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“Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism” by John Bellamy Foster in the latest issue of Monthly Review is at the tip of a growing awareness of Peak Oil among Left intellectuals. I’ve been waiting for this for a few years now, and it’s good to see that people are starting to make the connections between oil scarcity and US imperialism.
Foster is pushing a kind of “Green Marxism” – in fact the Monthly Review as a whole is beginning to focus quite a bit on energy and ecology in its critiques of US empire.
The approach is good – peak oil is examined with calm as an inevitable geological event, “alternative” energy sources like tar sands and ethanol are shown in their true nasty colors, and the reader is presented with the option of allowing the government to continue to assault those unfortunate enough to be born on top of oil reserves, or to work for a new humane world.
However, one place this critique falls short is in (explicitly or implicitly) propagating the notion that awareness of Peak Oil by neo-conservatives in the halls of power is what prompted aggression against Afghanistan, Iraq or Venezuela, and labeling this a “new energy imperialism.”
Unfortunately the capitalist system is far more complex and multi-faceted than that, and the neo-cons, like all US elites, are just tools existing to serve the interests of US corporations and the Pentagon, which they are doing quite well by continuing the same old foreign policy of trying to control the oil-rich Middle East (by force if necessary – with the added bonus of trillions of dollars of contracts for the military-industrial complex). If only it were as easy as pinning our problems on the ideas in the heads of those in power, all we’d need to do to end the crisis would be to put someone with better ideas in power! Sorry, it’s not gonna work like that.
The “energy imperialism” we see today as the US gears up for war with Iran is nothing “new” at all; it’s the exact same system that toppled Mossadegh in 1953, that provided tanks, planes and chemical weapons to both sides of the Iran-Iraq war throughout the 80s, and that has been pouring billions of dollars of military aid into Israel to act as regional policeman for 60 years.
The only thing that’s new is that the system is beginning to fail, and the US is having a much harder time maintaining its dominance over the Persian Gulf region, relying on brute force and direct occupation, and even that isn’t working for them anymore.
What we face is not a “new energy imperialism” but an old energy imperialism, newly being beaten. I see peak oil as a major catalyst in the inevitable crumbling of the US empire, and an immense opportunity for all who desire peace, justice or human rights. [alex]
Peak Oil and Energy Imperialism
by John Bellamy Foster
Originally published by Monthly Review. July/August 2008.
The rise in overt militarism and imperialism at the outset of the twenty-first century can plausibly be attributed largely to attempts by the dominant interests of the world economy to gain control over diminishing world oil supplies.1 Beginning in 1998 a series of strategic energy initiatives were launched in national security circles in the United States in response to: (1) the crossing of the 50 percent threshold in U.S. importation of foreign oil; (2) the disappearance of spare world oil production capacity; (3) concentration of an increasing percentage of all remaining conventional oil resources in the Persian Gulf; and (4) looming fears of peak oil.
The response of the vested interests to this world oil supply crisis was to construct what Michael Klare in Blood and Oil has called a global “strategy of maximum extraction.”2 This required that the United States as the hegemonic power, with the backing of the other leading capitalist states, seek to extend its control over world oil reserves with the object of boosting production. Seen in this light, the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (the geopolitical doorway to Western access to Caspian Sea Basin oil and natural gas) following the 9/11 attacks, the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the rapid expansion of U.S. military activities in the Gulf of Guinea in Africa (where Washington sees itself as in competition with Beijing), and the increased threats now directed at Iran and Venezuela—all signal the rise of a dangerous new era of energy imperialism. Read the rest of this entry »
I’m reposting this article not because I agree with everything said in it (just feel like I need to start pointing that out so people don’t get confused), but because I think it should spark some good ideas and maybe discussion.
Sale is hitting here on some fundamental ways of seeing the actions of the current U.S. government – that they are desperate to cling to an existing imperial power structure that is deteriorating rapidly – which should help us as anti-imperialists to formulate an appropriate strategy for 1) speeding up that dismantling process so that less damage is done to us and people all over the world, as well as the planet, and 2) figuring out what should replace this system (democracy, freedom, justice, sustainability…) and how we can best usher that new world into being. [-alex]
Collapse of the American Empire
by Kirkpatrick Sale (author of SDS)
Originally published in Counterpunch, February 22, 2005.
It is quite ironic: only a decade or so after the idea of the United States as an imperial power came to be accepted by both right and left, and people were actually able to talk openly about an American empire, it is showing multiple signs of its inability to continue. And indeed it is now possible to contemplate, and openly speculate about, its collapse. Read the rest of this entry »
The following article runs in the May 12, 2008 issue of The Nation magazine, one of the largest progressive publications in the United States. -alex
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080512/hertsgaard
“Running on Empty”
by Mark Hertsgaard
The Nation‘s environment correspondent
It used to be that only environmentalists and paranoids warned about running out of oil. Not anymore. As climate change did over the past few years, peak oil seems poised to become the next big idea commanding the attention of governments, businesses and citizens the world over. The arrival of $119-a-barrel crude and $4-a-gallon gasoline this spring are but the most obvious signs that global oil production has or soon will peak. With global demand inexorably rising, a limited supply will bring higher, more volatile prices and eventually shortages that could provoke–to quote the title of the must-see peak oil documentary–the end of suburbia. If the era of cheap, abundant oil is indeed coming to a close, the world’s economy and, paradoxically, the fight against climate change could be in deep trouble. Read the rest of this entry »
This week, food riots are erupting in the poorest countries of the world, such as Haiti, where the majority of the population lives on under $2 a day. The protesters are calling for the resignation of their government, for its inability to provide basic necessities to the population. See this BBC News short video.
The price of grains, especially wheat (which has doubled in the past year), has been on a steady uphill trend for the past few years, causing major food shortages across much of the Global South.
(image from BBC)
I want to highlight 4 underlying causes of this global food shortage:
1) Growing Inequality between the wealthiest and poorest people. Greater affluence in industrializing countries is driving larger levels of meat consumption, which requires far more wheat, other grains, and water to be consumed in order to produce the same amount of food. In fact, the majority of grains produced in the world are now fed to animals for meat. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of people in the Global South are on the brink of starvation, or literally already starving.
2) Global Warming is causing unreliable and chaotic weather patterns across much of the food-producing regions of the world. Arable lands are turning into deserts as droughts worsen, while other regions are flooding with unseasonable downpours. These combine to create massive agricultural loss.
3) Biofuels like ethanol from corn production in the U.S. are quite literally food being used to fuel industry and automobiles. This manifests in driving up the cost of food for everyone, especially the poor, so that the largest agribusiness firms can earn huge profits, and the illusion of American prosperity surrounding large cars and wasteful consumerism can be maintained at all costs.
4) Most fundamental, The Global Oil Production Peak, which took place in 2006, is causing declining supplies of oil while demand surges across the industrial and industrializing world. We have seen a drastic and increasing rise in the price of oil over this period, which most Americans recognize in the high cost of gasoline. But for the poor of the world, a much more dire situation is emerging with food, because oil and other fossil fuels are the sources for most industrial fertilizers and pesticides, and because the modern system of food production and distribution are heavily dependent on oil for transportation, processing, packaging, refrigeration and cooking. In fact, the average American consumes over 10 calories of fossil fuels for every calorie of food eaten! Most people in the world can’t continue to afford this oil subsidy, and the crisis will only deepen as oil production declines in the coming years.
(Image courtesy OILNERGY)
See this awesome Graph-Presentation.
Originally published in the Wall Street Journal.
Boom Cuts U.S. Clout,
Revives Middle East;
Dark Days for Detroit
By NEIL KING JR. , CHIP CUMMINS and RUSSELL GOLD
January 3, 2008; Page A1
The surging price of oil, from just over $10 a barrel a decade ago to $100 yesterday, is altering the wealth and influence of nations and industries around the world.
These power shifts will only widen if prices keep climbing, as many analysts predict. Costly oil already is forcing sweeping changes in the airline and auto sectors. It is intensifying the politics of climate change and adding urgency to the search both for fresh sources of crude and for oil alternatives once deemed fringe.
![[Go to graphic.]](https://i0.wp.com/s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/OB-AW546_oil100_20080102152434.jpg)
The long oil-price boom is posing wrenching challenges for the world’s poorest nations, while enriching and emboldening producers in the Middle East, Russia and Venezuela. Their increasing muscle has a flip side: a decline of U.S. clout in many parts of the world.
Steep gasoline prices also threaten America’s long love affair with the automobile, while putting strains on many lower-income people outside big cities, who must spend an increasing share of their budgets just on fuel to get to work. Read the rest of this entry »
[This is only one person’s perspective, and not meant to be an authoritative report. Other SDSers, especially womyn and trans folks are encouraged to step up and write about No War, No Warming. -ed.]
“War Pollutes Our Democracy; Sexism Militarizes Our Bodies”
26 members of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) blocked traffic next to the House of Representatives Monday morning, October 22, as part of No War, No Warming, which drew hundreds to the Capitol. Traffic was stopped on Independence Ave. for over an hour. After the initial wave of 27 people was pulled off the street by cops, a second wave, which included minors, jumped into the street and linked arms, halting traffic once again. The goal of the protest was to dramatize that Congress has failed to stop the war and failed to address global warming, and to show that the two issues are deeply connected by Oil.
Nearby, polar bears rapped, giant Condaleeza and giant Bush danced, Iraq Veterans Against the War staged a Blackwater mission, Billionaires for Bush whined, a bike brigade did Critical Mass, and Oil Change International demonstrated for the “Separation of Oil and State.” 61 were arrested overall.
The most fun part was in prison, when we integrated the holding cell across gender (or perceived gender) lines. Starting on opposite sides of the room based on what gender the cops considered us, we sneakily inched together over the course of hours, until we ended up in a big circle and had a meeting! The power dynamic was flipped and the cops were stunned.
Everyone is out of jail, healthy and safe.
“No War! No Warming! Resistance! is Forming!”
some good coverage:
Democracy Now! video coverage (requires Realplayer)
Youtube video #1 (skip the weird 1:00 intro)
more pics: Read the rest of this entry »
by Carolyn Baker, Ph.D.
May 16, 2006
Two years ago when I was invited to watch the jaw-dropping DVD, The End Of Suburbia, I came away feeling terrified about the ramifications of Peak Oil, but only later did I reflect on the fact that there are virtually no women in the documentary – except the ditzy fifties caricatures who consumed everything that wasn’t nailed down. Subsequently, I began researching Peak Oil and then informing the students in my college history classes about what I consider the stellar historical event of the modern world, the end of hydrocarbon energy and probably the end of Western civilization. Yet consistently in the process of informing myself about Peak Oil, I encountered very academic charts, graphs, geological and economic studies, and lots of male voices. I had almost come to believe that the issue was exclusively a masculine concept when a female friend commented that the Peak Oil bell curve seemed to her rather phallic. My response was entirely the opposite: I had been perceiving it as a giant breast. Well, all Roschach testing and the dearth of women in the Peak Oil movement aside, what does the phenomenon have to do not only with women but the feminine principle itself? My answer: Everything! Read the rest of this entry »
by Robert Newman
Thursday February 2, 2006
The Guardian/UK
Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change
There is no meaningful response to climate change without massive social change. A cap on this and a quota on the other won’t do it. Tinker at the edges as we may, we cannot sustain earth’s life-support systems within the present economic system.Capitalism is not sustainable by its very nature. It is predicated on infinitely expanding markets, faster consumption and bigger production in a finite planet. And yet this ideological model remains the central organising principle of our lives, and as long as it continues to be so it will automatically undo (with its invisible hand) every single green initiative anybody cares to come up with.
Much discussion of energy, with never a word about power, leads to the fallacy of a low-impact, green capitalism somehow put at the service of environmentalism. In reality, power concentrates around wealth. Private ownership of trade and industry means that the decisive political force in the world is private power. The corporation will outflank every puny law and regulation that seeks to constrain its profitability. It therefore stands in the way of the functioning democracy needed to tackle climate change. Only by breaking up corporate power and bringing it under social control will we be able to overcome the global environmental crisis.
On these pages we have been called on to admire capital’s ability to take robust action while governments dither. All hail Wal-Mart for imposing a 20% reduction in its own carbon emissions. But the point is that supermarkets are over. We cannot have such long supply lines between us and our food. Not any more. Read the rest of this entry »
The End of Capitalism 
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