Joe W.
http://64.239.13.64/free/ww3/100303_eating_oil_summary.html
EATING FOSSIL FUELS
by Dale Allen Pfeiffer
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SUMMARY
October 3 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) -- Some months ago, concerned by a Paris statement made by Professor Kenneth Deffeyes of Princeton regarding his concern about the impact of Peak Oil and Gas on fertilizer production, I tasked FTW's Contributing Editor for Energy, Dale Allen Pfeiffer to start looking into what natural gas shortages would do to fertilizer production costs. His investigation led him to look at the totality of food production in the US. Because the US and Canada feed much of the world the answers have global implications.
What follows is most certainly the single most frightening article I have ever read and certainly the most alarming piece that FTW has ever published. Even as we have seen CNN, Britain's Independent and Jane's Defence Weekly acknowledge the reality of Peak Oil and Gas within the last week, acknowledging that world oil and gas reserves are as much as 80% less than predicted, we are also seeing how little real thinking has been devoted to the host of crises certain to follow; at least in terms of publicly accessible thinking.
This article is so serious in its implications that I have taken the unusual step of underlining 26 of its key findings. I did that with the intent that the reader treat each underlined passage as a separate and incredibly important fact. Each one of these facts should be read and digested separately to assimilate its importance. I found myself reading one fact and then getting up and walking away until I could come back and (un)comfortably read to the next.
All told, Dale Allen Pfeiffer's research and reporting confirms the worst of FTW's suspicions about the consequences of Peak Oil and it poses serious questions about what to do next. Not the least of these is why, in a presidential election year, none of the candidates has even acknowledged the problem. Thus far, it is clear that solutions for these questions, perhaps the most important ones facing mankind, will by necessity be found by private individuals and communities, independently of outside or governmental help. Whether the real search for answers comes now, or as the crisis becomes unavoidable, depends solely on us. It is also abundantly clear that fresh water, its acquisition and delivery, is a crisis that is upon us now as certainly as is Peak Oil and Gas.
>From: Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net>
>Reply-To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
>Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] but my gosh, they sound so radical, they must be
>left!!
>Date: Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:12:33 -0800
>
>On Wed, 29 Oct 2003 19:24:39 -0600, Stephen E Philion <philion at hawaii.edu>
>wrote:
>
>>i'm reminded of a talk given by Val Burris on the mcdonaldization of right
>>wing think tanks...you can have one think tank pushing for school prayer
>>and another think tank pushing for freedom from religion...both funded by
>>Coors...
>>
>>steve
>
> And, all wings of the establishment Rught-Wing are viewed as the,
>"Controlled Opposition, " by the audience for the far right conspiranoids
>like Bo Gritz.
>Wolves in Sheep's Clothing | Index
>... These are the controlled opposition. They come in ... liberties? Or is
>he spearheading another controlled opposition group? Here is ...
>http://www.sweetliberty.org/wolves.htm Val Burris was one of the better
>writers for the Insurgent Sociologist.
>http://www.uoregon.edu/~vburris/whorules/
>An Internet Guide to Power Structure Research
>
>This is G o o g l e's cache of
>http://www.uoregon.edu/~sociology/vburris.htm.
>G o o g l e's cache is the snapshot that we took of the page as we crawled
>the web.
>
>E-mail: vburris at oregon.uoregon.edu
>Selected Publications:
>
>2001. "The Two Faces of Capital: Corporations and Individual Capitalists
>as Political Actors." American Sociological Review, Vol. 66, No. 3, pp.
>361-381. [View PDF full text]
>
>2001. "Small Business, Status Politics, and the Social Base of New
>Christian Right Activism." Critical Sociology, Vol. 27, No. 1 pp. 29-55.
>[View PDF full text]
>
>2000. "The Myth of Old Money Liberalism: The Politics of the Forbes 400
>Richest Americans." Social Problems, Vol. 47, No. 3, pp. 360-378. [View
>PDF full text] http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~vburris/oldmoney.pdf
>2000. "White Supremacist Networks on the Internet" (with Emery Smith and
>Ann Strahm). Sociological Focus, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp. 215-235. [View PDF
>full text] http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~vburris/whites.pdf
>1999. "The Old Middle Class in Newly Industrialized Countries." Pp. 435-
>454 in Hsin-Huang Michael Hsiao, ed., The East Asian Middle Classes in
>Comparative Perspective. Taipei: Academia Sinica Press. [View PDF full
>text]
>
>1999. "Class Structure and Political Ideology." Critical Sociology, Vol.
>25, No. 2/3, pp. 308-332. [View PDF full text]
>
>1995. "The Discovery of the New Middle Class." Pp. 15-54 in Arthur J.
>Vidich, ed., The New Middle Classes. London: Macmillan Press.
>
>1992. "Elite Policy-Planning Networks in the United States." Pp. 111-134
>in Gwen Moore and J. Allen Whitt, eds., Research in Politics and Society,
>Vol. 4. Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press. [View PDF full text]
>
>1992. "PACs, Interlocks, and Regional Differences in Corporate
>Conservatism." American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 97, No. 5, pp. 1451-
>1456.
>
>1992. "Late Industrialization and Class Formation in East Asia." Pp. 245-
>283 in Paul Zarembka, ed., Research in Political Economy, Vol. 13.
>Greenwich, Connecticut: JAI Press. [View PDF full text]
>
>1991. "Director Interlocks and the Political Behavior of Corporations and
>Corporate Elites." Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 72, No. 3, pp. 537-551.
>
>1990. "The Politics of Capitalist Class Segments: A Test of Corporate
>Liberalism Theory" (with James Salt). Social Problems, Vol. 37, No. 3, pp.
>601-619.
>
>1990. "Classes in Contemporary Capitalist Society: Recent Marxist and
>Weberian Perspectives." Pp. 55-74 in Stewart R. Clegg, ed., Organization
>Theory and Class Analysis. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter & Company.
>
>1989. "New Directions in Class Analysis." Pp. 157-167 in Erik Olin
>Wright, ed., The Debate on Classes. London: Verso.
>
>1987. "The Political Partisanship of American Business: A Study of
>Corporate Political Action Committees." American Sociological Review, Vol.
>52, No. 6, pp. 732-744. [View PDF full text]
>
>1987. "The Neo-Marxist Synthesis of Marx and Weber on Class." Pp. 67-90 in
>Norbert Wiley, ed., The Marx-Weber Debate. Newbury Park, California: Sage
>Publications. [View PDF full text]
>
>1984. "The Meaning of the Gender Gap." Journal of Political and Military
>Sociology, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 335-343.
>
>1983. "Comparing Models of Class Structure" (with Robert M. O'Brien).
>Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 3, pp. 445-459.
>
>1983. "The Social and Political Consequences of Overeducation." American
>Sociological Review, Vol. 48, No. 4, pp. 454-467. [View PDF full text]
>
>1983. "Who Opposed the ERA? An Analysis of the Social Bases of
>Antifeminism." Social Science Quarterly, Vol. 64, No. 2, pp. 305-317.
>
>1982. "Sex Segregation in the U.S. Labor Force" (with Amy Wharton).
>Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 14, No. 3, pp. 43-56.
>
>1982. "The Dialectic of Women's Oppression: Notes on the Relation Between
>Capitalism and Patriarchy." Berkeley Journal of Sociology, Vol. 27, pp.
>51-74.
>
>1981. "Marxism and Structuralism." Pp. 57-86 in Scott G. McNall and Gary
>N. Howe, eds., Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 2. Greenwich,
>Connecticut: JAI Press.
>
>1980. "Class Formation and Transformation in Advanced Capitalist
>Societies: A Comparative Analysis." Social Praxis, Vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 147-
>179.
>
>1980. "Capital Accumulation and the Rise of the New Middle Class." Review
>of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 12, No. 1, pp. 17-34.
>--
>Michael Pugliese
>
>
>
>___________________________________
>http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
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