Economy
“Most people aren’t paying attention. Most people have no idea what’s going on. Industrial civilization is already having serious health problems and heart palpitations. By 2020, industrial civilization’s going to suffer a massive stroke. By 2025, it will be in hospice. By 2030, it will be dead,” writes the anonymous author of Articulating The Future….
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Ethnic differences have been widely considered the cause of the Rohingya genocide. However, these reports show that the killings and forced displacement of several of Myanmar’s minority communities may also be fuelled by global corporations’ growing interest in the Rakhine’s mineral wealth, and the competing geopolitical interests of the United States, China, India and Bangladesh….
Read More about The oil economics and land-grab politics behind the Rohingya genocideConflict/Dispossession
With the U.S. and Russia headed for a direct confrontation in Syria, the war in that country is moving a new, more dangerous phase. The Syrian war often seems like a big confusing mess but one factor that’s not often mentioned could be the key to unlocking the conflict: the struggle to control energy markets….
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Bookshelf
This review by Alice Friedmann of Nafeez Ahmed’s new book has 3 parts: 1) Why states collapse for reasons other than economic and political 2) How Bio-Physical factors contribute to systemic collapse in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Nigeria 3) Predictions of when collapse will begin in Middle-East, India, China, Europe, Russia, North America…
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CLIMATE CRISIS
As 2017 dawns, in a great many ways, modern industrial civilization has flung itself forward into a darkness where no stars offer guidance and no echoes tell what lies ahead… We’re not discussing the end of the world; events like those that can be found repeated many times in the histories of other failing civilizations….
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Digests/Specials
With the production of ‘conventional oil’ having reached a plateau and fossil fuels in general under attack for their impact on the climate and the environment, the global oil industry is undergoing an unprecedented upheaval. Oil being the very lifeblood of all industrial societies, the geopolitical and economic consequences of these changes are already being felt….
Read More about The political and economic fallout of the energy upheaval
Economy
Oil prices drive not just economics, but geopolitics. Alliances rise and fall over petroleum. For these reasons and more, the collapsing value of oil will have profound consequences, with the potential to destabilize regimes, remake regions and alter the global economy in lasting and unforeseen ways. Fifteen experts tell Politico what that means for the world….
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CLIMATE CRISIS
India, Colombia and Nigeria have the most cases of conflict caused by climate change and environmental disputes, according to a map of global ecological conflict. The Environmental Justice Atlas, released last month, shows that more than 200 conflicts in India are caused by ecological disputes and scarcities of basic resources such as water and forests….
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New coal plants ‘most urgent’ threat to the planet, warns OECD head The Guardian UK Governments must rethink plans for new coal-fired power plants around the world, as these are now the “most urgent” threat to the future of the planet, the head of the OECD has warned. In unusually strong terms for the organisation…
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Saudi Arabia’s Plan to Extend the Age of Oil Peter Waldman, Bloomberg.com Last Novemeber, Ali al-Naimi, Saudi Arabia’s petroleum minister and the world’s de facto energy czar, told his OPEC counterparts they should maintain output to protect market share from rising supplies of U.S. shale oil, which costs more to get out of the ground…
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What is Saudi Arabia not telling us about its oil future? Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights What if the Saudis are acting now to undermine U.S. and Canadian oil production because they realize that Saudi production will soon reach a peak? What if the Saudis fear that energy efficiency, fuel substitution (say, toward natural gas), and…
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2014 Warmest Year on Record The New York Times Last year was the hottest on earth since record-keeping began in 1880, scientists reported, underscoring warnings about the risks of runaway greenhouse gas emissions and undermining claims by climate change contrarians that global warming had somehow stopped. Groundbreaking Study Confirms: We Must Leave Fossil Fuels “In…
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U.S. Streaks Past Saudi Arabia as World’s Largest Oil Producer Breitbart News The United States surpassed all other countries this year with daily crude oil and other petroleum liquids reaching 11 million barrels per day (mbd). Since the beginning of 2011, U.S. liquid fuels grew by more than 4 mbd, including 3 mbd of crude…
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Greenhouse Gas Pollution Sees Fastest Rise From The Scientific American Despite some recent regional reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and other industrial nations, the total concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continues its upward march at an unprecedented rate, the World Meteorological Organization has announced. Stand by for the ‘megadroughts’,…
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Amid Global Turmoil, Oil Prices Surprisingly Stable From Forbes Magazine The world has entered a zone of maximum upheaval. From the Atlas Mountains of North Africa to the Hindu Kush, in Afghanistan, the Middle East is in flames. The destruction of a Malaysian airline over Ukraine, almost certainly shot down by Russian-backed separatist rebels, threatens…
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Iraq crisis: India braces for Rs 20,000 cr hole in budget as oil could rise to $120 per barrel From Firtsbiz.com India’s government sees oil prices going as high as $120 per barrel for three to four months because of fighting in Iraq, potentially driving a hole of at least Rs 20,000 crore ($3.4 billion)…
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