X-Message-Number: 24623 Date: Sun, 12 Sep 2004 14:41:38 +0200 Subject: Re: Oil Crisis: Cryonics Orgs Leave US Now! From: David Stodolsky <> On Sunday, September 12, 2004, at 03:18 AM, Peter Merel wrote: > It may be, however, with changing supply and demand, oil will cost 10 > times as much in 10 years. In 1977 President Carter said we "could use up all the proven reserves of oil in the entire world by the end of the next decade." But today known reserves are larger than ever. Reserves and production outside the Middle East are larger than they were 31 years ago, when a State Department report was titled "The Oil Crisis: This Time the Wolf is Here." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36316-2004Jun12.html Over the long haul, proven reserves are increasing, not decreasing. New discoveries and technological advance continue to make new oil available faster than it is burned up. http://www.pregnantpause.org/overpop/oil.htm As Standard Oil executive Wallace Pratt said in 1944, it is a "fallacy ... [to] cite proved reserves as a measure of available future supplies." Yet this is exactly what has animated US policy in the Middle East. http://www.radford.edu/~wkovarik/oil/ It is clear that oil reserve figures are driven by political considerations. There is no evidence that oil will be in short supply, regardless of Pentagon 'Resource War' 'simulations'. > It'd be a war of liberation in the neocon mode, but bigger. We'll prop > up brutal dictators in all target nations, mount media campaigns > against 'em, then the mines get laid, the bombs dropped, the innocents > slaughtered, and Halliburton wins no-contest reconstruction contracts. According to a experts, continuation of current policies will likely result in a nuclear attack on the USA within the next ten years: http://www.rnw.nl/amsterdamforum/html/040911af.html Probably a greater threat to cryonics organizations is the rising climate of violence, which encourages armed attacks, and the erosion of civil liberties, which increases legal threats to 'nonconformist' organizations. Thus, threats are primarily political and social, as history has shown. Focusing on physical shortages is at best a distraction. In this case, it appears counter-productive, since it increases the power of social actors opposed to cryonics and promotes social instability. Therefore, while it may be appropriate for cryonics organizations to leave the USA, this judgment should be based upon developments in the political climate. dss David S. Stodolsky SpamTo: Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=24623