File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2001/postcolonial.0110, message 552


From: "laohu - -AT-Home" <laohu-AT-home.com>
Subject: Re: Not your usual conspiracy theory
Date: Sat, 27 Oct 2001 02:29:19 -0500


This is a multi-part message in MIME format.


Re: Not your usual conspiracy theory

Grateful for all the responses to my earlier posting =96 genuinely appreciated, if not always agreed with.

Yo Margaret:

Thanx for your helpful rebuttal.



Steph:

I agree with you =96 it=92s all just a bit too much paranoid conspiracy theory for me. And, no, I for one do not think you are na=EFve at all, just endowed with some common sense.



Chella:

No need to apologize.

Guess there are some serious differences of opinions on this matter of world reserves. Two important points re your note: 1) what is =91economical=92? and 2) how validly can one estimate what is undiscovered? Isn=92t that just guessing?

But grateful for the heads up and your references. The first one certainly counters my position alarmingly, but the second one seems more of an =91on the one hand=92 and =91on the other hand=92 exposition with some possible but unlikely scenarios for great damage (Main Message: "One main conclusion is worth restating: an oil crisis is unlikely to happen and to add to the other difficulties of the current fight against terrorism.").

And even if OPEC supplies do dry up completely (or the West just decides to cut all oil ties), that=92s not the end of the world. All the vast sums of US$ now going to OPEC will instead go to other producers (North Sea, Russia, [?] Mexico, areas not yet in production, etc.) and to research on domestic energy development strategies (sun power, wind power, coal, decent batteries, H2-O2 power, etc.). Yes, the first couple of years or so would be extremely hard, but then =85 I am a great believer in science and western ingenuity, and also the positive side of unaccounted-for and unimagined events in the future (e.g., remember that butterfly guy at Stanford [Ehrlich] who assured us in the 1960s we=92d be having food riots in the streets during the 1980s? =96 and then the Green Revolution came along!). Besides, how long will all the cartelized OPEC countries abide total loss of US$ income? Their record on sticking together isn=92t the greatest. And do they really want the rest of the world not to buy their oil? What are they going to do with it?

Be sure to read Richard=92s [see below] post, which, among many interesting matters, does speak of the current glut of oil.

Again, thanx for your input =96 gave me much to rethink!



Richard:

Absolutely great posting, and I hope everyone reads it all the way through. You cast a somewhat more nuanced light on things, and certainly make me continue modulating my position.

Given, though, as you twice state (which was precisely my point in my original posting), that the world is currently afloat in oil ("While at the moment we are awash in oil =85" and "=85 the world is awash in oil =85"), and that the oil companies are apparently looking to secure supplies for 2050 ("industry analysts predict that the fields of Central Asia probably will be the world=92s major source of oil in 2050"), I=92m reassured. Personally I believe that fifty years from now alternative fuels will have arisen so as to make the need for oil rather moot, and the countries that have it will derive little if any benefit from their oil or, on that basis, interest from the West. Again, that is just a belief -- who could possibly know the world=92s energy configuration fifty years down the road?

Finally, if, as you argue ("I am personally convinced to the point of total certainty that the plan to attack Afghanistan was set in motion one or two years ago"), the government was hoping for a reason to get involved in Afghanistan, that is still a long, long way from saying or believing that either the Clinton or the Bush government (equally culpable, apparently, on your analysis) planned and engineered the 9-11 catastrophe (which seemed to me to be the position of the posting Margaret made and to which I was initially responding). I simply don=92t believe that to be the case.

Thanx again very much for injecting yourself into this thread.



Good morning all.

j

e b holtsmark - aka jack     =E4ran f=F6rst och fr=E4mst
laohu-AT-avalon.net               esse quam videri
                                          aien aristeuein

HTML VERSION:

Re: Not your usual conspiracy theory

Grateful for all the responses to my earlier posting =96 genuinely appreciated, if not always agreed with.

Yo Margaret:

Thanx for your helpful rebuttal.

 

Steph:

I agree with you =96 it=92s all just a bit too much paranoid conspiracy theory for me. And, no, I for one do not think you are na=EFve at all, just endowed with some common sense.

 

Chella:

No need to apologize.

Guess there are some serious differences of opinions on this matter of world reserves. Two important points re your note: 1) what is =91economical=92? and 2) how validly can one estimate what is undiscovered? Isn=92t that just guessing?

But grateful for the heads up and your references. The first one certainly counters my position alarmingly, but the second one seems more of an =91on the one hand=92 and =91on the other hand=92 exposition with some possible but unlikely scenarios for great damage (Main Message: "One main conclusion is worth restating: an oil crisis is unlikely to happen and to add to the other difficulties of the current fight against terrorism.").

And even if OPEC supplies do dry up completely (or the West just decides to cut all oil ties), that=92s not the end of the world. All the vast sums of US$ now going to OPEC will instead go to other producers (North Sea, Russia, [?] Mexico, areas not yet in production, etc.) and to research on domestic energy development strategies (sun power, wind power, coal, decent batteries, H2-O2 power, etc.). Yes, the first couple of years or so would be extremely hard, but then =85 I am a great believer in science and western ingenuity, and also the positive side of unaccounted-for and unimagined events in the future (e.g., remember that butterfly guy at Stanford [Ehrlich] who assured us in the 1960s we=92d be having food riots in the streets during the 1980s? =96 and then the Green Revolution came along!). Besides, how long will all the cartelized OPEC countries abide total loss of US$ income? Their record on sticking together isn=92t the greatest. And do they really want the rest of the world not to buy their oil? What are they going to do with it?

Be sure to read Richard=92s [see below] post, which, among many interesting matters, does speak of the current glut of oil.

Again, thanx for your input =96 gave me much to rethink!

 

Richard:

Absolutely great posting, and I hope everyone reads it all the way through. You cast a somewhat more nuanced light on things, and certainly make me continue modulating my position.

Given, though, as you twice state (which was precisely my point in my original posting), that the world is currently afloat in oil ("While at the moment we are awash in oil =85" and "=85 the world is awash in oil =85"), and that the oil companies are apparently looking to secure supplies for 2050 ("industry analysts predict that the fields of Central Asia probably will be the world=92s major source of oil in 2050"), I=92m reassured. Personally I believe that fifty years from now alternative fuels will have arisen so as to make the need for oil rather moot, and the countries that have it will derive little if any benefit from their oil or, on that basis, interest from the West. Again, that is just a belief -- who could possibly know the world=92s energy configuration fifty years down the road?

Finally, if, as you argue ("I am personally convinced to the point of total certainty that the plan to attack Afghanistan was set in motion one or two years ago"), the government was hoping for a reason to get involved in Afghanistan, that is still a long, long way from saying or believing that either the Clinton or the Bush government (equally culpable, apparently, on your analysis) planned and engineered the 9-11 catastrophe (which seemed to me to be the position of the posting Margaret made and to which I was initially responding). I simply don=92t believe that to be the case.

Thanx again very much for injecting yourself into this thread.

 

Good morning all.

j

e b holtsmark - aka jack     =E4ran f=F6rst och fr=E4mst
laohu-AT-avalon.net               esse quam videri
                                          aien aristeuein
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