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the fire? In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East, it may have just launched a new Cold War in Asia — once again, viewing oil as the key to global supremacy.

The second wind of the worldwide social justice movement

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The first round of the social justice movements took multiple forms across the world – the so-called Arab Spring, the Occupy movements beginning in the United States and then spreading to a large number of countries, Oxi in Greece and the indignados in Spain, the student protests in Chile, and many others.

The degree of success may be measured by an extraordinary article by Lawrence Summers – remarkable, considering that he has been personally one of the architects of the world economic policy in the last twenty years that has put us all in the dire crisis in which the world finds itself.