I originally typed energy policies, but then thought to myself, it is deeper than that. It is about what all of us believe, or at least a vast majority.
The report is in the UK Independent, one of the larger UK dailies.
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.Nine years? That is plenty of time for us to do some serious work on our part.
Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
I assert that after several decades of talking about getting serious, we now have a deadline of sorts and we need to actually get serious about reducing our dependence on foreign oil. As a bumper sticker I have seen in Lowell says, it is a national security issue.♠
This will not be a painless experience, but if we don't accept a little pain now a lot of pain will be imposed on us a decade from now.
My own opinion is that we need to get serious about wind and nuclear energy and about rebuilding our electrical transmission infrastructure. We have to be serious about coal and how we can exploit our vast quantities of that resource for cleaner energy.
One of the secrets about the environment is that we here in the US are not going to be able to turn the whole world around, notwithstanding large chunk of global energy consumption. Not even with the Europeans, Canada, Japan and Australia and New Zealand. The so called BRIC states♥ are going to be big players over the long run.
Sure, we can aspire to be like Canada and not be out meddling in the affairs of others, but part of the reason Canada can be Canada is the United States is the United States. The world will change is we roll over, or we get rolled.
Regards — Cliff
♠ Actually the car of one of the bloggers at Left in Lowell (one of the three bloggers, not one of the many named and unnamed commenters).
♥ Brazil, Russia, India and China.
I always get eye rolls from the righties when I introduce the thought this way, but Al Gore made a speech awhile ago that linked our energy, security and economic concerns in an extremely thoughtful and important way. His point was, if I can paraphrase correctly, that our dependence on Middle East oil has wrecked our economy and left us the target of homicidal zealotry, and only a solution that solves all three problems will do now. (It frustrates me that ideology prohibits most righties from acknowledging the obvious correctness of the point without devolving into a pointless political discussion about Al Gore as a politician, which is beside the greater point).
ReplyDeleteIt's easier for righties to see it when T. Boone Pickens says the EXACT SAME THING as part of his "Pickens Plan". By generating our energy needs at home via midwest wind power, and creating industry and innovation around generating it and transporting it to our coastal areas where the vast majority will be consumed, we immediately solve all three of the major issues of our time--our energy dependence, our ruined economy, and the motivation for much of the security threat against us.
So why is this so hard for everyone to see as a shared issue, not a partisan one? My suggestion is that our warring political parties are so consumed with fighting that the other never be right, that neither will work to make this happen.
But Al is right, just the same way that T. Boone is right, and it's truly a matter of national security that WE get it right, too.
And, for all you righties out there, shake hand with all the lefties out there who also know that Teddy K. was spouting total BS when he led the fight not to allow wind farms in Nantucket Sound. It's common ground, people, so let's get on it!!!
This is our future in the U.S. until our leadership puts the future of the dollar over the political careers.
ReplyDeleteAs a rightie, or perhaps so much a rightie that HS labels me a potential domestic terrorist (mostly because I had 33 years of training as a military member....peace was/is our profession, maiming and killing is only an occasional sideline), I don't disagree with either the premise offered by Cliff or the point made by Kad Barma.
ReplyDeleteI would disagree however on laying the blame for homicidal zealotry at the feet of either ME Oil, or a vacuous US energy policy. The homicidal zealotry extends from radicalized Islam, which really has nothing much to do with oil in the ME. I think that assumption may be one of the reasons Algore didn't make the cut...well...that and lingering questions about him and the Internet.
Beyond that, until America gets past hanging labels on one another, the majority of our serious problems will continue to evolve into much more severe levels, perhaps even life threatening. Much of the label hanging is well placed smoke to prevent folks from seeing the economic greed behind our energy path. Our history is littered with energy misadventures because some brilliant person decided that oil wasn't the best idea. BTW, T Boone has given up his quest.
It isn't just the corporate crowd at Shell, Exxon, Phillips, etc., that is behind keeping us hooked on oil, it is the many silent prime stockholders whose interests and economic futures are harmed by switches to something else.
It always comes down to special interests. Even the environmentalist groupies are conflicted. They scream bloody murder about fossil fuels and what it is doing to the global warming issue (which may or may not be real), but they revolt in horror when one mentions a nuke plant here and there....or heaven forbid......some more hydroelectric dams that kill some fish.....never mind the gill netting and unrestrained purse seining that goes on within sight of our shorelines.
The Congress is too busy with their own senseless agenda to give energy policy a moment's notice, other than to promote those things that make them individually more powerful and distincly more affluent.
Everyone wants a harmless solution that doesn't cost anything or do anything to any one or any thing. The reality is, that is just not possible. Life is hazardous to health and longevity is a matter of much more than what kind of fuel we use. Any energy solution available now or in the future is going to have an impact...on us...and potentially on the environment. We need to get over it.