BS: Its Americas' oil?

Subject: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 12:08 PM

Interesting news today .
It seems that in the early seventies after the Gulf war ,when oil supplies to the West were interupted,America was preparing to attack the Middle Eastern oil producing states, to safeguard the oil supply.
I wonder if Mudcatters think this would have been acceptable behaviour if the embargoe had continued and serious damage done to our economy.
Or could it be classed as terrorism...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 12:22 PM

"...in the early seventies after the Gulf war"?

First Gulf War 1980-88.
Second Gulf War 1996
Third Gulf War 2003 - ?

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 01:09 PM

We've been attacking some of them overtly (see McGrath's post above), and the rest, we've sabotaged covertly. In either case, we've been quite successful in securing "our" oil supply against the heathen hoards.

None of this is new news. It's just that we've been so successfully brainwashed, we don't know about the atrocities our government has been committing in our name for more than one hundred years.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: smallpiper
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 01:39 PM

The 1st gulf war would be the one between Iran and Iraq I believe. And the USA's attack had it hapened would have been criminal IMHO

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Gareth
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 01:39 PM

Mmmm ! I fear the attitude of some Mudcatters would have depended upon which President. Early 70's, was that not Nixon ? Or possibly Ford ?

Answers on a post to this thread !

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Peace
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 01:44 PM

The thing I find most disturbing regarding the industrial world's insatiable appetite for oil is that the supply is finite. We aren't researching alternate power supply and use to the extent we should be, and subsequently we aren't leaving tomorrow's children a helluva lot of hope. We are going to leave them precious little petroleum.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 01:52 PM

They're all guilty, Gareth. Every single one of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: GUEST,Van
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 02:43 PM

Brucie
tomorrows children will have to sort out their own problems - our forebears didn't sort our problems out. It's having to sort out problems that keeps us going - when we can't the chimps or some such will take over.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 03:50 PM

I was wondering if akenaton was thinking of the OPEC price increase in 1970, which was at least presented as being related to Israel/Palestine issues.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Don Firth
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:02 PM

Science fiction writer Jerry Pournelle is a thoroughly grounded scientist, and when he lived in Seattle during the late Fifties and early Sixties (before I knew he was even interested in writing science fiction) we had many an interesting discussion while bending our elbows and wetting our noses in the notorious Blue Moon Tavern near Seattle's University District.

Jerry made the comment back then that "when you consider, first, all of the things that are made from petroleum . . ." (he then enumerated a long and surprising list of everyday products and necessities: everything from life-saving pharmaceuticals to the barrels of ball-point pens) ". . . and second, how limited petroleum reserves are—when it's gone, it's gone—and third, all the possible alternatives, it is a crime against the future to burn petroleum simply to provide energy."

I remember the Arab oil embargo back in the early Seventies, sitting in the gas lines and being allowed to purchase no more than a few gallons at a time. U. S. oil resources were simply insufficient to meet the domestic demand. I had a Toyota Corona back then. About 25 mpg. I have a 1999 Toyota Corona now. About 30 mpg. And it only has about 12,000 miles on it. If folks are going to keep running their SUVs, the U. S. must have Middle East oil. In the meantime, I have a friend with a Toyota Prius (hybrid). He fills the tank with an eye-dropper, gets incredible mileage. Neat little car. He loves it! He can drive five to eight times as far on a gallon of gas as someone with the average SUV.

As Jerry said, "When it's gone, it's gone!"

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Peace
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:09 PM

GUEST,van: What?

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:11 PM

McGrath Im sorry Iv got my facts screwed up again..But to me the important part, was that America was prepared to start a war and kill possibly thousands for financial reasons. What interests me is how many of us see this as being acceptable.
There is a school of thought that maintains any thing is acceptable if it safeguards our "way of life"
A situation similar to this may arise through our support for the "war on terror",where a war against Islam may became inevitable to preserve our economic system ....Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:12 PM

The idea that the US economy, or any other economy for that matter, is dependent on petroleum products, either for fuel or for anything else, is a very cleverly promoted lie. The only thing that petroleum can do that other substances such as hempseed oil, or soybean oil, or hydrogen (or conservation of resources) can't do is enrich the petroleum industry.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:13 PM

Gareth, a long time ago I voted for Lyndon Johnson because Goldwater sounded like a radical warmonger.

The joke was on me. And the rest of the country. Johnson used the Tonkin Gulf incident, which did not happen, to get us deeply into that Vietnam mess. A damned lie, as outrageous as any of Bush's. Since then my custom has been, generally, to wish a plague on both their houses.

But Lyndon's damned lie does not excuse George's. And Lyndon's good civil rights deeds do not excuse his own misdeeds.

This isn't a game. I don't support any man because he wears my team's colors.

No matter what they tell you, son, it's the man, not the uniform.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Gareth
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 04:30 PM

Clint refreshing views - for my own part I have been enjoying watching on this forum those who condemn any actions of GWB Jnrs, because they are the actions of GWB Jnr, and not on the general morality of those actions, twisting and turning, ducking and weaving when comparing the actions of GWB Jnr with, say, JFK's.

Or indeed comparing the legality of JWB Jnrs actions with the untruths etc. of FDR.

I may also say that on the Eastern side of the pond FDR's ilegalities, and misrepresentations are still held in the highest regard.

I think Clint you might be wrong over LBJ - I am not convinced that Viet-Nam was not in fact Kennedy's war. LBJ was tragically wrong in the way he tried to end it.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: The Stage Manager
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 05:34 PM

Safeguarding oil supplies?   This is an interesting idea. Forgive me, but this would seem to assume that the West has some sort of moral right to oil situated in other sovereign states? I'm sure nobody can possibly think this.   In the bad old days of Empire this would have meant propping up some sympathetic but ruthlessly autocratic regime or oligarchy that had no respect for human rights. Thank goodness we live in more enlightened times.

I'm also delighted by the idea of creating a democracy in Iraq. Could someone just remind me how many of the other oil producing gulf states are currently liberal democracies?   Just at the moment their names seem to have slipped my mind.

I'm also gratified to think that a democratic oil producing state might vote not to sell its oil to the West, and everybody would now think this perfectly acceptable behaviour and respect the decision of a sovereign state.   


My starting point for discussions of this nature is a belief that while there is a child on the planet that does not have enough food, clothing or shelter, and is without access to education and medicine, then all our political systems are failing that child and urgently need to change in a direction that will address these needs.

I would hate to think that any vested interest in the West would for a moment stand in the way of extending such basic humanitarian needs to all, regardless of nation, race, or creed.   After all, this is not what liberal democracy is about, and if this were allowed to happen, it would probably lead to all manner of indiscriminate backlash....


I mourn the passing of the "Angry Young Men"   and the vociferous Protest and Civil Rights Movements. I miss Trade Unions that that could seriously rattle and embarrass big corporations, governments and individual ministers. The world was a better place for them.   I fear the dispassionate non-involvement of so many of the younger generation that I find around me. It seems to me the death knell of real democracy, a rolling over and acceptance of defeat.   

It's not anger I would like to see, or even rage.   Some blind incandescent fury and a useful way with words would be a useful starting point right now.

SM

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:13 PM

Top Stories - AP

Britain: U.S. Planned '73 Arab Invasion   
Thu Jan 1,10:52 AM ET Add Top Stories - AP to My Yahoo!


By BETH GARDINER, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - British spy chiefs warned after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that they believed the United States might invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi to seize their oil fields, according to records released Thursday.

A British intelligence committee report from December 1973 said America was so angry over Arab nations' earlier decision to cut oil production and impose an embargo on the United States that seizing oil-producing areas in the region was "the possibility uppermost in American thinking."

Details of the Joint Intelligence Committee report were released under rules requiring that some secret documents be made public after 30 years. The report suggested that then-President Nixon might risk such a drastic move if Arab-Israeli fighting reignited and the oil-producing nations imposed new restrictions.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=7&u=/ap/20040101/ap_on_re_eu/britain_nixon_4

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:35 PM

Thanks Ebbie...These were the facts I screwed up on,hope McGrath reads your post....Hes a stickler for accuracy.
Stage Manager, I agree very much with the main thrust of your message ,in fact its really inspiring ,but Im afraid the angry young men, of which I hope i was one,have been ground down by the advance of materialist greed.
The point I was trying to get across, is that all this talk of "democracy " and "human rights" is meaningless, if governments are going to ignore them if they see them as against "National interest", as the politicians say.
Its even more meaningless,if the people themselves see any crime as permissable, if its in their short term interests...Ake

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:38 PM

British spy chiefs warned after the 1973 Arab-Israeli war that they believed the United States might invade Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi to seize their oil fields

Which (ironically?) was the reason Bush senior waged war on Iraq, and was one of the major justifications the US government used for waging war on Iraq (Saddam) last March. Because Saddam invaded Kuwait and seized their oil fields.

Of course, it's perfectly ok if we invade countries like Kuwait and seize their oilfields. Might makes right. Right?

Subject: RE: BS: It's America's oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:44 PM

The thing about oil supplies is that you can't really safeguard them - there's only a limited amount of the stuff, and when it's gone it's gone.

The existing supplies of fossil fuel, laid down over millions of years, and squandered in a century and a bit, provide a window of opportunity during which we can organise for the fast-approaching time period when we'll be getting along without it.

That should mean non-fossil fuel - solar energy, tidal and wind energy, and biomass, together with energy saving, by more efficient engines and more efficient lifestyles. It shouldn't mean nuclear fission, because that just stores up horrendous problems of waste. If the technology that allows economic non-polluting nuclear fusion shows up some time, maybe it will have a part to play. But relying on that to save us is a gamble. There's already a wonderful nuclear fusion plant pumping out energy we can use - the Sun.

But desperately scrabbling to get oil to last a few more years is a blind alley. And Jerry Pournelle there quoted by Don Firth was quite right - our limited supplies of oil are far too useful to waste this way.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:51 PM

Carol ....Answering these questions requires extreme honesty.
If it became a straight choice between stealing some states oil reserves, even with the resultant loss of life,or the loss of our comfortable lifestyle ,how many would do the right thing.
These question are uncomfortable for "democratic" people like us to answer ,but I feel answers will be required sooner rather than later.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 06:53 PM

Of course Gareth is quite right to point out that Vietnam was Kennedy's war - but then so was the Bay of Pigs, and one way and another Kennedy avoided getting trapped into a Cuban invasion. Perhaps he'd have had the sense to get out of Vietnam in time to avoid catastrophe. Johnson had some good points, but he very clearly didn't have the wisdom to do that.

Perhaps, in the words of a more modern leader closer to home, he didn't have a reverse gear. And any politician who doesn't have a reverse gear is a disaster in the making.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:05 PM

The problem as I see it, akenaton, is that we are being presented with a false choice. Did you know that there are peole who run their cars on cooking oil that has been recycled from deep fat fryers from fast food restaurants? The fact is that the only reason we rely to the extent we do on petroleum and not on any of the other, perfectly good alternative fuels, is because the petroleum industry has a large and powerful lobby, and we have been convinced that petroleum is the only cost-efficient choice.

But if we factor in the cost in terms of the wars that we've fought for oil, and the environmental and health costs, and all of the government subsidies the US tax payers have provided the petroleum industry, I think we can say that petroleum is most definitely not the most cost-effective choice of fuels.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:10 PM

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:27 PM

Carol... I understand your point about alternative forms of energy, In fact we were using solar panels to heat domestic water on contracts thirty years ago .Im sure the technology has moved on a lot since then,but obviously the vested interests hold things back.
To my mind Capitalism has one obstacle after another to overcome if it is to remain successful in its exploitation of people and resources and energy is no longer the biggest problem.
Islam and its opposition to Western materialism is what worries America most ,as they require global markets to continue their expansion....But the ethical questions still remain.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: DougR
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:28 PM

Akenaton: well if the alternative was to ground all airplanes, have no fuel for vehicles of all types, etc., yes, I would say so. I would guess that there would have been no problem building a coalition so that we would not have to go it alone. I don't think the oil producing nations would let it come to that though.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:30 PM

sorry about that.

To get back to the thread, I don't think the US has any more right to attack another nation to preserve its standard of living than I have to attack my next-door neighbor to preserve mine.

He makes more money than I do, and I've had heavier than usual expenses this year, but still I somehow feel I should restrain myself.

But during the first Bush-Iraq war I was talking to a man who thought the war was about oil, and that was fine with him. He figured those people against the war would sing a different tune when we ran low on petroleum.

He was a PhD, on the WSU faculty, and he had a son in action in Iraq. An educated & somewhat respected man, and apparently totally selfish.

Anybody remember "War is good business; invest your son?"

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:35 PM

But there are no "oil-producing nations" - leaving aside the cooking oil. There are oil-extracting nations. The oil-production took place back in Cretacious times and so forth.

That isn't a quibble, it's the frightening truth we collectively refuse to face.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Bobert
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 07:57 PM

CarolC is entirely correct...

Our energy policy is based on as much consumption of oil as we possibly can figure out how to consume under our watch on Earth.

Instead of conserving, it's consume, consume, consume. And why? To make oilmen richer than their wildest dreams...

Take the 8 mpg Hummer, fir instant. With a sticker of roughly $70,000, Bush and Cheney have put into a place where you can own one fir as little as half that. How? By being able to write it off. Who pays for that gas guzzler? The average working stiff who's driving a 15 year old VW Jetta that gets 35 mpg, that's who... Meanwhile, rich folks get rewarded for narsisitic consumption!!!

Hmmmmmkm, Part #46,536...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Jan 04 - 08:48 PM

Islam and its opposition to Western materialism is what worries America most...

Another red herring. What the Islamic countries who oppose the policies and practices of the US and "the West" object to isn't how we practice materialism in our own countries. What they object to is the ways the governments of the countries of the industrialized West trample upon the human rights of the Islamic people of the Middle East, in their own countries. In other words, they have something we want. We think, because we're stronger then them, that we have every right to do whatever is necessary in order to get what we want.

Clint Keller's point is a good one. We're no better than common criminals. If our neighbor has something we want, we just take it. It doesn't matter to us how many people we have to kill, or how many lives we have to destroy (our own people as well as theirs) in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 07:25 AM

Quite correct Carol, the point I was making ,is that Western materialism destroys cultures in a slow ,insideous way. Replacing them with the "shitheap of greed and ignorance " which I mentioned earlier.
Islamic clerics know this only too well,and also dont wish to lose their own power base.So things could get very messy for the West

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 10:47 AM

Interesting point, akenaton. I think China might provide the market that the West will need for its growth for several years, if not decades, so for now, my guess is that the only issues that will matter vis. the Middle East in the near future will be oil and Israeli expansionism.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 11:04 AM

"..America was prepared to start a war " *sigh*...no, one administration official was found to have raised the question of 'whether' America should consider certain actions. That is FAR from "...prepared to start a war..."
There is ALWAYS someone who will raise these issues in almost every country, but 'usually' they don't get quoted and publicized. (and, in some ways, it is important that such questions BE considered, even if it is only to generate discussion and expose them as BAD ideas!) It WAS rejected, you notice.

We all know that the world will soon be faced with some major decisions about how to deal with declining oil reserves, but hyperbolé and exaggeration will not help.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: akenaton
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 11:17 AM

Yes Bill.. but we dont know on what grounds it was rejected.Im sure morality didn't come into it!!
The idea of war on Iraq was not rejected.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 11:18 AM

Bill, I think a good case can be made that the US and other Western countries have been at war (either overtly or covertly, or through proxies) almost continuously in the Middle East over petroleum, pretty much since someone figured out that petroleum could make people rich.

We might have rejected that one idea at that particular moment in history, but that hardly means that we haven't been using our might to have our way with the people and resources of the Middle East for the last century or so.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 11:44 AM

McGrath's point that...

"there are no "oil-producing nations" - leaving aside the cooking oil. There are oil-extracting nations"

...is brilliant. With a commodity that has been under production by nature for sixty million years really be owned by an ephemeral government like that of Saddam's, which was in power for about 23 years? Trees and cattle and goats, they are property with definite ownership rights. Oil? Hmmm.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:11 PM

Air and water and soil have been around longer than that, pdq, and no 'owner' has ever had trouble asserting the right to his portion of it.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:27 PM

Water never goes away, it simply relocates or changes form. Air moves around all day long. Trees grow and are harvested. All of these commodities present different problems, but oil and land are not replaceable. As a biologist with a minor in conservation, I feel very protective of land and consider those who permanently damage it for no reason are criminals. Same for wasting oil. Saddam should swing at daybreak just for setting 1500 oil wells on fire, separate from his other atrocities.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:31 PM

oh, sure, Carol..there is always manuvering and struggling among nations to get what they think they need, whether it be oil, water, land, minerals...etc...but this was a suggestion that we were CLOSE to invasion and taking over. This may be tempting to 'some' administration officals, but cooler minds usually prevail upon reflection of how messy that could be.

(and I wish I could remember the name of the scientist who claims that oil is NOT a finite supply left over from millions of years ago, but rather is being produced deep in the earth. I'd like to read more about this.)

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 12:43 PM

Interesting point, Bill. But as far as I can see, the result is the same. The strong prevail over the weak, at the expense of both.

pdq, when the West takes oil from a country like Iraq, it's not taking it from Saddam. It's taking it from the Iraqis; the people who have been inhabiting the region for longer than Europeans have been inhabiting North America. Your argument is certainly one of "might makes right".

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:04 PM

" The strong prevail over the weak"....funny, I don't FEEL like we are 'prevailing'...yet, anyway. I do NOT trust this administration to not try to change that, but I don't see us trampling about with impunity so far. I guess perceptions differ, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:10 PM

I'm sorry but you're basing this thread on what the British intelligence service reported to its handlers. Not on documents released from our own U.S. Gov't. Not that I put it out of the realm of what the Nixon administration might have considered.

An inside note; there was no "oil shortage" in any of the previous shortages. Talk to any merchant marine working tankers at the time and they will tell you that the ships were ordered to sit of shore fully laden until the owners got the price they wanted for the oil.

Should we just take? No! Not the American way to my thinking. We don't need foreign oil if we would just turn to electric vehicles that can be recharged from the plant or from solar panels in the skin of the car. The other industries that actually use oil in the process could refine it from all of the tire dumps that have been building for years along with domestic production.

What's really scary? I went to a conference not too long ago where an economist claimed that conservation hurt productivity and the economy. The only one that gets hurt by conservation is the oil industry. If they would invest in research for alternative sources they could transition quite easily. Lord knows that the execs from Enron were not bankrupt. If just some of the money that they siphoned off had been dedicated to such research we could probably give the middle east the finger and say "have done with ya".

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:13 PM

Carol C...you must not be reading posts before you comment.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: DougR
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 01:30 PM

Sounds pretty close to a "quibble" to me, Kevin.

Akenaton: "Expansion?" What expansion?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 03:05 PM

I guess perceptions differ, huh?

I reckon so, Bill.

Carol C...you must not be reading posts before you comment.

Obviously I'm not, pdq, or I'm sure I would agree with everything you've said.

All sarcasm aside, I have been reading all of the posts. If I have misunderstood any of yours, don't you think it would make more sense to tell me in what way I've done that than to make snide little personal attacks?

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: pdq
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 04:14 PM

Carol C...please re-read 12:27 and see if there is anything about taking oil from other people by force or "might makes right". If there is, I'll buy you a bottle of Scuppernong wine. As Bill D says, *grin*.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 04:39 PM

Quite frankly, I can't really get a firm sense about what you're trying to say in either of your posts taken separately, but this part:

With a commodity that has been under production by nature for sixty million years really be owned by an ephemeral government like that of Saddam's, which was in power for about 23 years? Trees and cattle and goats, they are property with definite ownership rights. Oil? Hmmm.

...looks to me like you're suggesting that oil should be for whoever takes it from the ground, and your 12:27 post looks like it's in support of your 11:44 AM post.

If this is not the point you were trying to make, I would love to have a better understanding of what your point actually was.

Subject: RE: BS: It's America's oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 06:27 PM

Sounds pretty close to a "quibble" to me, Kevin.

Whatever it sounds like, it isn't. Extractive industries are always in the business of using up a resource that isn't being replaced. They are not manufacturing that resource. It won't last for ever - and in the case of oil it appears pretty clear that it won't last very long. There's that famous quote about how the stone age didn't end because of a shortage of stone, but oil is in much shorter supply than stone ever was.

Twenty years? Fifty years? One hundred years? The lifetime of the children of children being born today? Not a chance, even at the present rate of use. That's just a heartbeat away.

That's the crisis. Not fantasies about keeping hold/grabbing hold of dwindling supplies for one nation rather than another, just to hold off the inevitable for just a few years longer.

There are alternatives, and the longer it takes adjusting so as to use them, the harder it is going to be. If there is something about the economic system that makes that kind of adjustment difficult, because of short-term profit considerations, that needs fixing too.

Of course the problem is that short-term considerations dominate politics even more than they do business, if anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Its Americas' oil?
From: Gareth
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 07:25 PM

Hmmm ! The problem is finding an alternative resource _

Nuclear Power ? Me thinks there are many 'Catters who will scream agin that.

Wind Power - My oh My - Not in our backyard please !

Hydro Schemes - "Your drowning our Valley !!" - "This might damage the breeding ground of the Ouzalum Bird"

And so it goes on.

And if yer think I'am cynical - Well yes I am.

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: It's America's oil?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Jan 04 - 08:52 PM

Precisely because it's such a problem, as Gareth says, is why it has to be tackled seriously and consistently. And it won't be easy.