A denier becomes an agreer!

For several years now I have been waving the flag trying to catch activists and citizens attention about the serious connection between peak oil, global warming and war making, especially nuclear war. Well, a significant development by a conservative source has now underlined this message. In its 2009 report the Energy Information Administration (EIA) has joined ranks with peak oil folks in its "International Energy Outlook." The report is a radical turnaround, one issuing "gloom and doom" according to one analyst.

In 2007 the EIA report projected the projection of conventional oil to be 107.2 million barrels per day by world sources by 2030. Now, in 2009, the projection for 2030 is 93.1 MB/D, a drop of 14%. The EIA has gone from rosy to cloudy, dark clouds due to compounding factors. The first compounding factor is the surging increase in Asian oil demand expected to resume with the economic turn about in 2010. The second compounding factor are the technical, environmental, and energy demands to produce unconventional liquid fuels. These changes will have huge effects on economic, military, and human issues affecting all nations, beginning with the United States and China.

In 1990 Asia and the Middle East consumed 17% of the world's oil. They are projected to consume 41% by 2030. China is expected to pass the US consumption in the next five years. How will this competition between the US and China play out?

At present, unconventional fuels (syn fuels) account for 4% of liquid fuel production. The report estimates that this will be 13% by 2030. Don't look now but demand is racing ahead of supply with these slippery projections. Canada's oil sands, Venezuela's extra heavy oil, Brazil's deep off shore oil and biofuels, Arctic oil and natural gas, Colorado's oil shale, every body's coal to liquids (CTL) offer some relief from conventional oil limitations, but at the costs to the environment and energy demands. Think about the changes in international relations implied here. Think about the billions of poor living, existing, fading implied here.

Then, there is global climate change.

You can obtain Michael Klare's full analysis by going to Truthout.com: "It's Official - The Era of Cheap Oil is Over -- Energy Department Changes Its Tune on Peak Oil."

Yesterday, I read an insightful piece by Chris Hedges, who said we need to resurrect our emotion and put it behind our rational understanding. Amen.

Updating

Here we are over a month into the new year, 2009, and going on three weeks since Obama's inauguration, and now four week since I've returned from Vietnam. So much is happening, these weeks seem like a lifetime. Just keeping up with events and coping with actions and possibilities is a stretch. The main thing for me is that I have recovered from the Vietnam trip! Not really, but it feels good to be recovered.

Several threads make up my present involvements, all in keeping with my mission/message of the last few years. Working towards an end to War making, especially nuclear war; overcoming Global Climate Change; and the effects of Peak Oil remain my top three priorities. I have raised up Climate Change and Peak Oil to just a little over war making. These humanly caused realities vie with each other for the lead. I don't think you can separate one from the other, as humans intentionally and unintentionally mix them.

Following up from the Vietnam trip, I continue to study and research why humans sacrifice other humans. While I diligently study Ernest Becker's Escape From Evil with its piercing insights, I find other complementary sources for insights. One interesting one is that Becker reflects on William James' essay "The Nonviolent Equivalent to War," written in 1906. That is the same year that Gandhi came up with his "satyagraha" method, which he tittled "the nonviolent equivalent to war!" When I finish this study, I will have to decide how I can use the insights. One possibility is to combine some with my photos from Vietnam. Few people realize that the bombing of Vietnam with Agent Orange is massive, the greatest use of chemical weapons in history. 3,000,000 suffer the effects today. I feel deeply thinking about the babies, children, and adults I've seen. Then, this compares with the effects on the peoples of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, not to mention the victims from all the nuclear bomb testing. We can go on to the radiation of "depleted uranium" in Iraq, the Gaza Strip, and elsewhere.

What about Climate Change and Peak Oil? To make a long narration short, I went to see what Richard Heinberg's latest is. He now works at the Post Carbon Institute (google it). Reviewing the site and the series of videos "Why all the things are going wrong"," has moved me to re prioritize, rather go back to my priorities of the last few years.

So, I'm regrouping and reorganizing. If anyone wants to make comments, critiques, suggestions, etc, go to it. Thanks.