In 13 years, more forests will be slashed and burned, emptying a deep well of carbon into the atmosphere. And as those forests disappear, pure forest products will rise in value, increasing demand, hastening the slashing and burning, giving rise to more carbon gasses.
In 13 years, a similar shrinkage in availability of water, oil, gasses and coal, will sharpen appetites of developing nations, busy even now building canals, cars, factories and coal-fired plants, hastening the shrinkage of resources.
In 13 years, well… anything might happen. Not only because nature is fickle, but because American policies, like those of many, less-powerful nations, are incoherent, dishonest and reactionary.
We have no sane energy policy. We have no sane military policy. We have no sane environmental policy. What we have is a mess. And it's tied to an economic and political system that makes things worse by exploiting fear and maximizing profits for a few.
Michael Klare, who's taken a hard look at the prospect of coming resource wars, has a new book, Blood and Oil, The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependency on Imported Petroleum. In an excerpt I read at www.Tomdispatch.com
(http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/1888/michael_klare_on_oil_wars_and_the_american_military), Klare points out how our policy in Iraq really is about oil. It's based, says Klare, on a doctrine promoted by every president since Truman.
According to Klare, "It was given formal expression by President Carter in January 1980, when, in response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the Islamic revolution in Iran, he announced that the secure flow of Persian Gulf oil was in 'the vital interests of the United States of America,' and that in protecting this interest we would use 'any means necessary, including military force.'"
Leading up to the Gulf War, Bush 41 cited Carter's declaration, and it served as pre-established justification for Bush 43's ill-conceived and duplicitous invasion of Iraq.
Time and again the importance of oil to the future of Iraq has been cited by the Bush administration. It's now clear, however, that the invasion has mostly dried up the flow of Iraqi oil, thanks to literally thousands of attacks on the oil infrastructure in Iraq.
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