A true addict does not know that it is addicted. It does not know when to seek help. It cannot tell when its actions move from the sublime to the ridiculous. It cannot tell it is time to wean itself off a lethal product before it self-destructs.
Russia threatening war in the Arctic over oil is the latest sign of our oil addiction gone mad. Yesterday the energy superpower raised the prospect of war in the Arctic within the decade in its new national security strategy.Â
The strategy identified the intensifying battle for ownership of vast untapped oil and gas fields around its borders as a source of potential military conflict within a decade.
“The presence and potential escalation of armed conflicts near Russia’s national borders, pending border agreements between Russia and several neighbouring nations, are the major threats to Russia’s interests and border security,” stated the document, which analysed security threats up to 2020.
“In a competition for resources it cannot be ruled out that military force could be used to resolve emerging problems that would destroy the balance of forces near the borders of Russia and her allies.”
The Kremlin has insisted that it is not “militarising the Arctic” but its warnings of armed conflict suggest that it is willing to defend its interests by force. It is now competing with United States, Norway, Canada and Denmark to a section of the Arctic shelf, the size of Western Europe, which oil proponents believe contain billions of tonnes of oil and gas.
Last year Putin accused the West of coveting Russian energy reserves, saying: “Many conflicts, foreign policy actions and diplomatic moves smell of oil and gas. Behind all that there often is a desire to enforce an unfair competition and ensure access to our resources.”
But the elephant in the room is that when will it stop – when will we wean ourselves off a product that is destroying us? Wasn’t the Iraq war enough of a lesson of what goes spectacularly wrong when you fight wars for oil – or are we so addicted we no longer can think clearly. Surely it makes sense to begin the radical transformation to clean energy now rather than fight wars over the very last drop.
Right now oil is the catalist for life as we know it, it also gives us the ability to control our immediate enviornment, once we loose that control we are no longer a super power nor provider of all we survey, and why I say.
Start today in earnest where ever one can, and gain the knowledge or skills that will help you and your family or local village to feed itself in the times of shortage which many are saying is comming sooner than we imagine.
I say feed because without food because there is a saying that, civilisation is but three meals away, this is where all our problems are going to take place, without it we will not have the energy to work neither fight, six weeks without it will see half the population out of the equasion, the last fuelcrisis should have laid down the warning signs, when in as little as three days the supermarlet shalves were about bare.
It not going to happen any time soon but it will happen, call me what you like but all the experts and forward looking people are saying the same thing, do what ever your best at, forget the academics who want you to be like them, the social managerial skills etc, which we are fast becoming a nation of office workers and managers will not feed us.
On a last note,
Making people work for nothing, And giving others something for doing nothing doesn’t work in the long term.
Take a look around your town and see the empty shops, the shops that were either selling cheap goods or have closed because of the importing of them and you will have one of the answers that is linked to the two statements above.