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Clean, renewable energy as a road to peace

Location: Blogs The Green Zone an environmental blog
Posted by: Dave Rhea	9/17/2007 9:42 AM
Clean energy could mean that there is one less reason for oil executives-turned-politicians to wage war. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said in his new book: “The Iraq War is largely about oil," and "If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong…” Clean energy gets a new meaning thanks to former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Clean energy could mean that there is one less reason for oil executives-turned-politicians to wage war. Greenspan said: “If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong…” Bob Woodward wrote today in his Washington Post article, “Greenspan: Ouster Of Hussein Crucial For Oil Security,” that former Fed chairman Alan Greenspan “made the striking comment in a new memoir out today that ‘the Iraq War is largely about oil.’” Woodward wrote: “(Greenspan’s) main support for Hussein's ouster, though, was economically motivated. ‘If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands,’ Greenspan said, ‘our response to him would not have been as strong as it was in the first gulf war. And the second gulf war is an extension of the first. My view is that Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence of moving towards controlling the Straits of Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels a day’ passing through.” For me, this is another argument of why we need to find energy alternatives. If we could wean ourselves off of petroleum – partly by relearning the importance of consumption restraint and partly by finding and funding clean, renewable energy alternatives – we could literally perpetuate peace. Even Greenspan says as much, saying that our war was "making certain that the existing system [of oil markets] continues to work, frankly, until we find other [energy supplies], which ultimately we will." Unfortunately, the only option to shore up our energy policy here in America while oil executives are in power (Bush/Harkin; Cheney/Halliburton; Condoleezza Rice/Chevron; Gale Norton/Shell; Lee Raymond/Exxon-Mobil, Philip A. Cooney/American Petroleum Institute, etc.) is to wage war. I find that revolting and quite un-American. Had Bush and his oil buddies not been in power, and had our course been charted since 2000 toward clean energy and alternative, renewable sources, almost 4000 great Americans would not be dead right now because of a war that has a constantly-revolving rationale. Imagine this – had someone other than George Bush and Dick Cheney been setting our energy policy, we may have avoided 4,075 coalition deaths - 3,776 Americans, two Australians, 169 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, one Czech, seven Danes, two Dutch, two Estonians, one Fijian, one Hungarian, 33 Italians, one Kazakh, one Korean, three Latvian, 21 Poles, two Romanians, five Salvadoran, four Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, two Thai and 18 Ukrainians. (Learn who they are here: HERE.)

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Re: Clean, renewable energy as a road to peace

By Wolfgang on 9/18/2007 1:00 PM

Greenspan's comment, “If Saddam Hussein had been head of Iraq and there was no oil under those sands, our response to him would not have been as strong…” overlooks some important factors. If there had been no oil under those sands, Iraq would likely not have wielded the economic and thus military power that it did in the first place, so this argument is somewhat cyclical. Same goes for Venezuela and Hugo Chavez - when a country's predominant (or, in the case of some Middle Eastern countries, nearly sole) GDP component is an internationally high-demand resource, dictatorships and theocracies take root far more easily. A powerful leader need only control that resource and maintain it. For Chavez, this is easily accomplished by whipping up socialist sentiment, anti-U.S. nationalism, and then doling out the resource "for the common good." For Saddam, an oil-funded, strong military regime was a means of suppressing all dissent (in a region notorious for intertribal conflict) while pushing to expand his boundaries. No doubt, clean, renewable energy is THE key challenge in creating fertile ground for world peace - with a few caveats. First, I would caution that while this blog focuses on the U.S. response as a threat to world peace, this may be short sighted. Saddam was, and Chavez is, in power because their view was to maintain a death grip on the resource, without allowing any realistic expansion of any other economic variable. Bottom line? Renewable energy is good not because it would somehow "remove temptation for corruption" from U.S. officials (and despite what the current administration's more avid detractors say, we ain't SEEN corruption or totalitarianism in this country. Fortunately, we hold our officials to a higher standard than the likes of Chavez or Sadaam, or their historical predecessors.) If oil went by the wayside tomorrow, BP and Exxon-Mobil, or their successors in interest, would be dealing in another energy source, and the financial incentives for corruption would still be there. The difference is that we wouldn't be turning over our economies to the whims of totalitarian dictatorships who want to see us fail. So why do Venezuela and Iraq create such a threat? A country led by a dictator is often threat enough, as mentioned above. Unfortunately, when such a country has a wealth of a sole precious resource, and can dole out those benefits as it sees fit, there is a tendency to both devalue free market innovation and neglect other areas of the economy. Why attempt to create an excellent, broad education system when you have a narrow economic base that depends on few competitive skills? A fundamentalist ideology school that teaches only memorization of a religious text or government ideology is sufficient and even preferable for maintaining the hold on power. The concern we need to have is this: if we implemented a successful clean, renewable energy resource, and countries like Venezuela and Iraq (oil) or China (coal) lost that source of revenue for their regimes, would that create increased animosity toward the success of countries like the U.S. and Japan, whose markets are based on a more diversified, ready-to-go, trained workforce? Would we have millions worldwide who would blame their economic collapse on America? If their socialist empires were to fail, as indeed they would, how would that impact us? There are those who freely believe that the U.S. deserves all the resentment it can get and justify their attacks against us - would their voices push us toward a global socialist economy, or worse?

Re: Clean, renewable energy as a road to peace

By Dave Rhea on 9/18/2007 2:07 PM

I hear what you are saying, Wolfgang. I don't think that clean and renewable energy will make everything rosy and perfect. It sure won't end geopolitical power struggles or tame the ideological war between socialists and profiteers. I am simply stating that, if this war is about securing oil - as many claim and Greenspan clarified - then the diminishing reliance on "sweet crude" will diminish the amount of power that Oil Executive-types will have in the world (especially while they hold office). If, by perhaps by popular vote, someone other than The Oil Administration had been in charge, maybe there would have been more voices on the mysterious energy task force that Cheney called together - then fought so hard to keep secret, (see http://blog.washingtonpost.com/cheney/chapters/leaving_no_tracks/index.html ). Then this war for oil would not have been waged. I think it is simple as that. Saddam was simply not so threatening - but he was a convenient target for our current oil-hungry executive branch. (Now let's take bets on which industries these people will return to in '08) Would that eliminate troubles brewing in South America? Not completely, but it sure would weaken Chavez. Where does that leave us in the grand scheme of things? Not in heaven, but at least moving in the right direction.

Re: Clean, renewable energy as a road to peace

By Wolfgang on 9/19/2007 8:32 AM

Good points, Dave. Using clean, renewable energy - particularly of the sort that could be produced domestically - is critical to ANY plan for security, whether your perspective is more domestic or more global. Of course, it will take a real paradigm shift to accomplish - I wouldn't doubt that the energy infrastructure in the U.S. 50 years from now, from source to generation to supply, is going to include concepts we can't even envision currently. When such a paradigm shift occurs, and they usually occur fairly quickly once materials technology, economic incentives, and political will align - we will have a couple of issues - first, the U.S. will be out from under its mortgage payments to Venezuela and the unstable Middle Eastern theocracy du jour, and China's coal resources will drop in value. I hesitate to say that this is "unquestionably" good for the U.S., but no doubt energy independence would be a wonderful accomplishment, and we wouldn't be as likely to be sowing the seeds of our own destruction at the pump. Even better, we'd staunch the ecological bleeding pretty significantly with clean, renewable energy. I was pointing out the perhaps unlikely concern that governments who have based their economies disproportionately on a single resource (with little investment into human capital or a diversified GDP) will be at risk of collapse when that revenue stream ends. For the most part, to be blunt, that's fine by me. We may all be in this together, but I'd like to see a little more contribution to the good of mankind than guarding and pumping a resource while preaching anti-American hatred. I'm interested in the fact that clean, renewable energy issues have the potential to be a domestic "bonding opportunity." What do fiscally conservative, security minded folks want? Energy independence and the ability to avoid market dips on fluctuations in supply. What do socially conscious, environmentally sensitive folks want? Ecologically sound energy that isn't destructive to acquire or dirty to use, and more stable fuel costs for low-income folks. That could work like peas and carrots.

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