Daily Oil Blog

I come across an interesting interview with Jerry Mander conducted by Scott London about the topic of globalization and decide to give the readers a sneak view about the conversation.

You can read the whole interview here

Jerry Mander is regarded as one of today’s most articulate and outspoken critics of technology and economic globalization. His books include Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, In the Absence of the Sacred, and The Case Against the Global Economy (co-edited with Edward Goldsmith). In this interview, Mander makes a forceful case against economic globalization, arguing that we need to examine the hidden costs of free trade and deregulation and search for more enlighened economic models to guide us into the twenty-first century.

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Scott London: The case, as it’s usually presented, is that the globalized economy is a good thing that will secure jobs, allow us to remain competitive, and promote democracy abroad. Isn’t there some truth to that?

Jerry Mander: The people who are making that case are the people who are promoting globalization — corporations and banks and governments. They are saying that globalization can solve the world’s problems, that it’s going to give people something to eat and so on. They are redesigning an economy that they say works. But it doesn’t work.

We’ve had globalization for quite a while, it’s just being accelerated right now. Wherever the rules of free trade and economic globalization are followed, you have economic and ecological disasters immediately thereafter. You’ve got the complete destruction of small, traditional farming in Africa and elsewhere; you’ve got the complete devastation of nature all around the world; you’ve got people shoved off their lands to make way for giant dams and agri-business and so on, who then become part of the millions & millions of people roaming the land and going into cities looking for impossible-to-find jobs, all in competition with each other, and violent and angry. And then people are angry with them, because who needs more people around? So you’ve set in to motion a global disarray and nonfunctionalism that would not have been achieved — certainly not at the same level and with the same speed — without this emphasis on global development.

However poorly people lived in terms of material wealth in traditional societies, there was much that they retained. They retained a fair amount of local control. They retained some degree of traditional culture. Even in societies that had already been impacted, like India, you had a lot of cultural identity and a history of relationships to scale that were really different. It was an economy of small-scale institutions. That has been wiped out by economic globalization with the invasion of franchises and giant institutions that have taken over the land.

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The recent outburst from the Spanish King Juan Carlos telling President Chaves to shut up at the Ibero-American summit in Santiago, Chile tells us the state of affairs of Venezuela.

Chavez ired the King by calling Aznar a facist who did a coup in 2002 that temporaily removed Chavez from power.This is just a tip of the iceberg that strained relations between Venezuela and her former colonial master.The Oil politics will shaped the development between Spain and Venezuela too.

Many folks out there has a love hate relationship with this Chavez guy, one camp like his audacity in standing up against US power interests and another dislike his way of being too direct and hurt Venezuela foreign relations with other countries especially USA.

Venezeula is still a developing country with problems and to insulate herself with her new found oil wealth is not realistic in the long term.In a globalised world, having oil wealth does not guarantee long term prosperity and progress for any country.

Just last weekend OPEC meeting, the Chavez cannon shot off again of an impending strike against Iran will push oil to 200USD per barrel.He cited the reason for any aggression is due to Oil and want to stop any increase of oil production.Saudi king however wants the politization of Oil to stop .He emphasied that Oil energy is to be used for prosperity for the world and not the source of conflicts.

Chavez will be the media spotlight for some years to come so long as he control the Oil supplies of his country.And the fury of the Spanish King will not stopped from him but spread to the other world leaders as Chavez anti-american stance grow stronger from dedollarization and selling pricey Oil barrels to US

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I decide to talk about ripple money system again as the post was gone due to server mishaps.This ripple system idea is to bring back monetary power back to the public where it should belonged in the first place.

In national monetary systems worldwide, creation and allocation of money is in the hands of a few centralised ,corporate banking institutions.In the long run, this kind of system just can’t go on because the the public is being restricted on how much money is being allocated.

The ripple system attempts to do away with the banking middleman, and let the currency flow through between trusted families and friends that is based on trust.
This promotes social well being and trust among the circle of people living in the village, towns and cities.

National currenices worldwide will be facing tremendous challenges and stress when fossil age no longer supports such consumption and lOU of fiat money that cannot be repaid.This will present an opportunity to changed our monetary sytem too.However one needed to tread & study the ripple system as we do not want the risk of going back to fiat based system

Let me stress that ripple money is based on debt on people one trust not to big banks that is profit centered. All play bankers and not let other few powerful players in the market dominate the monetary life.This idea may take decades for it to sink to the mass populace but if a few in the village start this, it may spark a wild fire nationwide and even worldwide.

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This is the time where doomsday sayers from religous groups will cash in to lead their flocks out of our petro addicted world.Unfortunately most comes in as opportunistic charismatic leaders.Even new age groups are pump up by the peak oil story.

Peak oil will come whether we like it or not, but how it turns out is anybody guess, scholars and experts can debate about it and write books predicting it, but life never move in a linear way.In a way, we hate them but can’t do without their sayings about the world to come.

Man always are looking for leadership even if they are a pack of wolves in sheeps clothings.It’s really no surprise to me if the born again movement is going to grow worldwide awaiting for some rapture in our fossil descent.

It’s true in a bleak world with low energy we need some kind of hope  , but man never change much and the false teachers giving solutions to our daily life will be plentiful by then,in return we will give them food ,gold & silver etc…the cycle repeats itself again.

The money and techno temples now man are worshipping may give way to new forms of edifice under energy pressures, idolatry never really went away, it just take on a different form supported by the same men that worshipped them.

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This is really getting bad as I watched the evening news myself, even the monks have taken to the streets to demonstrate on Yangon, the capital of myanmar.What has resulted in a peaceful demonstration has led to a military crackdown by the regime.

9 has been killed so far including a japanese reporter, and 11 are wounded.Army units raided the monastaries in Yangon and arrested the monks en masse.Why the people and monks suddenly fired up in this incident?

This may have something to do with the 100% fuel hike the government imposed last month.Real democratic movement cannot be developed if the country is too poor to feed themselves and that’s why to simply cite it’s a democratic protest is oversimplifying myanmar society.Asians are generally  pragmatic lot, what use is more freedom without food on the table?

As fuel prices increase, everything become more expensive like daily necessacities, transportation costs used to carry the goods will passed on the consumers.As a poor country,the myanmar people bear the most burden of this fuel hike.

I believe the monks also needed the patronage of the public to survive, how else can monastaries able to sustain without generous donations from the believers.If the people donations fall, can the monks survive without any sources of incomes for long?So by connecting the events from the fuel hike leading to  a mass demonstration by the monks proved that everyone is affected even if you removed yourself from a secular society which the monks found themselves in a petroleum led world.

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Recently there are news about the burning man carnival near black rock city in the USA.
This activity is called radical self realization.Mankind sought to identify themselves in groups earliest times whether it’s in hunting or farming.The burning festival seems to be about different things to different people though the go green and crude awakening theme seems to be popular in recent years.

Creating one’s own world , particpants seem to drink lots of water to prevent dehydration.People make their own stuff depending on the theme of the day..
After that, you dismantle own stuff..at first I thought you then burnt those stuff after the end of the camp LOL.. later I realised the burning part is just camp fire for the night.

I personally feel theme camps like this may be fun and it’s not arnachic as people think it is.But it’s not survival camp nor much arts and crafts..one do not really learn much maybe except for self expression for pent up frustation for city dwellers coop up in their offices and apartments for too long.One can learn more by attending a permaculture camp instead without all the fanfare.

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There’s been a lot of talk this days of forming communes in preparation of energy descent.
One thing I must emphasied that it’s no easy task. There’re problems like cultures , religions & customs and if one is able to overcome this, there’re quirks and behaviours of one’s community members that need good mediators and leaders to buffer any mistrust and build up resentment leading to any fallouts.If one find difficulties doing it now , what is more in a low energy environment?

Man have insulate themself the need for proper communication with their fellow human beings and animals at all levels since the energy bonaza during the last century.We need to find those interlocking and intricate relationships back at all levels whether we like it or not.

People never failed to go around trying to live in randomly collected groups and have failed. then they continue doing to look for other groups to try to further their psychological development.

However it’s not difficult to see why most failed cause they have not been prepared for such an experience they either felt that they were ready for such an experience, or else their membership of such a group would give them what they needed.
A group without harmony is like a bunch of sticks together , true they will be less likely to break given their strength but they will not catch fire either giving light to the commune.

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This is an Aseop tale I heard when I was a child, it’s about a cousin of the country mouse who came to visit him, the country mouse offers him simple food .The City mouse told this cousin of his the delights of the food and life of a city and so urged him to join him back home.
The country mouse of course find this tempting and follow him back to the city.Danger awaits them as dogs & cats awaits and chased them when they were enjoying the cheese and bread.The country mouse realised the hazards of the city life,bade his cousin farewell and returned to the countryside.

This story draws parallels of urbanists vs ruralists in a peak oil environment.It’s not about the city being a more dangerous place as the city mouse shown his cousin as he’s used to the ways of the city.And also the country mouse simple way of life really does not really attract his cousin from the city who preferred the delights of the city. Both camps have displayed different realities to the cousin mice.So the tale cited one should stay in one’s environment which is more comfortable and contribute whether it in a countryside or city.

Some of us will find the move to either camp smooth and life continues as normal but most will go back to their respective urban or rural environment.This timeless tale shed nuggets of wisdom in our troubled world.
I do not see an influx of city dwellers to the countryside or vice versa,Both camps are interconnected and will find ways to co-operate.The cities will provide the culture and other urban comforts , the villages the food supply etc.

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The latest projection of energy supply in the Apec region in 2050 will sourced from:

Coal:29%
Oil :31%
Gas:25%
Nuclear:9%
Hydroelectricity:2%
Biomass and others:4%

It seems that given the growth rate of asia pacific , the demand of energy will definitely surged but it’ sad to say that we can’t even weaned off from oil and coal by 2050.As you see, the main energy supplies are still fossil based and will contribute very much to the emissions of the greenhouse gases.
So far no concrete steps are taken by the asian countries to move away from fossil energy for cleaner renewable technologies that can keep pace with the rapid growth of the economies.However the leaders are becoming more aware of the introduction of the renewable energy , the toughest challenge remains to be seem on how to integrate and implement them on a mass scale where most region are poor and economic issues take a forefront over environmental ones.

Consumption of high growth countries in emerging economies always seem to be going head on with green conscious living, the lack of public awareness,, tendency of growing middle class to live like their western counterparts will be a thorny issue for years to come.To invade into the personal domain of their people telling them not to have more than 1 child, on how not to spend on needless consumer items seems to run against free market and democratic principles.But there is no easy solution if we were to survive in our resource scarce world of increasing demand.

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As you know , our world is beset with many problems like economic, social and ecological issues.This is all interconnected , a society just doesn’t collapse due to war or famine. this all are just dots connecting to an imminent collapse.
We all can see examples like somalia, rwanda and some other Third world societies collapsing leading to death and refugees en masse.
Though fossil energy decline could be one of the major factors leading to a collapse in our modern societies. others like food shortages and lack of medicine will pin the human race to the cross of populace rapid decline.Reasons cause mankind have never wrapped the food and medical supplies so tightly woven around fossil energy in the past but now the scared cow is being killed, and there’s no turning back.
What can one do if oil barrel hits 100usd and beyond?Cut down on driving and take public transport and if that’s too expensive, cycle and stay at home.Food too pricey, grow your own.There’s no easy solutions, man have distanced himself away from the source of life so long he does not know how to respond in this kind of circumstances that our forefathers have taken at a daily level whether they like it or not.

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