The author’s personal attacks on the current administration with negative pet names does not add to the scholarly attempt of this article. You give no legal reason for impeachment.

In 50 years this chapter in US history will be a faint memory (Dick who?). I don’t advocate expansionism or colonialism, but we should not wait to be sucker punched again.

I enjoyed the article and many of its points. War needs oil, so ‘we’ fight for it! So true that many of the ‘good’ things could be accomplished using alternative fuels-food, human, wind, solar, tidal, etc.

I want a bike that also is a power generator, so if I want to watch the ‘news’ on tv I have to ride my bike!

We have become such fossil fools!

That is why I predict despite the talk of climate change and action, that ‘we’ will delude ourselves into oblivion!

Good luck all!

If everyone does their own part and is open to learning what that can be, the world c ould be in a much better place.

I am trying to model this for my students by not eating meat, taking mass transit for hours every day rather than driving, buying responsibly, watching my consumption of all products and saying no to spending unless it is absolutely necessary.

My students have formed an ecology club and work out in their community to save resources. Their only obstacle has been adults who tell them that they are wasting their time and others that model all the negative things that are ruining the planet. But this is not deterring them…we adults could learn alot from kids about perseverence in the face of adversity.

Then came the discovery of the steam engine. This ushered in the “industrial age”.

Coal and steel became prized commodities. They provided energy in far greater quantities than any other source and in forms that were more convenient for use. Hence the massive growth in technology and the division of the world into energy-technology rich countries and energy-technology poor countries. Many of the latter had plenty of ‘fossil’ energy, but didn’t know how to extract or use it.

The huge growth in wealth that followed the development of energy technology has been largely accumulated into the hands of relatively few people.

Of course wars have been fought for resources: land has been one of the major causes of wars. That is how the Europeans took control of the North American continent (and used black human labour to do most of the manual work). Now, a major cause of war (probably THE major cause) is for ‘fossil fuel’ - energy, power, the capacity to do work! The politics of energy is now all-pervasive.

Fortunately, there is a big catch in all this.

Fossil fuels have accumulated in the earth surface over hundreds of millions of years from decaying vegetation. The energy ‘locked up’ in these fossil fuels was captured by vegetation from the light of the sun. In doing so, carbon was absorbed from the atmosphere and oxygen was liberated into the atmosphere. This enables many new kinds of life, including humans, to appear here on earth. Oxygen is essential to most forms of life because of the part it plays in producing energy. [It reacts with hydrocarbons to produce carbon dioxide, water and ... ENERGY!]

So, when fossil fuels are burnt for their energy they also produce carbon dioxide, which floods into the atmosphere, and oxygen is removed. Returning the hundreds of millions of years’ worth of carbon back into the atmosphere over the space of 2 or 3 hundred years is creating a massive disturbance in the physics and chemistry of the earth’s surface, especially as carbon dioxide is a ‘greenhouse’ gas. Because of this, the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing the earth’s surface temperature to rise. This is the phenomenon of ‘global warming’ that affects the complicated physico-chemistry of the earth’s surface that scientists really know very little about.

Although wars for fossil fuels brings death and destruction to millions of innocent people (including the poor rookies who carry the rifles), the effect of burning the fossil fuels will eventually bring death and destruction to most of the life on this planet.

That is where our greed and stupidity is taking us.

No, and neither is he.

The problem with the author is that he is engaged in hyperbole rather than analysis and thus extremely difficult to take seriously.

The US has been in the Middle East since the 1930s, with a growing presence as Britain’s empire subsided and US demand for oil has grown expotentially.

so-called “oil wars” are no different, and if it wasn’t the US doing it, then it would be someone else.

Bringing up body and dollar counts in “the big game” is like worrying over the amount of nails that went into a completed house. You think anyone cares how much money or lives were spent during WW2? We talk about Iraq as if it is some kind of new atrocity. In terms of lives lost it isn’t even a blip in time.

Guess what: there are bigger things than any of us as individuals.

No one will even give a shat about Bush or Iraq in 1,000 years. It’ll be a forgotten war waged for forgotten reasons by an empire of the past.

Take a breather. If your a US Citizen then you should be on board. How else are we supposed to support our extravagant lifestyles? You know all that limousine liberalism and tofu vegetarian goodness costs money. You think a chinese laborer can afford your lifestyle? Stop the self-pity and arrogance. We are no better or any different than the human civilizations that have been over the last 3,000 years of written history.

We are the Roman Empire of our time. Bottom line, and not something we need to feel sorry about.

Just one Dissenting Voice. ; )