Monday, August 15, 2005
No one has asked the UN
Obstacles to solving the energy crisis:
a) The US will be reluctant to cut its consumption of fossil fuel - the administration may therefore be prepared to wage wars to maintain its current rate of consumption in the short term. Signs of this belligerence came when the US Congress recently discouraged the Chinese bid for a US oil company.
b) Equally reluctant to restrict their energy purchases will be rising Eastern nations, especially as they're becoming increasingly prosperous. Their sense of fairness will be aggravated by the fact that the US continues to consume 25% of the world's oil production for less than 5% of the population.
c) The FT reports today that the UK government is reviewing what weapon capabilities it needs in the future: "certain capabilities believed to be essential to national security nuclear arms technologies, chemical and biological weapons defences, and counter-terrorist capabilities are almost certain to be among those listed."
The United Nations seems the only organisation that can negotiate sufficient order - not the G8. But it'll have to be asked first. But do enough nations really want a peaceful settlement of the energy crisis?
a) The US will be reluctant to cut its consumption of fossil fuel - the administration may therefore be prepared to wage wars to maintain its current rate of consumption in the short term. Signs of this belligerence came when the US Congress recently discouraged the Chinese bid for a US oil company.
b) Equally reluctant to restrict their energy purchases will be rising Eastern nations, especially as they're becoming increasingly prosperous. Their sense of fairness will be aggravated by the fact that the US continues to consume 25% of the world's oil production for less than 5% of the population.
c) The FT reports today that the UK government is reviewing what weapon capabilities it needs in the future: "certain capabilities believed to be essential to national security nuclear arms technologies, chemical and biological weapons defences, and counter-terrorist capabilities are almost certain to be among those listed."
The United Nations seems the only organisation that can negotiate sufficient order - not the G8. But it'll have to be asked first. But do enough nations really want a peaceful settlement of the energy crisis?
# posted by IJ @ 2:19 AM 
