Interesting strategy! US military costs in the Middle East have a lot more to do with Israel than with oil, though. Middle Eastern governments view oil and gas exports as a commercial matter: they love to have export contracts, and (until the US invaded Iraq -- motivated by pro-Israel US neocons) there was never a threat to the fulfillment of the contracts. The one exception was the 1973 oil embargo, when in retaliation for blanket US military support for Israel some Arab countries cut back significantly on the their exports to the US and Europe. Things returned to normal -- after long lines at the gas pumps here and in Europe and frayed tempers -- things returned to normal.
Lawry On Nov 12, 2012, at 10:35 AM, James Bowery wrote: > I once asked a DoE official why the military costs in the middle east are not > included in the import cost of foreign oil. > > His answer was that it was a matter of "national policy" (which is to say > "industrial policy" in other words). > > I was on the GOP platform committee for Iowa's third congressional district > and we got a plank put in to fully charge all fossil fuel imports for the > military costs of the middle east. The neocons at the State convention got > it removed. > > > On Mon, Nov 12, 2012 at 8:42 AM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert Lynn <[email protected]> wrote: > > One wonders how these coffee plants ever survived the 10°C colder > temperatures of the last ice age, or the 3°C hotter temperatures of the > Holocene Climate Optimum 5-9000 years ago. > > They did not exist. No domesticated plants existed 9,000 years ago, and none > could survive in the wild alone without human protection. Maize and other > domesticated plants never survive feral, any more than domesticated turkeys > or cows do. > > You never see crops growing in abandoned farms. I have seen hundreds of acres > of abandoned farmland in Yamaguchi. The grain crops, kiwi, oranges and other > food crops are wiped out in ten years. Livestock including chickens don't > last a week. They fall to predators such as wild boars, monkeys and badgers. > Those chickens can be pretty fierce. The only feral domesticated animal that > survives are house cats, which are only half-domesticated in any case, and > they do not last long. > > Climate change of a few degrees would be an unprecedented disaster. The > descriptions are not hyperbolic; they hardly begin to tell how bad it will > be. No one knows how bad it would be, but there is no question it is a > disaster. > > The thread title here is "A dreadful price to pay." Yes, the cost is > extravagant and for what? The benefit we derive from using fossil fuel is > trivial. Our energy costs a little less than it would with replacement > sources. After 10 or 20 years of investing in these other sources the cost > would be about the same, and after that it would be cheaper. > > - Jed > >
