To: GUSTAVE JAEGER who wrote (7910 ) 8/23/2004 11:47:52 AM From: sea_urchin Respond to of 20039 Gus > Debunking the oil myth Good try -- but it's no myth.museletter.com >>When Mike Bowlin, Chairman of ARCO, said in 1999 that "We've embarked on the beginning of the last days of the age of oil," he was voicing a truth that many others in the petroleum industry knew but dared not utter. Over the past few years, evidence has mounted that global oil production is nearing its historic peak. Oil has been the cheapest and most convenient energy resource ever discovered by humans. During the past two centuries, people in industrial nations accustomed themselves to a regime in which more fossil-fuel energy was available each year, and the global population grew quickly to take advantage of this energy windfall. Industrial nations also came to rely on an economic system built on the assumption that growth is normal and necessary, and that it can go on forever. When oil production peaks, those assumptions will come crashing down. As we move from a historic interval of energy growth to one of energy decline, we are entering uncharted territory. It takes some effort to adjust one's mental frame of reference to this new reality. The oil peak will also impact international relations. Resource conflicts are nothing new: pre-state societies often fought over agricultural land, fishing or hunting grounds, horses, cattle, waterways, and other resources. Most of the wars of the twentieth century were also fought over resources - in many cases, oil. But those wars took place during a period of expanding resource extraction; the coming decades of heightened competition for fading energy resources will likely see even more frequent and deadly conflicts. The US - as the world's largest energy consumer, the center of global industrial empire, and the holder of the most powerful store of weaponry in world history - will play a pivotal role in shaping the geopolitics of the new century. To many observers, it appears that oil interests are already at the heart of the present administration's geopolitical strategy. <<