At the urging of one friend I’m going to take a little interlude from nagging people on sustainability principles and detour into my of my more common harangues. Not that this crowd needs it as much as most but sometimes some of our architects forget to really stress the energy efficiency aspects of their designs and the recent LEED hoo-haa has made some good points about this. So, let me try to recount a few things about why we ought to be doing some of this–and not using so much glass in a helter-skelter way. Here goes:
It’s the Oil, Stupid !
It’s a sign that ought to hang over the desk of every politician, general and journalist—and architect.
OIL has literally made us what we are today.
Without it, we would not have had the mechanization of agriculture. Before that a farmer could only support the food needs of about 5 others and most of those were his family. Most of us would have been farmers without oil.
Beginning just after WW I it allowed many to leave the farm to become doctors, lawyers, artists, factory workers and so many other professions. OK, so more lawyers may not have been one of the better benefits of oil.
It also meant the beginning of our consumerist society and a value system which often focuses on what we have rather than who we are. It took us from being inner-directed to other-directed
HISTORICALLY, let me give you a litany of events:
Oil. It has been a cause of conflict for decades.
In 1933 Smedley Butler said:
War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. .. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag. I helped make Mexico, .. safe for American oil interests in 1914…. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you, Smedley was a Marine Corp Major General and the recipient of two Congressional medals of honor. He would have had a third but the rules at that time prevented it.
On December 7th, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. A source close to the emperor noted they took this action largely because the US imposed a de facto petroleum embargo on them.
During WW II President Roosevelt met with King Ibn Saud and basically laid a policy that we would protect the Saudi Kingdom in return for access to oil. Every US president has renewed that pledge to a nation so abusive of human rights it makes the #1 or #2 spot in that category every year from Amnesty International.
In 1952 the President’s Materials Policy Commission (the Paley Commission) warned that the nation’s oil supply would begin to dwindle by the 1970′s.
In 1953 the US CIA engineered the overthrow of Mohammed Mosidique and put the Shah of Iran in power to protect our access to oil
In 1956 M. King Hubbert, a Shell Oil geologist, determined the US would peak in oil production between 1966 and 1970 by three impeccable proofs. It peaked in 1970.
In 1971 the first wave of US military flew arms to Iran. It was later to lead to the revolution. I delivered a jet to them and trained them.
In 1973 we had the Arab oil embargo and developed plans to invade if need be.
In the 1979 Iranian Mullahs together with the middle class, angry about arms spending, overthrew the Shah.
In 1991 we intervened in Iraq to maintain access to Kuwaiti oil
In 2001 the US was attacked by Jihhadist terorists. 15 of 19 were Saudi who saw us as “foreign guards” defiling the land of Mecca and Medina.
In 2003 we invaded Iraq. It’s not because they had rutabagas there–OR weapons of Mass Destruction but they had the second largest oil reserves at the time.
In 2006 George W. Bush said in his State of the Union address “America is addicted to oil”
SO, WHERE ARE WE TODAY?
4% of global population using 25% of oil use
We use 20.5 million barrels per day OR ~7.5 billion barrels a year. China uses about 1/3 as much.
We import roughly 55-60% of it
Surprisingly most does not currently come from the Middle East –maybe 20% of totals
BUT, neither can we drill ourselves to oil independence. You don’t end an addiction by continuing the drug. Let me try to explain:
The mean availability for both ANWR and Outer Continental Shelf combined is ~96 billion barrels, a mean figure
We use 7.5 billion barrels per year
That’s about 12.8 years if we could get it all out at once–and we can’t
It’s a global market and we do not set the price so drilling will not significantly lower its cost either.
When all is said, the Middle East will still have the easy, cheap oil after we exhaust domestic sources.
We will be back to them but even more dependent
Getting off oil is the only real solution and the transition must begin now.
Sad to say oil and the environmental issues will only be taken seriously when linked to national security–and both of them are. In his 1962 book Enough Good Men Dr. Albert E. Burke warned us:
The problem is not money. It is a problem of education to inform Americans about the close tie which has always existed between a wide margin of resources and freedom. Reduce that margin of resources, reduce the quality of those resources and you reduce what Americans have always meant by the word “freedom.”
Much of what you have written rings true in principle and in fact. I believe that the problem is at its root a matter of natioanalism regardless of form. Where the scope and scale of conflicts and their expenses could be mitigated by a more localy focused culture we have in its stead a national identity and the luxury of Globalization, an oil dependent food system, transportation system, energy system, political system,…..! How can the focus be redirected?
Hi Peter,
Nationalism can be a powerful force for evil—or for good. So, it may not be appropriate to look totally at the negative side of it. I want you to consider the word “balkanized” as it refers the break up of one political entity into many, smaller political entities because they all want local autonomy or ethnic identity. This, too, can be a good thing or a bad thing when carried to extremes.
Think about what happened to Yugoslavia once it divided into those small ethnic enclaves which may have had both minority as well as majority populations in each of them. One could argue they were more “localized” but it was still not a pretty site as “nationalism” was still there and maybe in even a more virulent form than when the localized extremists were under some centralized control. Maybe it’s the extremist, both local and national, who are the problem.
Best,
Joel Gordes
Joel,
I’d like to thank you for your service and your perspective, and, if I may, I’d like to insert another date into your excellent compendium.
August 1996
In August, 1996, a London newspaper published Osama bin Laden’s Fatwa or declaration of war against the U.S.A.
The reasons he gave, which persist unabated to this day, were 1) “occupation of the land of the two Holy Places,” 2) interfering with the domestic politics of the Islamic countries, most notably, in siding with the House of Saud, and 3) stealing their oil.
The actual text:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/terrorism/international/fatwa_1996.html
Some will be upset at the notion of reading anything such a person has to say, but in order to end a war, we must know the enemy. Demonizing the other guy, and placing an embargo on their version of history is the definition of willful ignorance. (btw, Obama and Hilary will never reach any new understandings with Iran until they acknowledge the events of 1953.)
The US does not set out to “win” wars today. Like the British pushing opium into China, Big Oil is a military operation at perpetual war against the planet and the indigenous populations and facilitated by the oil addicted. And we can only end the conflict by changing our habits. The US has not “won” a real war since 1945. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, plus innumerable military interventions have all eventually been lost or gone against US interests. Even “winning” the cold war has led to the creation of Putin’s petro-state.
Wake up America!
“Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us” (book title 1972)
The focus can be RE-directed.
Hi Ross,
Thanks for adding that date and actually, bin Laden was just echoing the thoughts of a 14th century Arab philosopher named Ibn Khaldun who said that the caliphate changed from time to time when the ruler depended upon “outside gurards” rather than Allah to protect them. Sound familiar?? Guess who?? I also negelcted to add one point you also allude to and that was when we overthrew Mohammed Mossadegh as leader of Iran in 1953 to install the Shah, Mossadegh was the democratically elected leader of that country. The litany I gave could go on for much longer. Maybe we ought to begin a more comprehensive list than I had time for. Others please join in.
Best,
Joel
Joel,
While I believe that oil addiction is more a result of industrialism than of nationalism, it’s also true that nationalism and it’s handmaiden – militarism – have enabled us to maintain that addiction and impose our cravings upon the world as a plague.
However, I also believe that you are confusing the chicken with the egg in your perspective on nationalism and balkanization. The reason that the return to ethnic and local entities is so frought with violence and hatred is because of the prior forced consolidation of independent nationalities into an overarching artificial political nationhood. Once the repression of central control dissolves, whether in the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia or Iraq, the long-suppressed ethnic tensions explode – tensions that were not so problematic when groups had their own identity and self-determination.
Humans evolved to socialize in small, localized, ethnically-related groupings. We experienced the explosive potential of incorporation even here in the land of immigrants during what we call our Civil War, which was in reality a war of the forces of centralization against local control and sovereignty.
But as long as our identity is primarily nationalistic, we will wage war to feed our addictions rather than learn to rely on our own local resources and voluntary trade with other locally-focused states.
For a more thorough list of US military interventions:
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/US_Interventions_WBlumZ.html
http://people.uncw.edu/hinese/AmericanInvasions.pdf
Hi Robert,
Thank you for your thoughtful reply on this and I agree with much of what you have to say on the explosion of repressed ethnic tensions once central control dissolves. Indeed, I have frequently pointed out that one major problem with Iraq is that it was a nation artificially constructed by the British as a booby prize for Faisal, a Hashemite, after the Sauds got the grand prize of Arabia. As such, I still beleive it will fragment once we leave unless another Saddam-type reimposes central control. I do not make a judgmental call on this one way or another.
I am still unconvinced that this is necessarily or totally a question of scale as per local versus national. For instance, what happened on Easter Island’s population offers an interesting example. In Jared Diamond’s book Collapse:How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, as I recall, he makes a the case that even while they were a small, closed society, the abuse of the ecosystem around them lead to internal conflict and the mysterious disappearance of the inhabitants. Maybe this is the extreme but when I finished my original post with Dr. Burke’s quote it was this same abuse of resources he was pointing out. He just did it earlier than most and connected the connected the dots in an amazing way. Nations, however, sometimes because of their size are able to inflict damage on a larger scale. Still, are there not nations who are not “nationalistic” in a virulent manner and have treated their resources well? Maybe modern Sweden or Norway? Thoughts on this, Robert?
Best,
Joel Gordes
Joel:
First, Shakespeare said “first we must kill all the lawyers.” Most folks think this is funny but it had to do with the Rome government’s bid to install a totalitarian government.
Second, I totally agree with you regarding the U.S. dependence on oil (foreign or domestic) and the fact is that we cannot sustain this addiction and continue to be a great nation. Most Americans don’t get it and the politicians are too afraid to really face the issue head on. A trip to Europe would be a worth while venture: Windturbines; high gasoline prices (taxes); public transportation; high speed trains; and small cars that get great mileage. What we do/did in NH and MA is widen Route 93 and Route 3, overspend on the Big Dig, and pass on an opportunity to link North and South Station with a subway.
In the movie “The End of Suburbia”, James Howard Kunstler describes the peak oil issue as a Cluster @#/* that will lead to high prices, global conflict, and a perpetual recession.
Search the internet and you’ll find the true cost of a gallon of gasoline to be $10 to $15, so at $2.00 it is highly subsidized. If we gave this lever of subsidies to Solar PV and Wind, we could all be driving electric cars. So it’s time to bring our borders (and our military) closer in to the 50 United States. The way to accomplish this is to say goodbye to oil. Hasta La Vista. Au revoir.
Hi Thomas,
Well, I think we do need to keep a few lawyers around for wills and deeds but their population has been largely uncontrolled due to the mechanization of agriculture which I alluded to at one point. Maybe a tax on lawyers…. ;>
Anyhow, yes I have a copy of Kunsler’s “The End of Suburbia” and he was a speaker at the 2008 NESEA Conference evening forum and was quite good. While the peak oil issues has begun to be popularized in recent years it goes back to Shell Oil geologist M. King Hubbert who in 1956 alerted Congress to the situation of US oil peaking in ~1970. I have taught about him in numerous classes and how he derived his proofs that turned out to be right on target. Still, Americans do not “get it” and this last hurrah on oil will have its consequences that are not pretty to envision. In many ways we are fooling ourselves with half-measures to make us feel better about ourselves (“hey, I’m green” and I’m passing it on to my five children) than taking more substantive actions that will be required.
Best,
Joel Gordes
This is all true and don’t think for a moment that it isn’t. Now how do we convince the masses that is so dependent what is told to them by a controlled media.
All I can do is convince those how believe and change our lives only. Tell me how we can change the world?
Watch THE ZEITGEIST MOVEMENT and it will take you deeper into this Oil Addiction and Corruption of our government.
Hi Jay,
Thank you for your comment and if I had the total answer on this, we would not be in this dialogue. All I can do is reiterate what I often say which is energy use and abuse has been portrayed largely as an environmental problem (which it is) but this is not accepted by a goodly number of people especially when climate change is brought in. I think we need to accent the national security aspects of our energy use more as in every general poll, security issues –including economic security–are rated very important or important while environmental issues in general and climate change in particular (especially in recessions) are way down the list. (See the Pew polls on this)
Because it is Earth Day tomorrow I am launching a very special website that honors my greatest teacher and hero on environment, security, energy, civil rights and patriotism. Please go to http://www.dralberteburke.com to learn about this extraordinary person.
Best,
Joel N. Gordes