Going Global

Black Gold or Black Blood?

Gushing out of the wounded bowels of Mother Earth, it rushes out to the light. The Black Blood feeds human hearts and turns them dark with the colors of greed, power and ambition. It pours out of deep sores in the fabric of the earth drilled throughout the deserts of the Middle East, the open plains of Texas, the seas of Europe and the war-torn reaches of Africa.

For a century or so, Oil has undoubtedly been the most sought after commodity among the human race. Whether if to power our motor cars, our homes or simply to carry our small businesses forward.

The already exploding demand for oil is set to double over the next fifty years, with the major consumers being fast-growing 3rd world economies. Oil already heavily relies on transport to get it from the countries which produce it in excess to the countries that do not produce oil or have a demand level that far exceeds their production levels.

As demand doubles and reserves deplete (at current levels of consumption if no new reserves are discovered oil will run out by the next hundred and twenty years) and if no alternate sources of energy are discovered, the world is going to be plunged into some bleak times indeed.

Speculation exists that controlling powers continuously undermine efforts at creating alternative energy sources because oil is still a way of making a huge amount of money for a considerable amount of already very rich and powerful people. That they continuously push production and consumption and try to make the best of the global demand for oil to fill their own pockets, heedless to the massive amounts of suffering caused to everyday human beings as a result.

But to venture into such a thought train is to venture into the macabre world of power and conspiracy, where paranoia can take over at one wrong turn and all theories built up over careful analysis can collapse in the blink of an eye. This is not to deny that such a world exists, indeed the inner workings of international power play is beyond the grasp of many, and the understanding of the common man is usually only based on the communications of the mass media which is more often than not controlled by another powerful entity. This in turn leads to more questions. And more in turn.

Instead, let us stick to what we know. Stick to the facts as they say. It is a fact that oil is a major source of power, it is a fact that any country that holds oil can dictate terms to a given extent over a country that does not, it is a fact that growing demand for oil is only going to turn the balance of this power in the favor of the already powerful, then it should follow as oil resources deplete and the power of oil is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer countries that conflict will arise between those who hold that power and those who aspire to it, or those who are even oppressed by it.

Oil supply will reduce, that is a fact. Most of the remaining oil will be in the nationalized economies of the Middle East and to a lesser extent Russia. This will cause the western Big Four (Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell) to witness a sharp drop in their available reserves and consequently the countries they belong to will also find their grip on world economic control fading.

Will we see repeat telecasts of the Iraq war? Will we see more superpowers protecting small tyrannical governments in return for having exclusive access to oil purchases (China with Sudan)? All out global conflict seems inevitable if oil remains strong on the list of essential commodities. So unless these countries consider war essential to expand their empires, developing cleaner energy sources seems the logical option. Indeed, It would seem that ‘clean energy’ can avoid far more deadly things that Global Warming.

Countries as a whole seem to possess a collective mentality when looked at from a psychological perspective. And the solution seems as simple as a change in direction. Instead of the all-consuming self possessing greed that we seem to have for the most coveted natural resource in the world, it would seem a far better option to simply consider our situation in a purely objective manner and simply look at ways where we can successfully survive without depending on exploiting the gushing black blood of poor Mother Earth.