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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: quehubo who wrote (133180)	5/16/2004 5:32:13 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We are not asking them to trade with us long term on our terms. We are asking them to get their act together because our mutual interests are tied together. We will not survive the way of life we have know without the Persian Gulf area improving. Even Canyon Dwellers will be impacted if the oil flow is reduced because of internal chaos. Q, I know you from long ago and I know you think for yourself and that you think well, but what time period are you looking at? Ten years, 30 years, a century; it makes a big difference. It's true that we need the Persian Gulf area to "improve" if we're to maintain our way of life. "Improve" means, in that context, that the production must increase and that the price must remain stable and must not suck all the profits out of all nations that must use cheap energy to maintain the standard of living of their people. The bigger issue, however, is that available fossil-fueled energies will, at some time in the not too distant future, no longer support an increasing population that is increasing its per capita use of energy. As some populous third world countries industrialize and as the standard of living of their people begins to climb toward our own, reserves of oil, coal, natural gas, oil shale, etc. will become more difficult to increase, will be accessed at more and more expensive costs and, eventually, maximum production will be reached and declines will start. When that happens our way of life will certainly change. Even today the inelasticity of the demand curve for oil could result in economic chaos if any major disruptions of even a few months duration occurred. I'd think we'd have been better off spending 200 billion on trying to find a way to either access renewable energy or, and, limit future consumption. The best way to limit future consumption in the long term is to stop the tremendous population explosion. Soon, if not already, there'll be just too many of us in the hive. I haven't heard you make the claim but some seem comfortable with the concept that we have the right to control the resources of other, less powerful, nations when it's necessary for ends we feel are important. They're wrong on both sides of the argument. First it contravenes every principle of international law and, in fact, violates the basic premises of sovereign rights of nations. Second it's doomed to failure. Trying to maintain an unsustainable level of energy consumption as a "matter of right to lifestyle" wills someday run head on into the scientific reality that cheap fossil fueled resources are limited and that we're reaching peak production at a time when the demand is skyrocketing. Of course the people behind Bush knew that and that's why they pushed the buttons to get him to move into Iraq. We'd have done better to negotiate, pay a premium and get some "right" that was recognizable in the international community. We'll see if we can set up an interim government to give us the military presence and the long term contracts the Bush Administration came for.