Your video, Robert Newman's History of Oil, has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

>> ^bcglorf:

Thank you for your reply.

You made it clear that I may have made an error in my previous comment. I think I should clarify that what I meant by "personal transport" was light vehicles for personal uses, as is the minivan or motorcycle used to get to work, the store, not transportation in general, which I view as a different, though not unrelated, problem. Moving freight, airplanes and battleships requires different solutions (in my opinion) then the problem of getting your kids to the hockey game.

I think we agree that the transition from oil is an important issue. You seem to believe that better batteries (and electric engines) will solve every facet of every issue facing the end of oil, and that this will result in little or no social or political change or turmoil. While I deeply wish that the next century comes to be shaped after your expectations, I do not believe it will be so. I do not believe that batteries alone will solve the coming crisis. Even if energy storage technology was to rapidly become what we would need it to be, where would the energy come from if the source for more then half of our current use was to vanish? Replacing that energy by renewable means will require a huge amount of investment and several decades to implement.

What I see coming, is a myriad of interwoven problems of which the central spine is energy use. All of them are have energy use at the at the root of their problem. This is because oil has done more then just let people drive their cars around cheaply. Cities are no longer shaped after people's needs, but to suit the demands of the automobile. There has been a great deal of optimism in investing in electric cars to allow people to continue to access modern cities as they have been constructed.

"When people say that they want to go to the electric car, I love it! But remember, they say 'car' not 'truck.' A battery won't move an 18 wheeler. The only thing that will move an 18 wheeler is foreign oil, diesel and gasoline, and our domestic natural gas." -T. Boone Pickens (on The Daily Show)

However continuing to access these cities will get more difficult when costs of energy begin to come down from the bubble of cheapness that I and most of the people I know have grown up in.

"Consequently these (cities) will be places that nobody wants to be in. These will be places that are not worth caring about. We have about 38,000 places that are not worth caring about in the united states today, when we have enough of them we will have a nation that is not worth defending. -James Howard Kunstler on "The greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world."

Even if cities are reshaped for the new economy of energy, there is debate on what that will be. Some people believe that there will be a magic-pill cure, like super batteries that will allow life to continue as normal. This will not be the case.

"The central delusion that we're seeing right now is the idea that we can magically come up with a rescue remedy to continue running the interstate highway system and all the other accessories and furnishings of the happy motoring system. I happen to think that we're going to be very disappointed about that. In fact there are a lot of intelligent thigns we can do, but one of the least intelligent things we can expect is that we can continue happy motoring. You can demonstrate that you can run cars on hydrogen, cow shit and fried potato oil, but can run 230 million cars and trucks on it? Forget about it.

And then you get into political questions, like if driving becomes something only for the elite. Right now 4% of americans can't drive for one reason or another. What happens when that number becomes 13% or 27% of the people do you think that's going to be politically okay? It would create huge resentments and grievances against the people who can still do it." - James Howard Kunstler

But when I said that personal transportation is not the biggest issue, I meant it. People will be less concerned with their car or the "happy motoring system" if they are hungry.

"Food prices are rising and they're about to soar. There have been a lot of rising grain prices that have not been passed on to the consumer, they're about to be. High food prices always create political peril, as we've known since the French revolution at least.

The era of cheap food is over in this country, just as the era of cheap oil is over as well. (...) The old fix, ramping up production is not going to work this time, because cheap food depends on cheap energy, something we can no longer count on. Without reforming the American food system, it will be impossible to make progress on the issues of energy independence, climate change and the health care crisis because the way we feed ourselves is that the heart of all those three problems.

Let me explain. The food system, uses more fossil fuel and contributes more greenhouse gas to the atmosphere then any other industry. Between 17 and 34 percent. Meat production alone is 18 percent." -Michael Pollan, on The End of Cheap Food.

So when faced with the choice between fuel for their cars and fuel for their bodies, some will choose to fuel the car, leaving others to go hungry. And when people are hungry, they turn to first to the government for solutions. Governments know that they will need to bring resources to appease a population and avoid that political peril they have known about since the French Revolution. Remember that wars are always about resources.

"How curious, that the First World War is never taught in our schools as an invasion of Iraq. (...A reaction to) the Berlin-Bagdad railway, which commenced construction in the years leading up to the first world war," with the goal of bringing oil from Iraq to Germany. (-Robert Newman, A History of Oil)

"Oil is what drives the military machine of every country. It provides the fuel for aircraft, the ships the tanks for the trucks. The control of oil is indespensible. When you run out if your army stops." -Chalmers Johnson, Why we fight.

Oil is more then just a transportation issue. Riding the bus won't help much. The bus runs on gasoline, just like your car.

To quote Robert Newman .
-"I tell this much about the united states we are sure bringing about world unity , 'cause the one thing that unites the entire planet , hatred of us , it's like y'all became one big nation called the rest of the world.

Well actually we did, in fact we have even got our own flag .

Oh Yeah? What is it ?

Same as yours but on fire.


we can blame bush/cheny / exxon / whoever, as long as we want,, it only went this far this fast due to OUR (i do include myself) inaction .

too bad, it used to be a nice place .
*sigh*

Nice promote.
Thanks DJ!

In reply to this comment by djsunkid:
My god, how did I keep missing this. *promote

Tags for this video have been changed from 'comedy, standup, oil, robert newman' to 'comedy, standup, oil, energy, resources, robert newman' - edited by calvados

^omfg.
that's .. like... omfg looris. you can't buy oil without dollars. so...

this is how bushco gets away with completely devaluing the dollar... nobody seems to be awake.

i earn GBP and USD, i spend EUR (well, LTL, but it's linked to EUR)
let me tell you, i have lost work from american clients because they just can't afford it.

this is VERY serious, and if anyone says "we need to stay in iraq to sort out the mess" just refer them to the fact that dollars aren't worth shit. i know it's nice to "bring democracy to the middle east" but if you just can't afford it, what are you gonna do?

also check out robert newman's history of oil for very interesting information about what happens to people (saddam) who try to abandon the dollar. notice that none of america's poodles are in the list. now you understand what the "axis of evil" is all about.

marine... if the price is high, rich people make money. The war is over who sets the price and takes the profit. Saddam wanted to set the price, look what happened to him.

If you don't know much about the oil thing i strongly recommend Robert Newman as an intro:
http://www.videosift.com/video/Robert-Newmans-History-of-Oil

(maybe dead? try: http://politics.videosift.com/video/A-45-minute-history-of-Middle-East-Oil-Robert-Newman)

I mean, this is the thing... the people in power don't tend to use the army to help poor people. Historical fact, unfortunately.

A History of Oil by Robert Newman
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=-8957268309327954402
A very entertaining 45 minutes

Dupe:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Robert-Newmans-History-of-Oil

Ahem

Am sorry Ant but I take issue with your arguments towards downvoting, while understand you might not like these things you never go out of your way to downvote them even if they are clearly labeled against your preference.

I know you don't like Rap and Hip Hop, but when they are tagged as such no one puts a gun to your head to click on them and check them out and then get pissed and downvote.

Yet you also adopt a hypocritical stance and downvote videos just because you don't understand them. And how would you explain a downvote here?

Am sorry. Not good enough.

Related sifts

Iraq is in chaos, with sectarian violence, any force increase will only increase the exposure of US forces to enemy action.
Iraq - The Hidden Story

Russia has been conducting it's own form of energy supply assurances by holding Chechnya under the banner of fight the war on Terror. Which gives them the carte blanche on action as long as they give the Americans the same at the moment.
Dispatches - The Dirty War in Chechnya

The reason the American Energy companies, Oil lobby groups and their contacts (Cheney) in the US goverment would want to flood the market with cheap Iraqi oil is because they are afraid of recent steps in Venezuela, discussions in OPEC towards putting crude oil off the US dollar due to it's military incursions and foreign policy actions. Which would threaten the US current account which relied on the printing of US dollars for oil trade to stabilize the debt. China has the largest US reserves in the world, the US owes them billions. We have become complicit in supporting a communist regime that still oppresses it's population. Even large corporations such as Google that *ahem DO NO EVIL are involved in the Chinese economy.

The Chinese Communist goverment of course finds this a perfect position, they have the US politically by the pursue because at any moment they can pressure OPEC to stay on the US dollar or not, since they are quickly foreshadowing the US in terms of energy usage. If however OPEC would switch to the Euro if say the US continues on it's war path, the US economy will crash rapidly far worse then the great depression.

If we continue to push for war and lack of diplomatic action our position only gets worse, if albeit OK for the short-term. Leading us to only one path and one solution a war for energy supplies, until the lights go out... and there is no Oil left for fight for, and just when we need international cooperation it will be marred by previous hostile actions.
China has US by the purse.

The threat of energy depletion in the long run is more important issue then global warming, and in many ways totally related. As it is better to tackle it when Oil supplies are high and related R&D would be easier compared to when the lights go out and we're fighting wars of dwindling energy domination.
Robert Newman's - A History of Oil

RE: Related sifts, I mean seriously I understand Lara Logan. But Chris Rock + Senator Boxer?

Did I just get called a communist?

First of all, the question of God, and his acceptance or not is subjective to each individual and as such each is allowed to make up their minds. I do not question or argue against that, I will wholeheartedly admit that I am not entirely clear on it either.

However I question religious presence when it comes to issues of national policy and the liberty of its citizens. As for what Dag said...

All the examples you put forward so far have one significant common thread the existence of a higher political order imposed on a population through the systematic elimination of any opposition. The higher political order does what is most beneficial to it's further existence, it eliminates all possible opposition through violent force flying whatever idealogical concept best suits their needs. In Nazi Germany there was the Night of Long Knives, the burning of the Reichstag, and of course the genocide of jews included political dissenters, communists and homosexuals.

In Stalinist Russia it was called the NKVD during World War 2, where the paranoid Stalin would regularly conduct purges to eliminate any possible dissent from the military and the populace. Stalin did not trust his own intelligence thinking it was all lies, thus Russia's response to Germany's invasion was so slow. Then the KGB came that watched over the entire population, again purging any possible dissent.

Exactly where atheism and theism reside in these two engines of war and control I don't really see. Neither Hitler or Stalin cared about religion, they cared about power and control, it's not like they were astronomers mapping space for the benefit of man's evolution, their research focused on war exclusively, there was no correlation between atheism and belief in science and their power over the people. It was fear, control and propaganda. Hitler himself is quoted as saying that he is not here to elevate man but to make use of his weaknesses, he exploited the weakness of a battered nation placing their blame on a political ideology (communism), a race (jews) and anyone else (homosexuals, anarchists and so on) he thought unfit for his vision of a 1000 year Reich.

Never have I proposed that we use science in any such manner, what I see is theism being used time and time again throughout history as a way to placate the population in various endeavors of conflict. I believe religion is beneficial to human development, and I have been brought up as such, however I do not see it's place in the offices of goverment in the conduct of policy. Either as a tool to placate the populace into supporting an unjust war through fear or to sell a political candidate as something he really is not. What God fearing man sends his men to die when he clearly didn't get the facts right but somehow the intelligence is cherry picked but we don't talk about it? And Bishops? Are they so high and mighty? What of the sexual scandals?

Even if the religious texts are from God, clearly his main mantra about you know loving everybody even if they are different is not followed by those who pretend to be devout Christians. There is no God in Iraq marching for the US. What the administration did is use religion and it's supporters to win the Whitehouse twice. This administration doesn't care about family values, or abortion, or stem cells or healthcare. It's machine was engineered to capture the gut feelings of all voters, to activate them, this is how an election during a war on two fronts and questionable economic status was voted on family values, topics like abortion and homosexuality.

Was it really as important as the conduct of military foreign policy under the banner of freedom? The escalation of military forces in Iraq (150,000 currently) with additional 20,000 coming in. Which is dismal to say the least and huge military gamble, there is no additional reserve after that number, and after there is the draft. US forces are engaging fleeing forces from Somalia, in similar operations carried out in Afghanistan. All this to assure a viable source of Oil for the US in the short future as oil reserves reach peak oil levels after which less and less barrels of oil will be produced. Blah blah blah This is all covered in the excellent History of Oil sift

My issue isn't with religion as with it's application as a political tool. That is the proper definition of Secularism, being the ideology that holds that religious issues should not be the basis of politics, it's only extremists who hold that religion has no place in public life for that is an issue for each person to decide for themselves on their own.