With the arrival of Peak Oil, the curtain has closed on Act 1 of the drama Petroleum Man. What will happen in Act 2? Chekhov said, "If there's a gun on the wall at the beginning of the play, by the end it must go off." In the world's nuclear arsenal are many guns on the wall. If life copies art, will there be an Act 3 in which the players, having learned their lesson the hard way, live sustainably? To explore these and other questions... FTW's Act 2 Blog. Read, comment, take heart! Orkin
Friday, August 04, 2006
Hearing: Oceans; Carlyle Group/ME; FBI: Terrorist Training Camp, Pakistan; FA Reporter Dead/ Kazakhstan; GAO: Decreased Oil Revenues/Amount Sold
Hearing on State of the Oceans Carlyle Group in Middle East FBI Uses Satellite Imagery to Show Terrorist Training Camp in Pakistan Reporter for Foreign Affairs Dead in Kazakhstan GAO: Energy Revenues Have Not Increased in Proportion to Price Rise Because of Decreased Production Sold
Apropos the article "Grain Crisis Looms in Japan" posted on FTW, I should note that the situation is actually worse. I grow rice (who would have guessed?), and I can tell you that the harvest is going to be down this year due to poor meteorological conditions. How far down depends on whether the current spell of good weather holds. Where I live, rice ears usually emerge in late July, but this year they are just emerging now, about two weeks late. In general, other crops are suffering, too, and prices of vegetables are up across the board.
ReplyDeleteJapan imports about two-thirds of its food, so the threatening world food situation is a serious matter. Yet few politicians seem interested. Talking with acquaintances in the media shows that journalists are aware of the problem, but they say few editors are interested in running stories on peak oil, food shortages, or other such "gloomy" issues. Especially now that the economy finally seems to be turning the corner (this is about 80% hype if you ask me), people only want to hear good news.
I was pleased -- as I'm sure many others were -- to seen the latest article on FTW commenting on the Vanity Fair article.
ReplyDeleteThese days everyone seems to be concentrating on the collapse of the WTC towers and the evidence of demolition. Well, I'm sure they were demolished, but just watch -- the government will mobilize more "experts" to say that they examined some of the rubble and found no trace of explosives, etc. etc. Now's the time to be asking about all those exercises, but hardly anyone is doing it. For that reason I've been telling lots of people about Michael Kane's article and urging them to start asking about the exercises.
'Morning all... from Australia.
ReplyDeleteI expected some comment on Lebanon by now. Let me help. Just Google "Iraq Haifa pipeline" (no quotes) to get 192,000 clues.
This one is my favourite, written in the year of my birth - 1947:
http://www.marxists.org/archive
/cliff/works/1947/01/oil1947.htm
(Jenna, can you fix the link somehow so word-wrap doesn't snap it?)
It seems obvious to me that the light, sweet oil of Iraq must be piped in large quantities directly to the shores of the Meditteranean, so that it can be swiftly and safely shipped to America and the UK.
This seems to have been the plan all along. Although the neo-cons blabbed hubristically when Saddam's statue bit the dust, they have been awfully coy about it ever since.
Cheers.... Chris Shaw
Australia
hi chris
ReplyDeletemichael kane wrote about lebanon vis a vis the iraq/haifa pipeline connection.
the link seems to have come through ok.
BP to Shut Down U.S.'s Largest Oil Field; Prices Jump
ReplyDeletehttp://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7KHoPr45FUU&refer=worldwide_news
Rice Farmer has left a new comment on your post "Hearing: Oceans; Carlyle Group/ME; FBI: Terrorist Training Camp, Pakistan; FA Reporter Dead/ Kazakhstan; GAO: Decreased Oil Revenues/Amount Sold":
ReplyDeletePower shortage could curtail NSA activities
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.nsapower06aug06,0,5137448.story?coll=bal-home-headlines
the reason this and other combinations are not greeted with more enthusiasm is that none of these solutions approaches oil in eroei (energy returned on energy invested.)
ReplyDeletethere are no simple answers to the current energy dilemma. conservation is key and the country is not built in a way that allows us to transition to the alternative lifestyles we need to adopt.
"What's the Real Federal Deficit?"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm
Ethanol and biodiesel = I don't know about this technology. It is still dependent on a natural resource (corn). What happens when massive drought strikes & we rely on ethanol to run everything?
ReplyDeleteWhy does this not make sense to anyone else?
Because Ethanol is a joke and even if we used all available landmass to grow corn and used it solely for Ethanol we would only replace 18% of our current petroleum usage. (PNAS)
Somehow we must become the Flintstones again. So many humans, particularly in the U.S. would not comply unless they had a frontal labotomy.
ReplyDeleteYet, we can't all go screaming out of here to an island off New Zealand somewhere, (although it's an everlasting plan B). My luck I'd be swallowed up by an earthquake or a hot mud bath. No, the best thing any of us can do is cut back & curtail any support of all that is connected to this ugly mess...which is just about everything we do, eat, use.
Easy to say;hard to impliment. We have been given a great mindset by Mr. Ruppert. I wear his T-shirt as often as possible. We're trying to live it, speak it, breathe it everywhere we go. We have gone to great lengths to live within walking distance to where we work. Not everyone can do this but it doesn't hurt if you can do it...find a niche and minimize. It's a great feeling to rid one self of "stuff". We all have so much "stuff". We may be surrounded by a sea of moronic shoppers who will never get it but living by example does create food for thought. It's a gradual thing and everyone has to work at it at their own individual pace. Although it could all be a mute point to even try, I'd rather live out my days in this effort than become part of the slime. So for now I'm becoming a flintstone and thinking of how to put solar panels on our old 4 cyl. volvo.
The price of regular gasoline has hit a new high in Japan, at 143.7 yen/liter (national average), which beats even the 142 yen/liter record set 15 years ago when Iraq invaded Kuwait. News reports say that there is currently no end in sight for petroleum product price rises.
ReplyDeletesent in by an extremely well-informed reader:
ReplyDeleteI don't have anything to add to the cryptogon post - other than to
point out the reason Bush wants to drill in ANWR is that Prudhoe Bay
is past peak. But neither the Republicans nor the Sierra Club will
mention that.