Politics

Oil, food, and the wealth of MENA countries

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This morning, I’ve been catching up on some reading about the protests in Egypt and Algeria, following on the Jasmine Revolution that is in process in Tunisia. Clearly, the reason for interest is wondering to what extent is there any risk of these events spreading into the big oil exporters, which could cause extremely large disruptions in the global economy. This is probably unlikely, but not so inconceivable that serious observers aren’t starting to at least think about it.

Peak oil and our financial decline

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Author, blogger and social critic James Howard Kunstler opens up on two circumstances he sees running neck and neck “that are going to put us out of business as an advanced industrial civilization”—the “fiasco” in banking, money and finance and the unfolding “energy predicament.” He explains that the crises are really all about “capital” and that we need to look at how wealth has been accumulated and deployed for productive purposes.

ODAC Newsletter – Jan 28

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Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi hinted this week that OPEC might move to increase oil production to satisfy rising demand. Both OPEC and the IEA are anticipating demand growth this year, and with Brent crude close to $100/barrel the pressure on OPEC is growing…Many of the OPEC nations face serious threats of their own as they struggle to generate jobs for their growing populations. No doubt the house of Saud and other OPEC leaders will be casting a wary eye at the recent uprising in Tunisia and the riots in Egypt.

How much money has the Fed printed?

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As we suffer under the cosh of the Tories’ austerity, many are casting envious eyes across the Atlantic and asking whether our government could, like the US government, create money to help our economy out of the many and mutually reinforcing problems we are now facing. The answer seems to be ‘no’ and ‘yes’.

WikiLeaks: For Norway, oil wealth and humanitarianism go hand in hand

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In a brief but revealing cable included in the vast WikiLeaks “CableGate” trove and published last week by the Norwegian paper Aftenposten, US embassy officials report that the Nordic nation opted to divest its sovereign wealth holdings from companies violating “humanitarian principles” and “fundamental ethical norms.”

What if we stopped fighting for preservation?

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Certainly conservationists of all persuasions should be more vocal about challenging the growth machine that is chewing up wild nature. But for Murray to turn his wrath on protected areas, and suggest that preserving places for wildlife and wild processes to thrive unmolested is futile or even counterproductive as a conservation strategy, is a dangerously misguided idea. I hope it will be rejected by everyone who cares about the health of the biosphere.

The Arab crisis: food, energy, water, justice

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In Tunisia, Mohamad Bouazizi did not rebel because he did not find a job reflecting his ambitions and education. He did not burn himself when a police officer confiscated the fruits and vegetables he was selling at a street-corner on the pretext he had no permit. But when he went to file a complaint to seek justice, his demand was rejected. It was this feeling of injustice that led Mohamed Bouazizi to his desperate act. 
 
 
 


Climate benefits of natural gas may be overstated

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Advocates for natural gas routinely assert that it produces 50 percent less greenhouse gases than coal and is a significant step toward a greener energy future. But those assumptions are based on emissions from the tailpipe or smokestack and don’t account for the methane and other pollution emitted when gas is extracted and piped to power plants and other customers.

Clean energy dreams

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Many people believe the State of the Union is just political theater. While it’s true the speech last night was thin on specifics, one thing that was very specific was that Obama says he wants to cut subsidies to oil companies and give the money to clean energy instead. But everybody knows Big Oil controls Washington. Does this proposal have any chance at all? And what about the future of clean energy in a down economy with a glaring national debt?