Seth wrote:
> the articles Mark Jones posted to
> Crashlist from the official sources deftly omit one big part of the global
> oil production story: World consumption of oil was 76 million barrels a
day
> during January-April 2000, an increase of eight million barrels a day
since
> 1990, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). And the US?
Its
> oil consumption was a mere 19 million barrels per day during January-April
> 2000 versus 17 million barrels in January-April 1990, according to the
IEA.
>
> Seems that concrete reality is a bit much for the official sources to
report
> to the public, eh?
>
Not only am I not "deftly omitting *rising* oil consumption", that's my
whole point! In article after article over many years, I've been arguing
that there is NO SUCH THING as 'virtualisation' of the economy, NO SUCH
THING as the so-called 'New Economy', Internet etc, actually REDUCING energy
consumption. We have been told time after time that energy is 'no longer
important' because it takes 'too small a percentage share of GDP to matter
any more'; we have been told that capitalist economies have become
'energy-efficient' and that energy input costs have become 'decoupled' from
economic growth and that energy is a 'declining part of each dollar unit of
GDP' etc. All lies! For a long time it was impossible even to get a hearing
(but people like Doug Henwood and Carrol Cox are now more clearly revealed
as ostriches). The truth was that (a) oil was AND IS indispensable to modern
economies, (b) oil is a highly finite resource; (c) oil is irreplaceable,
and the so-called 'alternatives' (wind, PVs, biomass etc) are just hoaxes;
(d) oil supply would start to peak and decline after 2000.
And the truth WAS AND IS that capitalism cannot exist WITHOUT GROWTH: it is
a grow-or-die society, and that too is what I've repeatedly been saying, and
I've been pointing to the simple fact that when energy deficits bite,
capitalism will almost INSTANTLY enter crisis, and depending on what happen
s next, that crisis can be final, ie, can result in a catatsrophic economic
slump, followed by wars, mass dieoffs and more besides.
I believe that the PEAK IS HERE and that the true situation is far worse
than the public is told. This means quite simply that the populations of the
advances countries are being led like sheep to the slaughter. As for the 3rd
world, the situation in many places is aleady completely catastrophic; they
will become simply the battlegrounds of world war 3, the war fought for
energy (as also world war 2 was fought for energy).
I lived through the collapse of Soviet oil and I see many, manyh
similarities with what is happening today in the West. I expect world oil
production top decline so fast that it will quickly throw the entire global
energy system into profound and irreversible crisis. Industrial collapse
will collapse, there will be unprecedented mass unamployment: and that is
JUST THE BEGINNING of what will be the blackest two or three decades in the
history if industrial capitalism.
What ought to worry you most of all is that there is one other set of people
who HAVE long known the truth: I mean the ruling class, the veiled world of
mega-corps. big Government, of massive and baroque armed forces. They have
known and they have KEPT SILENT about this calamity which wil costs tens of
millions and hundreds of millions of lives.
Why are they silent?
Mark
_______________________________________________
Crashlist resources: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.wwpublish.com/mailman/listinfo/crashlist
