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- Dependence on Foreign Oil hinders US national security and foreign policy
Oil – Impact ExtPeak Oil impacts pharmaceuticals Frumkin et al. 09 (January-February 2009. Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry CDC/Jeremy Hess, MD, MPH Emory Medical School, CDC NCEH, ATSDR/Stephen Vindigni, MPH Emory Medical School, NCEH, ATSDR. Public Health Reports. “Energy and Public Health: The Challenge of Peak Petroleum” http://www.publichealthreports.org/userfiles/124_1/5-19.pdf) Petroleum scarcity will have direct impacts on the availability and production of materials for which petroleum ¶ is a feedstock, and on the production and distribution ¶ of equipment in which petroleum plays a role. This includes pharmaceuticals, supplies, packaging, and ¶ capital equipment. Many pharmaceuticals are developed from petroleum feedstocks.¶ 48¶ For example, aspirin is produced ¶ from phenol, a petroleum-based molecule, through the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction. Some antibiotics are produced through fermentation of esters and alcohols, and nitrogen mustard is made from propylene glycol, ¶ all of which derive from petroleum. Many antihistamines, antibiotics, antineoplastics, and psychoactive medications are made from phenols, acids, anhydrides, alkanoamines, and aldehydes, which are made from petroleum feedstocks. In addition, celluloses and ¶ polymers—some from petroleum—are needed for both ¶ tablet binders and pill coatings, and petroleum-based ¶ molecules are used to make the plastic bottles and ¶ safety caps in which medicines are packaged. Fortunately, pharmaceutical precursors can be ¶ synthesized from sources other than petroleum. ¶ While alternative synthetic pathways could be costly, production volumes are small relative to other industrial applications, and chemical costs are a relatively small part of final pharmaceutical prices. Therefore, ¶ petroleum scarcity is unlikely to have a major impact ¶ on pharmaceutical prices (Personal communication, ¶ Richard Pariza, Cedarburg Pharmaceuticals, November 2006). However, each drug approval by the Food ¶ and Drug Administration (FDA) includes approval ¶ of a specific synthetic pathway, and FDA approval is ¶ required to “change the synthesis of the drug substance, ¶ including a change in solvents and a change in the ¶ route of synthesis” or “to add or delete an ingredient, ¶ or otherwise to change the composition of the drug ¶ product.”¶ 50¶ If petroleum scarcity creates a need to alter pharmaceutical synthetic pathways, especially if this happens suddenly, it could result in time-consuming delays. Peak Oil threatens agriculture Frumkin et al. 09 (January-February 2009. Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, CDC/Jeremy Hess, MD, MPH Emory Medical School, CDC, NCEH, ATSDR/Stephen Vindigni, MPH Emory Medical School, NCEH, ATSDR. Public Health Reports. “Energy and Public Health: The Challenge of Peak Petroleum” http://www.publichealthreports.org/userfiles/124_1/5-19.pdf) Global food production has increased dramatically since the 1950s thanks to technical advances collectively known as the Green Revolution. Several components defined the Green Revolution: mechanization, irrigation, agrochemicals, and the development of new ¶ strains of plants. Each of these innovations, with the exception of ¶ new seed strains, is heavily dependent on petroleum. ¶ For example, the enormous harvesters that permit ¶ large-scale farming, the irrigation systems that deliver ¶ water to otherwise arid land, and the trucks that deliver produce from California to the East Coast, all run on petroleum-based fuel. The two major categories of ¶ agrochemicals are pesticides and fertilizers. Pesticides ¶ are widely used to control insects and other pest species; pesticide manufacturing is heavily dependent ¶ on petroleum feedstocks.¶ 70¶ Fertilizers provide fixed ¶ nitrogen, an essential component of plant growth, far ¶ more efficiently than soil bacteria (often associated ¶ with the roots of legumes) can provide it. Fertilizer ¶ is manufactured through the energy-intensive HaberBosch process, using electricity, and the hydrogen ¶ molecules that are fixed to nitrogen come from a fossil ¶ fuel—coal, oil, or, more recently, natural gas. Scarcity ¶ of petroleum and natural gas will increase the price ¶ of both pesticides and fertilizers. The same is true of ¶ other nitrogen-based agricultural chemicals, such as ¶ the urea used in cattle feed.¶ 71 Food travels long distances from farm to market. A large share (by volume) of the U.S. diet is ¶ imported—an estimated 32% of fruits and nuts, 13% ¶ of vegetables, 10% of meats, 79% of fish and shellfish, ¶ 11% of wheat, 11% of rice, and 16% of wine and beer ¶ during the period 2000–2005.¶ 72¶ The concept of “food ¶ miles” captures and quantifies this phenomenon.¶ 73¶ Various analyses have calculated the “weighted average source distance” produce travels to U.S. consumers’ tables as between 1,346 and 1,500 miles. The transport costs associated with this travel are included in ¶ food prices. For these reasons, modern agriculture has been ¶ described as “eating fossil fuels.”¶ 75,76¶ Food contains ¶ large amounts of “embodied energy”—the energy in ¶ the fertilizers, pesticides, machinery, and transportation ¶ that underlie food production and shipment. One pound of lettuce contains 80 calories of food energy, but to grow, wash, package, and transport it from a California field to an East Coast market requires more than 4,600 calories of fossil fuel energy—or more than ¶ 50 calories of fossil fuel energy in for every calorie of ¶ food energy out.¶ 71 The central role of petroleum in agriculture and the ¶ central role of adequate food for health suggest that ¶ petroleum scarcity may affect health via this pathway. ¶ Agricultural impacts will manifest differently in different regions. In wealthy nations such as the U.S., the food supply is generally adequate, but about 11% of households—12.6 million households—are foodinsecure, meaning that they have difficulty at some time during the year in providing enough food for all ¶ their members due to lack of resources. Because food production in wealthy countries relies heavily on agrochemicals, mechanization, and long-distance transport, it is keenly sensitive to petroleum cost and availability. ¶ As a result, petroleum scarcity could seriously compromise food production. As prices rise, wealthier people are likely to cope, but the level of food insecurity may increase among those with fewer resources. In poor nations, the food supply is far more precarious, and petroleum scarcity could have severe consequences. On the other hand, less mechanized ¶ agriculture and less use of agrochemicals suggest ¶ less dependence on petroleum, and perhaps greater ¶ resiliency to petroleum scarcity. The stakes are high. ¶ Worldwide, more than 850 million people are chronically hungry, nearly all of them in poor countries, ¶ and almost one in four of them is a child.¶ 79¶ In Africa, ¶ one in four children is underweight as the result of ¶ undernutrition.¶ 80¶ The cases of North Korea and Cuba ¶ are instructive. North Korea experienced an abrupt shortage of petroleum and petrochemicals following the collapse of the Soviet Union between 1989 and 1991. No longer supplied with petroleum from donor nations, and unable to purchase it with hard currency, the nation suffered a drastic decline in agricultural output. Visitors during the 1990s described farm equipment and irrigation systems idle for lack of fuel, and critical shortages of fertilizer and pesticides. This petroleum scarcity, together with other problems such as obsolete ¶ equipment and flooding, caused a nearly 60% reduction in the output of rice and maize, the two staple crops. Although reliable data are unavailable, up to several million people (of a population of 22 million) were thought to have died in the resulting famine, and ¶ child malnutrition was widespread.¶ 81–85 Peak Oil affects the lower class disproportionally Frumkin et al. 09 (January-February 2009. Howard Frumkin, MD, DrPH National Center for Environmental Health and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, CDC/Jeremy Hess, MD, MPH Emory Medical School, CDC, NCEH, ATSDR/Stephen Vindigni, MPH Emory Medical School, NCEH, ATSDR. Public Health Reports. “Energy and Public Health: The Challenge of Peak Petroleum” http://www.publichealthreports.org/userfiles/124_1/5-19.pdf) Health disparities, defined by race, socioeconomic status, ethnic background, and other factors, characterize many aspects of public health. Contributing to ¶ these health disparities are disparities in environmental ¶ exposures. Poor people, members of ethnic minorities, and other subpopulations are disproportionately likely to sustain dangerous environmental exposures and to be deprived of access to health-promoting environments. This fact has given rise to “environmental ¶ justice” as a core concept in the environmental health ¶ field.¶ 106,107¶ Eliminating health disparities is a compelling ¶ goal for public health professionals. 108,109
Many of the consequences of peak petroleum will fall disproportionately on at-risk populations, especially those who are poor. Rising fuel prices will place a special burden on poor drivers; this may be compounded by long commutes for those who cannot find affordable housing near where they work, and by aging vehicles with poor fuel efficiency. Similarly, upward pressure on natural gas prices will place a special burden on poor people confronting rising home utility bills. “Fuel poverty” is defined as when a household spends more than 10% of its income on home heating; a similar concept may emerge for transportation. But rising petroleum prices will also affect poor people indirectly, through rising prices for food, clothing, medications, and other consumer goods for which petroleum is a key input. If rising petroleum prices are ¶ accompanied by a broader economic downturn, as has ¶ been predicted,¶ 10,11,20¶ then low-wage workers may be at disproportionate risk of job loss, loss of associated benefits such as health care, home foreclosure, and other negative impacts. These disproportionate impacts need to be anticipated and addressed. Oil dependence increases terrorism threat Sufiy, 7-11-11 (Peak Oil: Getting Off Oil - A 50-State Roadmap for Curbing Our Dependence on Petroleum ,Sufiy's Instablog ,http://seekingalpha.com/instablog/21153-sufiy/194495-peak-oil-getting-off-oil-a-50-state-roadmap-for-curbing-our-dependence-on-petroleum) Tim Diehl, a retired Air Force master sergeant who served in Iraq, said America sends $1 billion a day overseas to buy oil and some of that money gets into the hands of terrorists. He said America should take that money and invest it into clean, renewable energy.¶ ¶ "If it saves the life of one soldier, it's worth it," Diehl said.¶ Dependence on Foreign Oil hinders US national security and foreign policyCouncil on Foreign Relations 06 (October 2006. American nonprofit, nonpartisan membership organization, publisher, and think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs, publisher of Foreign Affairs. Council on Foreign Relations. “National Security Consequences of U.S. Oil Dependency” http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/EnergyTFR.pdf) The lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national security. Major energy suppliers—from Russia to Iran to Venezuela—have been increasingly able and willing to use their energy resources to pursue their strategic and political objectives. Major energy consumers—notably the United States, but other countries as well—are finding that their growing dependence on imported energy increases their strategic vulnerability and constrains their ability to pursue a broad range of foreign policy and national security objectives. Dependence also puts the United States into increasing competition with other importing countries, notably with today’s rapidly growing emerging economies of China and India. At best, these trends will challenge U.S. foreign policy; at worst, they will seriously strain relations between the United States and these countries. This report focuses on the foreign policy issues that arise from dependence on energy traded in world markets and outlines a strategy for response. And because U.S. reliance on the global market for oil, much of which comes from politically unstable parts of the world, is greater than for any other primary energy source, this report is mainly about oil. To a lesser degree it also addresses natural gas. Put simply, the reliable and affordable supply of energy—‘‘energy security’’—is an increasingly prominent feature of the international¶ political landscape and bears on the effectiveness of U.S. foreign policy.¶ At the same time, however, the United States has largely continued to treat ‘‘energy policy’’ as something that is separate and distinct—substantively and organizationally—from ‘‘foreign policy.’’ This must change. The United States needs not merely to coordinate but to integrate energy issues with its foreign policy. Dependence on oil leads to proliferation of troops – country’s in power will fight in order to obtain energy sources Cabral, Jim teaches international relations and political science in the Social Science Department at Landmark College in Putney VT, August 12, 2010 (Beyond BP: Michael Klare on US Energy Policy, Valley Advocate, http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=12165) Rising Powers is a cogent, accessible, well researched (e.g., relying on energy trade publications and statements from energy officials both in and out of government) expose of the intensifying, heavily militarized competition among the globe's largest energy-consuming nations for finite—and soon to be dwindling—sources of energy. Moreover, Klare makes clear that these remaining sources, like the oil currently gushing out of the well in the Gulf of Mexico, are becoming increasingly remote and hazardous to extract.¶ Rising Powers doesn't mark the first time that Klare has been ahead of the curve in prefiguring the underlying features of contemporary geopolitics. In fact, Rising Powers can be seen as an elaboration on a broader theme—the centrality of natural resources (energy-related or otherwise) in geopolitical relations—sketched out in his previous book, Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict. And in Rogue States and Nuclear Outlaws: America's Search for a New Foreign Policy (1995), Klare demonstrated remarkable prescience in anticipating how the so-called "Rogue State Doctrine" would provide the U.S. government with a justification for maintaining and exceeding Cold War-level military expenditures in the post-Cold War era.¶ In highlighting the increased likelihood of conflict accompanying the international scramble for energy reserves, Klare's overriding intent in Rising Powers is not to alarm, but rather to portray this sobering reality for what it is: a progressively volatile endgame fueled by military proliferation.¶ Moreover, Klare boldly asserts that this dynamic marks the beginning of a new era in global politics. Traditionally, national security considerations and state power have been defined in terms of the relative size and strength of states' military arsenals; now, state security and power are increasingly understood by policymakers as hinging on the possession of and/or access to sources of energy. Moreover, the energy-driven dynamics of international relations are creating a realignment of the global power lineup, which in turn will necessitate nothing less than a "redraw[ing] of the map of international politics" as both "energy surplus" and "energy deficit" states come to enjoy influence "disproportionate to their size and condition." Energy competition leads to arms conflict – nationalism will arise and spiral the chaos even further Cabral, Jim teaches international relations and political science in the Social Science Department at Landmark College in Putney VT, August 12, 2010 (Beyond BP: Michael Klare on US Energy Policy, Valley Advocate, http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=12165) Energy competition among what Klare calls the "energy deficit" states typically involves arms-for-energy tradeoffs with their suppliers, the "energy surplus" states. In the case of oil, arms transfers to the governments of surplus states pave the way for the deficit states' NOCs (and any IOCsheadquartered in their countries) both to exploit their hosts' oilfields and to search for new ones. For deficit states, the top priority accorded to "energy security" renders considerations of surplus states' integrity (Do they respect international norms? Do they allow their citizens to exercise civil liberties?) irrelevant, for the most part.¶ Not surprisingly, the accelerating militarization of energy procurement increases the possibilities for armed international conflict. Klare explains how nationalism lends momentum to this process: "The long-term risk of escalation is growing even more potent because major energy importers and exporters regularly appeal to that most dangerous of emotions, nationalism, in making their claim over the management of energy flows. Nationalistic appeals, once they have gripped a populace, almost invariably promote fierce emotion and irrationality. Add to this fact that the leaders of most countries involved in the great energy race have come to view the struggle over hydrocarbon assets as a 'zero-sum' contest—one in which a gain for one country almost always represents a loss for others. A zero-sum mentality leads to a loss of flexibility in crisis situations, while the lens of nationalism turns the pursuit of energy assets into a sacred obligation of senior government officials." Empircally proven, energy deficient countries trade arms for oil Cabral, Jim teaches international relations and political science in the Social Science Department at Landmark College in Putney VT, August 12, 2010 (Beyond BP: Michael Klare on US Energy Policy, Valley Advocate, http://www.valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=12165) The "competitive arms transfers" that represent the militarization of energy procurement also have another disturbing upshot: strengthening and legitimizing repressive, corrupt foreign regimes. In the case of U.S. arms recipients, the list is long and growing. It includes long-time allies in the Persian Gulf region—most notably Saudi Arabia—whose anachronistic social policies effectively reduce women to the status of second-class citizens; corruptible African governments in Nigeria, Chad, and Angola, where—along with off-shore drilling sites along the continent's west coast—U.S.-based oil companies such as Exxon and Chevron currently operate; and more recent allies in the energy-rich Caspian Sea region, including those Klare refers to as the "autocratic regimes" of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Directory: file -> view view -> Western Europe after wwii view -> Author study: paul fleischman view -> Qpa1 7ela study Guide view -> Arctic Oil/Gas Neg view -> November 1970 Approximately 150,000-500,000 deaths Bhola Cyclone Bangladesh view -> Grade Level: 6 Unit of Study: Caribbean glce view -> Citation: Duffield, Katy view -> Table of Contents Lesson # view -> Chinese Wind Energy Disad Download 0.65 Mb. Share with your friends:
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