The End of the World as You Know It…and the Rise of the New Energy World Order

[Echo In Light]

The End of the World as You Know It
…and the Rise of the New Energy World Order
By Michael T. Klare

17/04/08 " Tomdispatch" -- Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live -- trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.

Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all -- along with its "First World" allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former "Third World" countries -- China and India in particular -- have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption -- a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE).

An increase of this sort would not be a matter of deep anxiety if the world's primary energy suppliers were capable of producing the needed additional fuels. Instead, we face a frightening reality: a marked slowdown in the expansion of global energy supplies just as demand rises precipitously. These supplies are not exactly disappearing -- though that will occur sooner or later -- but they are not growing fast enough to satisfy soaring global demand.

The combination of rising demand, the emergence of powerful new energy consumers, and the contraction of the global energy supply is demolishing the energy-abundant world we are familiar with and creating in its place a new world order. Think of it as: rising powers/shrinking planet.

This new world order will be characterized by fierce international competition for dwindling stocks of oil, natural gas, coal, and uranium, as well as by a tidal shift in power and wealth from energy-deficit states like China, Japan, and the United States to energy-surplus states like Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. In the process, the lives of everyone will be affected in one way or another -- with poor and middle-class consumers in the energy-deficit states experiencing the harshest effects. That's most of us and our children, in case you hadn't quite taken it in.

Here, in a nutshell, are five key forces in this new world order which will change our planet:

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http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19764.htm

[sam sarrha]

1. Poppy Bu$h finally got his "New World Order", now all the NeoCons have to do is destroy it so their

Utopia can rise out of the ashes...

didn't anyone notice Greenspan was a Libertarian..?? i'm surprised we still have public schools, police and fire departments left

[Bandit]

2. And Exxon keeps making OVER one hundred million dollars a day

Net Profit.. After all expenses have been met they still put in their pocket OVER one hundred million dollars a day day in and day out week after week, month after month, year after year, and price of fuel keeps on rising.....I wonder if the world would stop if they cut their Net Profit to only say ten million dollars a DAY....:shrug:

[Echo In Light]

3. Bump