EcoLocalizer

Yesterday evening I went to hear a sobering talk in Berkeley by Five Colleges professor of Peace and World Security Studies, Michael Klare. Klare suggests in his newest book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, that we are now facing a new world order in which power transfers to net energy exporters (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Russia, Kazakhstan) from net energy importers (e.g., the United States). He believes oil will peak between 2012 and 2015 at somewhere around 95-100 million barrels/day. Regardless of whether oil peaks then, he says supply will not be able to keep up with demand much longer.

From http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=76003

Klare points out that China will soon have the world’s largest fleet of automobiles - in decade or so - as they are following our model of auto-centric development. He had hoped that China would leapfrog oil to more sustainable mobility solutions but that is not happening.

• » See also: Obsessed with the Magic of Chickens
• » Get EcoLocalizer by RSS or sign up by email.

Klare suggests that the logical thing for net importers to do is to aggressively conserve energy, wean themselves form petroleum automobiles, and ramp up renewables and oil alternatives. Not sure why he does not suggest ecocities development and localization.

Klare makes the following points:

• The U.S. is the single largest user of oil in the world
• In February, President Bush presented Congress the largest military budget since World War II - $515B not including $60B for Iraq and Afghanistan.
• A lot of the $515B is for highly sophisticated weaponry, e.g., Stealth Bombers
• This sophisticated weaponry is not to fight guerrillas in the streets of Baghdad but to fight a future enemy
• U.S. documents suggest that this future enemy is China who is also building up their military infrastructure
• If we have a cold war with China, very little attention and money will go to environmental and social causes
• Hence the number #1 thing environmental and peace activists should be working on is energy cooperation with China.

I asked him about Iran. Klare says he believes there is a 50% chance that the United States will attack Iran before the November elections. He points out that Dick Cheney was in Oman three weeks preparing for military engagement in the straight of Hormuz through which 30% of the world’s oil flows. Oman happens to be right across the straight of Hormuz from Iran.

That’s scary stuff. Obviously, we need to localize our transportation systems such that we are no longer using so much imported oil. And corn-based ethanol is not an environmentally or economically viable option, especially when you consider the impact on the price and availability of food. The smartest thing we can do is reconfigure our city ala the eco city model for less transportation and energy consumption. The extent we need transportation, it should be electrified and highly biased towards public and mass transit with the power coming from a largely renewable energy grid. We’re a long way a way from that but it is possible and we need to get started now. That is why the Community Choice Energy initiatives in California are so important.

Tweet This Post

You might also like: