Antidote To Corporate Imperialism by Thomas Gram
February 24, 2014Vermont Education Spending, Tax Disconnect by Heidi Spear
March 10, 2014
Current events in the Ukraine are reaching a global crisis level that needs to be discussed. The United States and EU have initiated a war for the control of the oil and gas coming out of Russia and the Caspian that threatens us all with nuclear annihilation. The Ukraine is a major pipeline route for Russian and Caspian oil and gas to Europe. The US and EU would like to bring the Ukraine into their orbit by installing a friendly regime. This is the root cause of the recent conflict.
Mr. Yanukovich, the duly elected president of the Ukraine, was deposed after recent rioting in which approximately 80 people were killed by snipers. Mr. Yanukovich has sought refuge in neighboring Russia and the Russian military has moved in to occupy Crimea which is a Russian speaking republic and home to the Russian Black Sea fleet. The US has taken exception to this and we have the threat of sanctions, VISA restrictions, and Hillary Clinton comparing Vladimir Putin to Hitler.
US citizens should be aware of the gravity of this conflict. Global oil production has been on a plateau since 2005 and right now is being kept from declining by US light tight oil production by fracking from North Dakota and Texas. This is expected to reach a peak in the next year or two because fracked wells have a steep decline rate and the sweet spots have been mostly exploited. Within a couple of years global oil production is expected to enter a steep decline.
Our civilization depends on oil and the enormous energy from oil has enabled a population boom that currently stands at 7.2 billion hungry people. No more than a small fraction of these people can be fed without oil. Therefore we face an enormous crisis, a bigger crisis than our species has ever been faced with.
How we respond to this predicament will determine the fate of our species and life on this planet. If we allow our government to attempt to maintain business as usual by monopolizing the remaining fossil fuel reserves, as they are currently doing in Ukraine, then we face the possibility of global nuclear war and all that entails. A full scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia would be the end of all life on earth.
If we can somehow find the resolve to prevent a nuclear war and thwart the US Empire then maybe there can be survivors of our species and a continuation of life on the planet. We had a situation recently where the United States wanted to launch air strikes on Syria but was thwarted by public opposition and Russian intervention. So it can be done.
Concerned citizens need to be aware of what is happening and act accordingly. Our government will not be able to start a nuclear war in the face of strong public opposition. We need to get a handle on our population problem by encouraging small families and encouraging our elderly to face their mortality. None of us is going to live forever and our elderly need to bow out gracefully and stop expecting our medical technology to deliver something they can’t have: immorality.
My comments will not earn me any popularity contests but it needs to be said. With our intelligence and technology we have the ability to exterminate all life on earth including our own by 2040 if we keep going like we are. That would be a real tragedy.
Tom Fugate is a Mad River Valley, Vermont resident, business owner, avid follower of current events including peak oil, climate change, etc., gardener, permaculturist, beekeeper, and social change advocate.
