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04/25/2008: "In the new world order, energy scarcity will dominate our lives"

Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live -- trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.

Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all -- along with its "first-world" allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former "third-world" countries -- China and India in particular -- have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption -- a 47 percent rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

Rising reliance on coal (especially in China, India and the United States) means that global emissions of carbon dioxide are projected to rise by 59 percent over the next quarter-century, from 26.9 billion metric tons to 42.9 billion tons. The meaning of this is simple. If
these figures hold, there is no hope of averting the worst effects of climate change.

[ If China, US and India were going to change their ways out of concern for the environment that would already be happening - but instead they are just carrying on producing emissions at ever higher rates. ]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2008/04/24/oil/index.html?source=newsletter