[Dvanharn]

Here is a fascinating pair of articles, the original from 2000, and followup article two months ago. The subject is the global petroleum situation, and is published in the journal of the New York/Washington-based "Council on Foreign Relations." People interested in peak oil issues shoud read the complete text of these two articles, because it puts U.S. foreign policy regarding oil into a sharp perspective. Colin Campbell is put down hard in the original article.

In 2000, they predicted a glut of oil for the next two decades, and worried about the negative effect of low oil prices on the economy. Now they contend that there are vast amounts of oil to be had for the taking, but that politics is the only problem preventing that. Fascinating, and scary!

If any of our resident "detail nuts" want to deconstruct and critique Jaffe's claims, I would enjoy reading the results. Remember that this council includes many influential people who are instrumental in formulating America's foreign policy - these are the people who could push the lemmings over the cliff, just like in the Disney movie that established the lemming myth.

Dave van Harn

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"The Shocks of a World of Cheap Oil"
By Amy Myers Jaffe and Robert A. Manning

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2000
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ummary: As oil flirts with prices that call to mind the shocks of the 1970s, the usual Cassandras have been warning of dwindling oil supplies and sky-high prices. But the danger is precisely the opposite. The next two decades will witness a prolonged surplus of oil, which will tamp prices down. This world of cheap oil will have serious political reverberations. Without rising oil revenues, such key states as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, and Colombia will face worsening crises at home. The same is true in spades for Central Asia, where Washington's current wrongheaded policies could drag it into crises that make the Balkans look like a pregame warm-up. The world should worry less about a scarcity of oil than about a glut.

[PhilBiker]

Thse jack-asses need to sit down and talk to Matt Simmons for a few hours.

[Leanan]

I'd file this under "If you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail." If you're a foreign policy wonk, you think everything can be solved with politics.

Reading the articles, the thing that strikes me is how very precarious our energy situation is. We're counting on unstable countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia for the lifeblood of our society, when no one in their right mind would do that if they had a choice.

I'm reminded of an anthropologist who once dismissed the idea that the Aztecs had trouble getting enough protein for their population. He pointed out that the Aztecs ate a huge variety of protein-rich food: dogs, turkeys, worms, ants, larvae, crickets, algae (basically, pond scum skimmed from the water surface and pressed into cakes). Another anthropologist replied that if people are eating bugs and pond scum, it's not a sign of plenty.

And that's pretty much the situation we're in. Putting our faith in the stability and good will of countries like Venezuela and Saudi Arabia is the equivalent of eating pond scum: not something we'd be doing if we had a choice.