Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
For years the superpower politics of the cold war blocked efforts to end global poverty. Today it is the hot war of energy economics and global warming that present an impossible obstacle. They also threaten something far worse – a great reversal of human progress.
HERE’S the sticky truth about oil: As a finite commodity, the world never seems to tire of burning more of, its price is bound to hit the roof.
Global Warming is not the disease; it’s a symptom, albeit the most serious symptom of a cancer caused by industrial civilization. Prescribing more nuclear power (even if physically possible) as a cure to the civilization’s cancer is tantamount to treating a smoker’s lung-cancer by switching her over to a different brand of cigarettes.
Saudi power struggles are holding back attempts to defeat terrorism.
Despite the war, the Sudanese economy has grown solidly, helped by rising oil exports which last year were about 300,000 barrels a day, and should reach 600,000 barrels per day next year.
Gas prices finally headed down last week. But the pattern over the last 30 years suggests that this is bad news for anyone who believes that Americans, the world’s biggest oil consumers, can ever curb their energy consumption.
There is also the possibility we’re living through the early phases of something much bigger than just another temporary “crisis” and which history will record as a turning point.
The biggest news in the world at the moment however is also the most suppressed, and it is actually quite frightening. It’s suppressed because it completely obliterates all the ludicrous reasons we’ve been fed about why we’re in Iraq and Afghanistan, and because once it becomes self-evident the global stock markets will panic and crash.
OPEC expects world oil demand to rise by some 2 million barrels per day in the third quarter from a seasonal second quarter low, as consumption growth hits a seven-year high, the cartel said Thursday.
Robert Bryce on the Texas-Washington-international crony network. “If you believe, as I do, that worldwide oil production has reached its peak, then they’ve set up a global showdown.”
Kazakhstan announced on Friday that it planned to build two oil terminals in Iran as it ramps up a lucrative oil-swap export arrangement that has been criticised for lack of transparency.
Luanda – The Angolan government yesterday unveiled a $370 million (R2.4 billion) plan to develop infrastructure in the oil-rich Cabinda enclave, in a bid to win over a region that has long pushed for self-determination.
