Stoking the Engines of Empires
By Joel Hilliker
The world is exiting the age of America and entering the age of multiple superpowers. The crunch on resources needed to stoke the engines of emerging global powers is destined to spark a violent revolution.
In the modern world, being a first-rate global power is expensive. It takes a lot of fuel to keep the engine firing.
Modern luxuries such as jetliners and suvs, electronics and computer technology, spacious air-conditioned homes and offices require an unprecedented supply of resources to operate—resources like oil, natural gas and coal, not to mention human laborers. The more elaborate our civilization becomes, the more resource-dependent it becomes—developing from a patchwork of self-sufficient communities using only local resources into a dizzyingly complex, economically interdependent matrix of pipelines, shipping lanes and trade routes that transmit resources to the folks who hunger for them.
( For complete story, Click here )
The world is exiting the age of America and entering the age of multiple superpowers. The crunch on resources needed to stoke the engines of emerging global powers is destined to spark a violent revolution.
In the modern world, being a first-rate global power is expensive. It takes a lot of fuel to keep the engine firing.
Modern luxuries such as jetliners and suvs, electronics and computer technology, spacious air-conditioned homes and offices require an unprecedented supply of resources to operate—resources like oil, natural gas and coal, not to mention human laborers. The more elaborate our civilization becomes, the more resource-dependent it becomes—developing from a patchwork of self-sufficient communities using only local resources into a dizzyingly complex, economically interdependent matrix of pipelines, shipping lanes and trade routes that transmit resources to the folks who hunger for them.
( For complete story, Click here )
posted by Oil Shock at 5:47 PM
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