Political Vacuum Leading to a "30 year war"

When confronted with major crisis situations, it is customary for most people to turn to governments for decisive action. For example, in 2008, in the wake of the then “subprime crisis”, and seeking to address the dire consequences of global warming and their energy linkages, David Spratt and Philip Sutton made the case for energy emergency action on the part of governments, emergency action that obviously had to be coordinated on a global scale. They envisaged such action on a scale and mode similar to what prevailed in the US as it entered into World War Two. [1] Obviously their initiative and that of many others in a similar vein led to absolutely nothing.

Even when they recognise some of the energy issues we have to face, most decision-makers in the energy sector, in the corresponding parts of the financing industry, and in governments fail to appreciate the fundamentals of the emerging energy situation and know how to address them. Their entire training, business outlook and professional experience are focused on managing “more of the same”. As vividly illustrated by countless and rather ineffective efforts since 2007 to deal with the global debt mountain, most are ill equipped to perceive and face the present drastic, systemic, thermodynamic breakdown and change. In fact, since initiatives like that of Spratt and Sutton were published, systems analysts have shown that existing institutions are singularly unable to address effectively and efficiently the present challenges. [2]

We are faced with an astounding global political vacuum while pressure is mounting rapidly and, as we have stressed in the previous section, all are now in ruthless competition with all. This is why, in a recent essay on the global energy perspectives, Professor Klare referred to the 30 Years War that tore Europe from 1618 to 1648 and that saw the emergence of the modern international system of nation states, that is to say, resulted in a radical transformation of social, political and economic structures. [3] Similarly, he has come to consider that we are now entering a new period of conflict, probably in the order of thirty years, but this time encompassing the whole world. In his view this conflict:

“may not result in as much bloodshed as that of the 1600s, though bloodshed there will be, but it will prove no less momentous for the future of the planet. Over the coming decades, we will be embroiled at a global level in a succeed-or-perish contest among the major forms of energy, the corporations that supply them, and the countries that run on them. The question will be: Which will dominate the world’s energy supply in the second half of the twenty-first century? The winners will determine how – and how badly – we live, work, and play in those not-so-distant decades, and will profit enormously as a result. The losers will be cast aside and dismembered.”

[1] Spratt, David and Sutton, Philip, 2008, Climate Code Red – The case for emergency action, Scribe, Melbourne, Australia.

[2] For example, see Gronewold, Nathanial, 2010, “Game Theory: Climate Talks destined to Fail”, in Scientific American, December, reporting on the work of Prof. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita of New York University.

[3] Klare, Michael, 2011, “The New Thirty Years War”, in European Energy Review, 5 September (http://www.europeanenergyreview.eu/).

#thermodynamics #debt #energy #money #politicalvacuum #war