<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span> Here's an article from Al Jazeera with no reference to peak oil by name, but it's definitely a peak oil story and demonstrates why we are concerned about energy shortages. It's not just about having to pay more to fuel our cars. I am reminded of the observation a year ago when the US Gulf oil spill was in full flow. Americans were furious. But the rhetorical question was asked: "did anyone feel so strongly that they gave up motoring?"</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><span>A quotation from the article: </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: red; "><span></span>"... the risk of actual conflict is minimal, because there are international institutions and treaties governing competing claims."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">This statement naively assumes that all nations will adhere to treaties and the law. We know that the US, for one, will act illegally in a resource war (Iraq). Why should they pull their horns in now, when the situation is more urgent?</span></p><div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>-----------------------------</div><div>Keith Thomas</div><div><a href="http://www.evfit.com">www.evfit.com</a></div><div>-----------------------------</div></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></div></span></span>
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<!--StartFragment--><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:18.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt">WikiLeaks: A battle to
'carve up' the Arctic</span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/201151713273937174.html">http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/05/201151713273937174.html</a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">R<b>esource wars are possible as global
warming melts polar ice - opening new areas to oil exploitation, cables
indicate.</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Chris Arsenault Last Modified: 21 May 2011</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">It is considered the final frontier for oil
and gas exploitation, and secret US embassy cables published by WikiLeaks
confirm that nations are battling to "carve up" the Arctic's vast
resources.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color:red">"The twenty-first
century will see a fight for resources," Russian Ambassador to NATO Dmitry
Rogozin was quoted as saying in a 2010 cable. "Russia should not be
defeated in this fight."<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Along with exposing an estimated 22 per
cent of the world's oil, ice melting due to global warming will open new
shipping lanes, the arteries of global commerce, which nations are competing to
control. And Russia certainly is not the only country eyeing the frozen prize.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Per Stig Moller, then Danish foreign
minister, mused in a 2009 cable that "new shipping routes and natural
resource discoveries would eventually place the region at the centre of world
politics".</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Canada, the US, Russia, Norway, Denmark,
and perhaps even China, have competing claims to the Arctic, a region about the
size of Africa, comprising some six per cent of the Earth's surface.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt">'Resource wars'<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"The WikiLeaks cables show us
realpolitik in its rarest form," says Paul Wapner, director of the global
environmental politics programme at American University in Washington. <span style="color:red">"Diplomats continue to think of this as a zero sum
world. When they see exploitable resources, all things being equal, they are
going to approach them through a competitive nation state system."<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The cables come to light at a time when
academics and activists fear resource scarcity, particularly over dwindling oil
and drinking water supplies, could lead to new international conflicts.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Sir David King, the UK government's former
chief scientific adviser, called the invasion of Iraq "the first of [this
century's] resource wars", warning that "powerful nations will secure
resources for their own people at the expense of others".</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In 2007, Russia planted its flag 4,000
metres below the Arctic Ocean, in an attempt to claim that its continental
shelf, the geological formation by which claims are measured, extends far into
the frozen zone. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"Behind Russia's policy are two
potential benefits accruing from global warming, the prospect for an [even
seasonally] ice-free shipping route from Europe to Asia, and the estimated oil
and gas wealth hidden beneath the Arctic sea floor," noted a 2009 cable articulating
US beliefs.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Presently, the Russians are far ahead of
the US and other Arctic countries to take advantage of what will happen
offshore, says Bruce Forbes, a research professor at the Arctic Centre at the
University of Lapland in Finland. "The cables confirm what we as
scientists already know; [global warming means] the Arctic is not just this
hinterland, as it is portrayed in the mainstream media."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In its 2010 Quadrennial Defence Review
report, the Pentagon stated: "Climate change and energy are two issues
that will play a significant role in shaping the future security
environment."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt">Global warning<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">If humans do not drastically reduce their
fossil fuel consumption, and current trends continue, the world is heading for
a significant temperature increase, melting polar ice caps and causing sea
levels to rise between 0.9 and 1.6 meters this century, according to a study
from the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme released in early May.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The idea that global warming will melt
polar icecaps and allow for new petroleum exploitation in the far north
represents a terrible irony, says Andrea Harden-Donahue, a researcher with the
Council of Canadians, a social justice organisation.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"Climate change is making these
resources easier to exploit, while burning these resources will only contribute
to more climate change," she says. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"In Canada, we have seen a number of
well-known actors, including BP and Chevron, exploring for oil and gas in the
Beaufort Sea. In the US, Shell is consistently trying to get access to
resources off the coast of Alaska; BP hopes to develop off the coast of Russia
and Cairn Energy have already been awarded licenses in Greenland and they are
likely to start [drilling] this year.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"If [these companies] are allowed to
move forward, I don't think it is unreasonable that <span style="color:red">we
would see a scramble for these resources</span>."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">A 2008 cable quotes Russian Navy head
Admiral Vladimir Vysotsky as saying: "While in the Arctic there is peace
and stability, however, one cannot exclude that <span style="color:red">in the
future there will be a redistribution of power, up to armed intervention</span>."
</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt">Partisan politics<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But verbose rhetoric about conflict could
be linked to politicians who want to support the military-industrial complex
and boost their own stature, rather than actual fears of impending violence,
cables suggest.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere
is referred to in a 2009 cable, describing "how, during his March 2009
visit to Moscow, he thanked [Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov for making
it so much easier for him to justify the Joint Strike Fighter purchase to the
Norwegian public, given Russia's regular military flights up and down Norway's
coast".</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The programme to develop the F-35 Joint
Strike Fighter is expected to cost the US and its allies more than $380
billion, meaning it is likely the most expensive military project in history -
and politicians seem to feel the need to justify such a massive outlay of
resources to sceptical electorates.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Canadian politicians, including recently re-elected
Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, are also <span style="color:red">capitalising
on fears of northern conflict to buttress narrow partisan agendas.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Harper has made several high profile visits
to the far north, boasting that: "From Afghanistan to the Arctic, from the
coast of Somalia to the shores of Nootka Sound [on Vancouver island] we will be
able to see what the bad guys are up to," with new military satellites.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Commenting on Harper's rhetoric in a 2010
cable, US diplomats note that: "The persistent high public profile which
this government has accorded 'Northern Issues' and the Arctic is, however,
unprecedented and reflects the PM's views that 'the North has never been more
important to our country' - although one could perhaps paraphrase to state 'the
North has never been more important to our Party'."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">While politicians pound their chests over
resource claims, Prof Forbes says<span style="color:red"> the risk of actual
conflict is minimal, because there are international institutions and treaties
governing competing claims.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The Arctic Council, composed of eight
Arctic nations, is the main discussion forum for issues related to the far
north and the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, which the
US has not signed, is supposed to govern resource claims in the region.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">During a meeting of the Arctic Council held
on May 12 in Greenland, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that US
ratification of the Law of the Sea Convention was "way overdue".<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">Clinton's desire to change US policy to
sign the convention may have more to do with resource battles than respect for
international institutions.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"If you stay out [of the
convention]" then-Danish foreign minister Moller is quoted as saying in
2009 cables, "then the rest of us will have more to carve up in the
Arctic".</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">The US position of not ratifying the
convention means it cannot put forward a formal claim to the seabed directly
north of Alaska, says Oran Young, a professor of environmental science at the
University of California.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"If I knew why the US hasn't signed,
I'd be happy," Young says, speculating that lobbyists for the mining
industry and some senators who display "knee jerk negativism to the UN in
general" were driving the decision.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight:normal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-size:14.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:12.0pt">'Doomsday scenario'<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">In a 1987 speech, Mikhail Gorbachev, leader
of the former USSR, described the "threatening character" of NATO in
the far north. Today, NATO's role in the Arctic is unclear.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"There is no reason for NATO to have a
strong Arctic profile," says Timo Koivurova, a visiting professor
specialising in northern issues at the University of New South Wales in
Australia. "All the Arctic Ocean coastal states have behaved exactly as
the Law of the Sea dictates."</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">But plenty of other people, from scholars
to diplomats and military officials, do not entirely share Koivurova's
optimistic view.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"The very best case scenario [for
peace in the arctic] is that we move beyond fossil fuels," says American
University's Paul Wapner. "The best case scenario is that we have
cooperative institutions - with representatives of indigenous people - who use
peaceful and cooperative means to ensure fair access to these resources.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB">"The doomsday would be competitive
resource wars<span style="color:red">. As climate change gets worse, people
will be pushed to get more resources to run their air conditioners and so
forth. My prediction is that we are still going to be addicted to oil [when the
main icecaps melt] and these resources are going to be extracted by the most
powerful lot - which would include Russia, the US and China."</span> </span></p>
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