El mundo se queda sin petróleo...

... pero los políticos no quieren enfrentar la realidad afirma The Guardian en un muy interesante artículo de George Monbiot.

"The oil industry is buzzing. On Thursday, the government approved the development of the biggest deposit discovered in British territory for at least 10 years. Everywhere we are told that this is a "huge" find, which dispels the idea that North Sea oil is in terminal decline. You begin to recognise how serious the human predicament has become when you discover that this "huge" new field will supply the world with oil for five and a quarter days.

Every generation has its taboo, and ours is this: that the resource upon which our lives have been built is running out. We don't talk about it because we cannot imagine it. This is a civilisation in denial."

Si México como nación no empieza a planear para un futuro sin petróleo, su viabilidad será terminada. Esto a su vez es un problema de seguridad nacional para Estados Unidos.... imaginense la presión de migrantes que se desencadenaria.

México ha empezado a usar fuentes alternas de energía, pero no son suficientes. La posición geográfica del país es ideal para el uso del sol por ejemplo, y en muchas zonas la energía eolica es un buena opción.
Para muchos la cuestión nuclear es anatema, pero una población que crece a un ritmo de un millón de nuevas bocas por año no se puede quedar sin opciones. Pero a pesar de las diferentes fuentes posibles, será muy dificil igualar lo que el petróleo está dando a la humanidad afirma Monbiot.

"We seem, in other words, to be in trouble. Either we lay hands on every available source of fossil fuel, in which case we fry the planet and civilisation collapses, or we run out, and civilisation collapses.

The only rational response to both the impending end of the oil age and the menace of global warming is to redesign our cities, our farming and our lives. But this cannot happen without massive political pressure, and our problem is that no one ever rioted for austerity. People tend to take to the streets because they want to consume more, not less. Given a choice between a new set of matching tableware and the survival of humanity, I suspect that most people would choose the tableware.

In view of all this, the notion that the war with Iraq had nothing to do with oil is simply preposterous. The US attacked Iraq (which appears to have had no weapons of mass destruction and was not threatening other nations), rather than North Korea (which is actively developing a nuclear weapons programme and boasting of its intentions to blow everyone else to kingdom come) because Iraq had something it wanted. In one respect alone, Bush and Blair have been making plans for the day when oil production peaks, by seeking to secure the reserves of other nations.

I refuse to believe that there is not a better means of averting disaster than this. I refuse to believe that human beings are collectively incapable of making rational decisions. But I am beginning to wonder what the basis of my belief might be."

Viendo todo ésto, ¿será casualidad que Donald Rumsfeld esté ahora en Georgia - república centro asiática rica en petróleo que después de un levantamiento puso un nuevo presidente - y que le pida a los rusos que saquen sus tropas de ese país? ¿O Putin estará ya de acuerdo desde antes?

Monbiot tiene más ideas en www.monbiot.com