Let's start with the weather. Did you hear the one about the tropical cyclone (hurricane to us) in the Gulf of Oman? No? Well apparently our mainstream media (MSM) doesn't consider it much of a story. Fortunately the folks at The Oil Drum see things differently. They even got us the US Navy's forecast. While the Persian Gulf is not at risk, the area around the Straits of Hormuz may get messy. One TODer was reporting that shippers were offloading previously loaded oil and returning it to storage as quickly as possible. Hurricanes in that particular part of the world are uncommon, so it's unclear how prepared the locals are going to be. TOD consensus is that there will be shipping disruptions lasting a few days, perhaps a couple of weeks. Iran is at more risk than Oman, but again, it depends on how prepared the locals are. Bottom line: Gas prices will likely rise slightly.
God Bless the DOD. This is almost straight from a Hollywood Movie: DOD is the largest single consumer of petroleum in the world!! Guess who has a terribly vested interest in dumping its petroleum addiction?
The push is on for greater fuel economy in cars. We'll see where this goes.
Venezuela's oil industry is in self-destruct mode, thanks mostly to Chavez's leadership. This reads like the Venezuelan version of the PEMEX story; milking the cash cow until she runs dry. Not smart. What will Hugo do when the cash runs out?
And finally, two takes on Peak Oil. First, Sharon Astyk writes about the absence of minorities in the Peak Oil conversation. It's a thought provoking, as well as aggravating piece, depending on your politics. JoMo would probably like her. I found it at The Energy Bulletin and posted the original because it includes comments from readers. She makes some good points and so do the commenters. It is an issue that we should all be aware of, and honest about as we consider our future options.
Then, Jerry Silberman writes about a labor assembly on global warming. His interest is in energy, and he echoes, unintentionally, some of what Sharon has to say. Evidently our labor brothers and sisters are all about the status quo ante. As a group they lack vision, and they lack the good sense to pay attention to their European cousins. This one made me think of Vanessa and her unqualified support for the SEIU. Would she, and others, be so willing to lend their support if they knew the union's actions would not benefit them in the long run? Silberman is a full time organizer, and he was not happy with what he was seeing and hearing at the conference.
2 comments:
"Labor conference on global warming fails to address energy"
Very amusing headline.
Great post. Thanks.
Great post, Kheris.
The lack of interest in the Peak Oil issue on the part of minorities is scary for the same reason it is scary that the population at large has no knowledge of or interest in this issue.
Yesterday, a couple of earnest little college students, young women, collared me at Daley Plaza. They were representing one of the many environmental groups and asked me if I had heard of Global Warming?
I said yes, and I considered it a very serious problem with ominous implications for our food supply and the habitibilitly of the planet in general, but that it was dwarfed by the ramifications of Peak Oil.
The told me they didn't know what Peak Oil was.
The silence of most environmental action groups on the issue of Peak Oil is frightening, and the ignorance of Peak Oil and the certain consequences of a steep drawdown in energy and what it will mean to the non-rich population is frightening.
Our right-wing has managed to depict energy depletion as a non-issue and environmental concerns as an elite concern with conserving nature preserves and making the world safe for rich outdoor enthusiasts, when the truth is that energy depletion and environmental catastrophe will visit their worst destruction- starvation, disease, poisoned public water, and total economic collapse- on the poor first, and the rest of the non-rich next.
It won't be the Priveleged who find themselves without heat or lights and living with day-to-day scarcity of food and other necessities, and permanent economic collapse.
The policies we put into place now will determine whether we all have a civilized society with liveable towns and cities, reliable motorized transportation in the form of public transit available to everyone, and reliable food supply and power supply going forward, or whether 98% of the population will be reduced to shantytown poverty, and certain starvation and disease epidemics, just so the super-rich will always have ethanol and what is left of fossil fuels for thier cars and boats and planes.
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