A Peek At The Peak Oil Catastrophe - 2

Generals and others (CNA) have talked about the dangers of conflicts and/or wars being generated as resources are depleted (Natural Resource Depletion and the Changing Geopolitical Landscape).

A conflict between Vietnam and China is an example of the tensions that can arise - in this case oil is the resource (China Blames Vietnam).

But as the TIME cover shows, using the oil resources is just as dangerous, or more so, than running out of oil is --in other words it is a catch-22, a conundrum, or a no-win situation any way we choose to look at this situation that is only getting worse.

Britain and France over in Europe are facing the problem of depletion:

In just over five years Britain will have run out of oil, coal and gas, researchers have warned.

A report by the Global Sustainability Institute said shortages would increase dependency on Norway, Qatar and Russia.

There should be a “Europe-wide drive” towards wind, tidal, solar and other sources of renewable power, the institute’s Prof Victor Anderson said.

The government says complete energy independence is unnecessary, says BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin.

The report says Russia has more than 50 years of oil, more than 100 years of gas and more than 500 years of coal left, on current consumption.

‘Decisive action’

By contrast, Britain has just 5.2 years of oil, 4.5 years of coal and three years of its own gas remaining.

France fares even worse, according to the report, with less than year to go before it runs out of all three fossil fuels.

(UK’s Oil, Coal and Gas). This is of course the result of a lack of vision and a fateful decision we should review, because, more of the same will not change the reality.

A while back I wrote about the historical background that enlightens us about how misguided fossil fuel expectations brought England and the rest of the world into a rut and a dangerous direction:

Long before politicians mewled helplessly about the power of “Big Oil”, carbon-based fuels were shaping our very political, legal, intellectual, and physical structures.
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For instance, the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a pivotal moment in America’s strategic outlook. America, a global hegemon whose empire was weakening, seized the second largest oil deposits in the world as a way of preventing its economic and political decline.
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The last declining global hegemon, Great Britain, also engaged in a brutal and highly controversial British occupation of Iraq, in the 1920s, pressed aggressively by the well-known British conservative, Winston Churchill.
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From the moment he arrived at the Admiralty, a young man of destiny, Churchill started to prepare the fleet for the Battle of Armageddon he believed was inevitable.
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Then, in 1911, the German Kaiser provoked the Agadir crisis ... Churchill went to the Admiralty and his outlook transformed. He was immediately confronted with the decisive question: to convert the navy from coal to oil ... the "fateful plunge" was made ... in April 1912 ... five oil-burning battleships were approved.
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It was the Royal Navy which was the impetus for the development of the oil industry in Britain. The problem was supply and the security of that supply. Initially, the British government purchased shares in the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, subsequently, British Petroleum [BP].
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Then, to prevent further disruptions, Britain enmeshed itself ever more deeply in the Middle East, working to install new shahs in Iran and carve Iraq out of the collapsing Ottoman Empire.

Churchill fired the starting gun, but all of the Western powers joined the race to control Middle Eastern oil.

(Viva Egypt - 2). In hindsight, it seems unbelievably strange that civilization would fight and make war over the poisonous drug that would eventually destroy civilization.

But, it is even worse than just that, because, there have been many warnings along the way, each followed by refusals to heed those warnings (see video below).

In fact, the U.S. is rushing headlong into the fray by continuing to use military intimidation to control resources (e.g. Journalism: Facts vs. Fantasy, The Fleets & Terrorism Follow The Oil).

The national governments of the world need to get serious about renewable clean energy usage for so many reasons, including the fact that the damage from the use of fossil fuels is already very serious (Is A New Age Of Pressure Upon Us? - 5).

The previous post in this series is here (this post was featured at Peak Oil News).

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A university lecture detailing the history of warnings about global warming induced climate change:

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