MuseLetter #180 / April 2007
by Richard Heinberg

Iran: We Will Know Soon…

For the past two years or so informed commentators (including Seymour Hersh and Scott Ritter, among others) have been predicting a US air attack on Iran. MuseLetter for March 2005, titled “Onward to Iran,” summarized relevant information available at that time. In recent months concern over America’s intentions has grown even more intense, to the point that it has become the fulcrum of nearly every discussion about the future of world affairs.

As many have pointed out, an attack could have cataclysmic implications for the region, for the world economy, and not least for the oil import-dependent and nearly bankrupt US. Recently Rolling Stone magazine convened a panel of experts to assess the situation in Iraq (“Leaving Iraq: The Grim Truth,” by Tom Dickinson, March 7, www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/13710030/leaving_iraq_the_grim_truth). The panel, which included such policy luminaries as Zbigniew Brzezinski (Jimmy Carter’s national security advisor) and Richard Clarke (counter-terrorism advisor to four presidents), concluded that the war in Iraq is lost. In the course of the discussion, Bob Graham, former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, made the following comment: “This administration seems to be getting ready to make—at a much more significant, escalated level—the same mistake we made in Iran that we made in Iraq. If Iraq has been a disaster, this would be multiple times Iraq. The extent to which this could be the horror of the twenty-first century is hard to exaggerate.”

Recent crucial events include the passing of the UN-imposed deadline for Iran to halt uranium enrichment, the stationing by the US of two aircraft carrier battle groups—the Eisenhower and the Stennis—in the Persian Gulf, a meeting in Baghdad attended by delegations from both Iran and the US, and the imposition of toughened economic sanctions by the UN Security Council.

The conjunction of the negotiations in Baghdad over regional issues (the US cannot extricate itself from Iraq without help from Iran and Syria) with the successful drive for increased UN economic sanctions (a drive led, of course, by the US) suggests that conflicting policies are being pursued in Washington. This appearance may result from an intentional effort to pressure the Iranians at the bargaining table. However, another interpretation of the situation is gaining ground among curious observers—that there is no single pilot steering the US ship of state, and that at least two groups are struggling to control the wheel (see Kaveh L Afrasiabi, “US and Iran: Squint-eyed double-dealing,” Asia Times online, March 17, www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC17Ak01.html)

On one side of the policy battle are Dick Cheney and the remaining administration neoconservatives, now confined mostly to the vice president’s office. On the other side are the so-called foreign policy realists or pragmatists—Brent Scowcroft, James Baker III, Henry Kissinger, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, among others—many of whom worked for the senior Bush when he was president. Condoleeza Rice appears, at least sometimes, to side more with the latter than with Cheney. The “decider” himself is caught in the middle: upon the recent release of the Iraq Study Group (ISG) report—a salvo from the realists—he appeared to snub its findings. Some analysts see family psychology playing a role here: the younger Bush reportedly hated early life under his father’s shadow and dreads being considered a failure (which he was, in previous careers); hence his resistance to pragmatic suggestions regarding a troop pullout from Iraq may be motivated as much by adolescent psychology as military strategy. George the younger must prove himself—at whatever cost to the nation or the world. If this view of the situation is at all accurate, the fate of the planet may hang upon a family drama whose tragic overtones bridge Macbeth and Dallas.

Recent events suggest that the pragmatists are advancing, even if they have not yet gained the upper hand. Donald Rumsfeld’s departure was a clear indication of this, as was his replacement by ISG member Robert Gates as the new defense secretary. Moreover, several Army generals, incensed by the damage done to the US military’s fighting capacity by the prolonged and poorly managed Iraq campaign, have reportedly threatened to resign if the order comes to attack Iran.

The arguments against such an attack are overwhelming. It would solve nothing strategically: it would not end Iran’s nuclear program and would not result in regime change. While arguably it would be of short-term political benefit to the administration (which could use the event to rally the public, crack down on dissent, and lash out at the political opposition in Congress), in order to actually mount an attack it would be necessary to persuade many outside the president’s and vice president’s offices of the need for such action. Cheney can’t fly the planes himself; indeed, several branches of government would have to participate in—or at least refrain from sabotaging—the attack plans. And to sell those plans to senior officers in the armed forces, as well as high officials in the CIA and the State Department, there would need to be some perceived benefit or threat sufficiently compelling so as to override the general war-weariness and Cheney-wariness that has gripped Washington.

Meanwhile, however, it appears that the preparations for such an attack continue. On this score, Seymour Hersh’s ongoing reportage in The New Yorker is essential reading. His latest, “The Redirection” (March 5, www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh), details how the Bush administration is now cementing new alliances with radical Sunni organizations in order to undermine Iranian influence in Iraq. Hersh quotes Flynt Leverett, a former Bush administration National Security Council official, as saying, “This is all part of the campaign of provocative steps to increase the pressure on Iran. The idea is that at some point the Iranians will respond and then the Administration will have an open door to strike at them.”

Hersh notes that the US military has arrested and interrogated scores of Iranians within Iraq in an effort to build a case against Tehran. Clandestine US operations are ongoing in Iranian territory, and “a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours.” This Iran planning group has recently “been handed a new assignment: to identify targets in Iran that may be involved in supplying or aiding militants in Iraq. Previously, the focus had been on the destruction of Iran’s nuclear facilities and possible regime change.”

Perhaps the most ominous bits of recent news concern Russia: for the past few weeks that nation has been delaying delivery of nuclear fuel to Iran, and is now withdrawing all 2000 of its technicians at the Bushehr nuclear plant. This is predicated on the excuse that Iran is in arrears on payments for Russian fuel and services, despite the fact that 90 percent of the bills have been paid. Speculation is swirling that Russia, anticipating a near-term US or Israeli air bombardment, is moving its trained personnel out of harm’s way, and minimizing nuclear material on site so as to reduce the release of deadly radiation from the attacks.

Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s March 23 cancellation of an anticipated UN speech also suggests that something is up—but what? Is this a response to political problems back home (his continued tenure as president is far from given), or does it have to do with international relations involving the US, the UK, and Iraq—perhaps knowledge of an impending attack?

So, we are faced with three questions: whether a US air attack on Iran will occur; and, if that is now inevitable, how it will be justified and how it will unfold.

On the first question there is a division of opinion among analysts, with Hersh and Ritter contending that an attack is inevitable, and others like Henry C. K. Liu (of Asia Times online) arguing that the US is already beaten in Iraq, that it has nothing to gain from expanding the war to Iran, and that the tough talk and aircraft carrier deployments are intended only to gain a better bargaining position vis-à-vis Tehran when it comes time to decide Iraq’s future.

While the first question is by far the more important, the answer to the second and third will nevertheless be instructive if the Hersh/Ritter analysis is correct. In order for the attack to proceed, a pretext will be necessary, and the nature and strength of the pretext will reveal a great deal about the behind-the-scenes strengths and weaknesses of the various players, and give clues to how events might proceed. Here are the main possibilities:

1. Domestic terrorism. Zbigniew Brzezinski, in remarkable testimony on the first of February to the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, said: “A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the [UN] benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq, or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

The inclusion by Brzezinski of the phrase “a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran” caught the attention of many, especially those who believe that the attacks of September 11, 2001 were in some way facilitated by the current administration in order to provide a basis for its “war on terror” and the invasion of Iraq. Clearly, another domestic terrorist incident, this one tied somehow to Iran, would galvanize vociferous domestic support for military action against that nation, thus rendering it the most effective possible pretext for an attack.

However, absent real Iranian terrorist activity within the US, it is a pretext that would require a significant level of secrecy and coordination to arrange. If this pretext materializes, it will likely signify that intelligence units answering directly to the vice president’s office and operating independently of the CIA are still highly capable, and that the ability of the remaining neocon factions to organize internal government support for highly risky secret operations is high. This would be the worst scenario in terms of its impact on the future of Americans’ civil liberties.

2. A (faked?) Iranian attack on a US vessel or other asset in the Middle East. This would likewise constitute a very strong pretext for war, and would likewise be difficult to arrange—though perhaps easier than a major domestic terrorist incident. American vessels would have to provoke Iranian forces into attacking them, or an Iranian attack would have to be staged (like the Tonkin Gulf incident that served as the pretext for the expansion of American military involvement in Vietnam). A somewhat convoluted but intriguing scenario: Israeli warplanes bomb Iranian nuclear research facilities (see pretext number 3 below), then sink an American vessel on their way home; the incident is blamed on the Iranians. The notion of Israel attacking an American military ship might seem farfetched, but there is a precedent: In 1967 Israeli forces attacked the USS Liberty, a reconnaissance vessel, killing 34 US sailors and injuring 172. That incident, possibly an effort to prevent the Liberty from picking up signals that that would have tipped off the US to an Israeli military push into Syria the following day, was promptly covered up by both nations.

In its mildest form, this pretext might consist simply of a seizure by Iranians of British or American sailors—which of course actually occurred on March 23, as well as on an earlier occasion in 2004. Such an action is easy to provoke, but making it the pretext for a large-scale attack would require some effort. The fact that the US has kidnapped several Iranians within Iraqi territory over the past few months (as detailed by Hersh) is of course relevant to the assessment of whether equivalent Iranian behavior constitutes a pretext for war, but it has hardly been noted by most of the Western press.

3. An Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, with an Iranian military response. This would again be a very strong pretext for US action, and there is the widely discussed historical precedent of Israel’s aerial bombardment of the Osirak nuclear facility near Baghdad in 1981 (in that instance, the French withdrew all of their technicians prior to the bombing—is Russia following the same script today?).

In this case, the Democratic Party leaders in America would not only support a military attack on Iran; they would lead the charge. Never mind if it were a disastrous policy with little support from the public—few if any politicians in Washington would criticize it. (In fact, there is very little Democratic opposition to hostilities with Iran with or without direct Israeli involvement.)

There is support at high levels in Israel for such an attack: following the disastrous campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon last year, some Israeli policy analysts drew the lesson that the largely Shi’ite organization cannot successfully be countered until its support from Iran is cut off. But Israeli military and intelligence officials are by no means unanimous in backing such an attack: it could easily boomerang, like the campaign in Lebanon, leaving Israel in a much worse strategic position, further isolated within an angry, destabilized Middle East.

There are also diplomatic challenges to the plan: for it to work, Israeli planes would have to over-fly the airspace of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and/or Turkey. From the viewpoint of the Arab masses, leaders of these nations would be seen as colluding with Israel in its attack if they gave permission or failed to launch anti-aircraft missiles or interceptor jets. Therefore Arab leaders are likely to resist participation in the plan, and US diplomatic efforts would be necessary to overcome such resistance. Saudi Arabia and other Sunni-dominated nations in the region are already lined up against Tehran, partly as a result of US lobbying.

Moreover, in order for the plan to succeed, Iran would have to respond to the attack by firing missiles into Israel or at US warships. This is not a given, as the wisest thing for Tehran to do tactically would be to play the victim and respond only diplomatically. It is useful to remember that it is not hot-headed Ahmedinejad who has final authority over military decisions for the country, but the more moderate-minded supreme guide Ayatollah Khamenei. Nevertheless, Iranian leaders have vowed to respond with force, and options include closing the Strait of Hormuz and lobbing missiles not only at cities in Israel, but also at US military garrisons in Iraq and major oil terminals in Saudi Arabia.

4. Violence in Iraq that can be pinned on Iran. This would be easy enough to arrange, since there is plenty of violence in Iraq on all sides. But it would be a relatively weak pretext, and domestic support within the US for an attack in response would not be a given.

In any case, the situation within Iraq is of vital interest to both the US and Iran, and the interaction of those interests is complex and unstable. It is in many ways to Iran’s advantage to keep the US bogged down by sectarian violence, while simultaneously promoting the maintenance of a unified, Shi’ite-led Iraqi government. Iran seeks to keep Washington in a no-win stalemate, where the latter cannot withdraw its troops yet cannot impose “democracy” without incurring politically and militarily unbearable costs. The end result could be a precipitous decline in American influence, and not only in the Middle East. But this is a risky strategy for Tehran, since overt Iranian intervention in southern Iraq would offer Washington the pretext for attacks on Iranian research and military installations. It is also risky because an overt attempt by Tehran to assert leadership in Shi’ite southern Iraq could, in Henry Liu’s words (in “Iran and the Failed US Iraq Policy,” Asia Times online, March 21, www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IC21Ak07.html), “cause a backlash and damage the spiritual prestige and theological influence of Tehran and Qom in Shi'ite communities in the wider Arab world, alienating the very elements Iran aims to rally against the US infidel.”

Meanwhile, as noted above, Seymour Hersh in “The Redirection” reports that the US, nervous about growing Iranian power in the region, is increasingly supporting Sunni Islamist groups both in and outside of Iraq, hoping to oppose them against Shia groups aligned with Tehran—a strategy that likewise raises serious long-term risks, since most of the violence currently being directed against the US occupation comes from the Sunni-led resistance. The US could, in other words, merely be funding and arming its own worst enemies.

5. Iranian progress on a nuclear weapon. This would be difficult to prove or disprove, making it the weakest of the available pretexts. However, it might be the easiest to arrange: all that would be necessary would be another presentation before the UN like Colin Powell’s prominent performance prior to the Iraq invasion. Grainy satellite photos could be displayed, with appropriate captions for the benefit of those who cannot immediately tell an underground nuclear weapons laboratory from an ordinary railroad tunnel. Unfortunately, such a presentation, by itself, would likely fail to garner the needed degree of domestic or international support for an attack, given its well-remembered precedent.

6. An accident or misunderstanding. Just by ratcheting up tensions and putting more forces in the region, the US makes a miscalculation on either side more likely. Of course, if either side wants and intends a miscalculation to occur, this becomes much more likely. Once events have proceeded to the level of pretext 2, then they acquire an unstoppable momentum of their own.

Currently events are unfolding very quickly. Things to watch over the days ahead include the resolution of the matter of the seized British sailors; Iran’s response to the new UN sanctions; and the fate of the second round of official discussions, scheduled for early April in Turkey, which is expected to include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iranian and Syrian counterparts.

If an attack does ensue, the immediate consequences could be moderate to catastrophic—with the moderate effects being more likely, since everyone has had time to think through the various scenarios and is likely to follow through on scripted actions and responses. The longer-term prognosis is not as favorable, as those scripted responses go only so far. The US, Europe, Russia, China, and India all have vital interests in the region, and a general explosion of Sunni-Shia violence could draw these interested parties into conflict. At the very least, we are likely to see an expansion of the chronic violence in Iraq spreading outward throughout the Middle East and perhaps Central Asia as well, with an arc of chaos extending from Pakistan to Saudi Arabia. The worst case is painful to contemplate. If the US and/or Israel follow through on their implied threats to deal militarily with Iran, this may constitute the most dangerous and fateful international gamble in decades.

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NOTE: Following are some Heinberg extras, available to readers of RichardHeinberg.com

Is Technology the Answer to Peak Oil?

(The following is an op-ed piece written in response to a New York Times article)

How does one tell real journalism that’s intended to inform the public, from PR-based journalism designed to sell a point of view? Answer: ask typical citizens a simple set of relevant factual questions before and after they read the piece and see if they’re better or worse informed by what they’ve read.

Case in point: the article “Oil Innovations Pump New Life Into Old Wells” by Jad Mouawad (March 5). Mouawad leads with the story of Kern River oilfield near Bakersfield, California--presumably the strongest and most dramatic evidence for his core message. New technology has boosted production there from 10,000 barrels a day in the 1960s to 85,000 barrels a day today. Inference: If the same technology is applied elsewhere, that should dramatically increase available oil. Hence those gloomy geologists who have been warning us about “peak oil” are way off base. Don’t worry; go driving!

So here’s the first question for the average reader: Is oil production from Kern River increasing or decreasing? Based on the article, any reader would surely say, Increasing, of course! Wrong. Kern River oilfield peaked in 1999, and further technological intervention hasn’t helped.

Total U.S. oil production is declining. Ditto Indonesia, U.K., Oman, and over two dozen other nations. The technology touted in the article is widely in use, yet oil production in country after country is peaking and falling, sometimes by 8 percent per year or more. But these simple facts are nowhere mentioned in Mouawad’s paean to the wonders of enhanced oil recovery.

Well, so what? What’s at stake here? Only the future of industrial society. If the petroleum pessimists are right and world oil production is at or near peak, then we have an enormous problem on our hands. The world’s transport systems are 95 percent dependent on oil, and there are no easy substitutes. We will need decades to wean ourselves off the stuff, and if we don’t start efforts years before the peak, the result may be economic turmoil such as we have never seen.

Mouawad might have dug a little deeper to find a recent scientific study to test his core assertion--that enhanced oil recovery will result in larger production volumes and substantially delayed production peaks. Such a study exists, published as “Technology and Petroleum Exhaustion: Evidence from Two Mega-Oilfields,” by John Gowdy and Roxana Julia of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, who conclude that “Patterns of depletion in [the fields studied] suggest that when a resource is finite, technological improvements do increase supply temporarily. But . . . the effect of new technology was to increase the rate of depletion without altering the fields’ ultimate recovery.”

The article suggests that most experts foresee smooth sailing for world oil supplies. The reality is that few do. The International Energy Agency’s Director, Claude Mandil, has said: “On current trends, we are on course for an expensive and dirty energy system that will go from crisis to crisis.” Chevron, in recent ads, warns that “the era of easy oil is over.” Jeremy Gilbert, former chief petroleum engineer for British Petroleum, believes that a peak in global production is likely within a decade.

Yes, output from a few aging fields has expanded. But it’s the bigger picture that matters. California’s oil production has declined to levels not seen since 1943, Texas’ production has dropped steadily for three decades, and output in Indonesia has fallen by one-third since 1998. Contrary to Jad Mouawad’s cheery picture, the world faces an enormous challenge, and responsible journalists can help by explaining that challenge to the public, rather than lulling readers into dangerous complacency.

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Comments to the National Petroleum Council

(On October 5, 2005, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman requested that the National Petroleum Council conduct a study of global oil and natural gas supply. The motivating concern stated by the Secretary was an investigation into the timing of and responses to peak oil—the plateauing and subsequent decline of world oil production. Hundreds of organizations and individuals have contributed input to the process. During two multi-hour web-cast teleconference calls on February 23 and March 1, the NPC heard comments from Colin Campbell, Jean Laherrere, Robert L. Hirsch, Steve Andrews, Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, Matt Simmons, Randy Udall, Roger Bentley, Richard Heinberg, and several others. A draft of the study is due during April, with the final report due by late June, 2007. For further information, check periodic postings of informational powerpoint slides on the NPC’s website (www.npc.org). This was my contribution to the March 1 conference call.)

1. The failure of official agencies

Official agencies have consistently failed to accurately forecast national and regional oil production peaks. Three examples:

§ During the 1960s, the U.S. Geological Survey issued successive reports forecasting a peak in U.S. oil production around the year 2000; this followed M. King Hubbert’s controversial forecast of a peak around the year 1970. Confounding the official view, U.S. oil production did reach its maximum in 1970 and has been generally declining ever since, despite the subsequent discovery of the largest conventional oilfield ever found in North America—on the North Slope of Alaska—in the 1970s. § In their International Energy Outlook (IEO) 2001 report, the EIA stated that “The United Kingdom is expected to produce about 3.1 mb/d by the middle of this decade, followed by a decline to 2.7 mb/d by 2020,” implying a peak around 2005. Britain’s oil production from the North Sea actually peaked in 1999, two years before this forecast was issued, at 2.684 mb/d, declining to less than 1.7 mb/d by 2005. § In their IEO 2003 report, the EIA predicted that the country of Oman was “expected to increase output gradually over the first half of this decade” with “only a gradual production decline after 2005.” In fact, Oman’s production had already peaked in 2000, three years before the forecast was published.

2. Reasons for failure Why were these agencies wrong? There are several possible reasons. One has to do with psychology. The oil industry is comprised of people whose job entails supplying the very lifeblood of modern industrial society. They do this job with some pride. They may therefore understandably perceive suggestions that oil production may soon peak as an affront to their competence.

This notion seems supported by the irrationality of the way in which many in the industry (including representatives of CERA and ExxonMobil) typically mischaracterize the evidence and arguments of the depletionists, and ridicule the messengers rather than engaging in an honest discussion of issues and a dispassionate search for the truth. This same psychological motive may also partially explain repeated failures to foresee national peaks in oil or gas production.

People in the industry are attempting an impossible task—to continuously increase the supply of a non-renewable resource. That they should eventually fail to do this is no reflection on their technical competence or the degree of their effort. Meanwhile, society desperately needs realistic assessments of this vital resource rather than macho assurances.

Moreover, there is typically insufficient appreciation of the powerful influence of giant oilfields on the depletion curves of large regions. Giant oilfields tend to be found early in the exploration history of a region; and, when they go into decline, the entire region tends to peak, since smaller fields, even when found in great numbers, usually cannot make up for the decline of the giants—at least, not for long.

It seems to me that these tendencies that have caused official agencies to miss national production peaks are also leading them to miss signs of the impending global peak. The facts that most of the world’s giant fields were discovered decades ago and that we are now seeing declines in the world’s largest oilfields—Cantarell, Burgan, Daqing, and possibly Ghawar—should certainly be setting off alarm bells.

However, many analysts have lulled themselves into complacency by, for the purposes of calculation, treating low-grade hydrocarbon resources as if they were conventional oil, thereby arriving at inflated figures for world oil reserves. The likely production rates from the heavy oil in Venezuela, the Alberta tar sands, and the oil shales of Colorado will not be sufficient to offset declines from giant fields of conventional oil. The “peak oil” discussion is not about reserves, it is about flow rates.

3. The state of the industry

Further, the industry is ill equipped to make up for declines in the larger fields by heroic efforts at exploration. If new fields are to be tapped quickly enough and in sufficient quantity to avert a near-term peak (if that is even possible in principle), then extraordinary rates of drilling will be required. However, these efforts must overcome the following hurdles:

§ Equipment is aging: the average floating drilling rig is 22 years old, the average jackup rig is 24 years old, the average land rig is 25-30 years old. [http://biz.yahoo.com/e/061103/nov10-q.html]

§ There is currently a global shortage of rigs, and the cost of renting them is skyrocketing (E & P costs are up 53% in past 2 years, according to Rigzone). More rigs are being built, but that takes time. “That means companies are getting less and less bang for the bucks they put into exploration and production, despite high commodity prices. And with oil well below last year’s $76.70 record . . . companies may consider delaying, if not canceling, some projects.” (Houston Chronicle, Feb. 13 [www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/business/4548658.html])

§ There is also a shortage of trained personnel, since the industry has been shedding geologists and engineers for the past two decades. “As an aging generation of workers retires, industry experts say the resulting shortfall in skilled labor could lead to an increase in delays and problems on mega oil and gas projects…. Over the next decade, a wave of retirements will strip the industry of its most skilled project managers, just as some of the most complex operations ever attempted are supposed to come on stream. The combination, they said, could very well lead to an increase in delays.” [www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=41306]

4. Conclusion: It is reasonable to assume that the peak is here or very close

Meanwhile, we observe that world production of crude + condensate has been static or declining since May 2005, when it achieved just over 74,000,000 barrels/day. This has happened in the context of very high prices—which should, under ordinary circumstances, have been incentive to expand production. This suggests that conventional oil has already peaked. The peak for all liquids cannot be far behind.

Consequently, I see no plausible scenario in which a liquid fuels crisis arising within about 5 years can be averted on the supply side. This is too little time in which to compensate for declines by producing large quantities of liquids-from-coal or biofuels, if that is even possible. And that in turn means that demand-reduction strategies will be required in order to balance the available supply with requirements for transport fuels. The sooner such strategies are identified and implemented, the better the prognosis for societal adaptation.

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Peak Oil Discussed at European Parliament

On February 27 I had the extraordinary opportunity to meet with three members of the European Parliament, and to address a session of the Parliamentary Trade Committee on the subject of Peak Oil. All of this was arranged by members of the International Forum on Globalization (IFG)—and particularly by Caroline Lucas, Green Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from southeast England. Also along on this adventure were Debi Barker, Co-Director of IFG, and Victor Menotti, IFG Program Director.

After twenty minutes spent passing through security at the EU Parliament building in Brussels, the day continued with an hour-long breakfast with MEP Claude Turmes from Luxembourg, a member of the Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy. He and his assistant Frederic Thoma seemed well versed on energy issues in general, and highly sensitized to Europe’s precarious and growing dependence on gas and oil supplies from Russia.

The same could be said for Derek Taylor, Energy Advisor to the Parliament, with whom Caroline, Victor, and I met for an hour in the late morning. Taylor did not express any doubts about the notion of supply problems arising in the near future, but seemed pessimistic about the likelihood of significantly raising awareness about the issue, or achieving relevant policy breakthroughs, within the Parliament. (The EU Parliament, by the way, now has roughly 750 members who are affiliated with numerous parties and are elected directly by European citizens every five years; collectively the members speak over twenty languages. The Parliament began with largely symbolic status, but now has legislative powers regarding the functions of the European Commission.)

After the meeting with Derek Taylor came one with David Gow, European Business Editor of The Guardian, and still another with Anders Wijkman, MEP from Sweden. Wijkman had previously been briefed by ASPO President Kjell Aleklett and was therefore conversant with the basic evidence and arguments surrounding Peak Oil; he seemed genuinely interested in helping further the discussion within Parliament.

The culmination of the day consisted of a joint presentation to the Trade Committee, with nearly 100 MEPs and assistants present. Victor Menotti and I were each allotted ten minutes for our presentations; these were followed by about 30 minutes of questions, most of which focused on the information about Peak Oil.

In each of these meetings Victor spoke of the proposed new WTO energy rules which would in effect make it impossible for member nations to choose among energy sources (for example, to discriminate against fossil fuels in order to protect the climate or to reduce vulnerability to supply shortfalls). It seems unlikely that these rules will be accepted—if trade negotiators understand their meaning and impact. But this cannot be taken for granted, and Victor’s efforts in this regard are highly important (he has written a background paper on the subject that is available at www.ifg.org/reports/WTO-energy-services.htm)

Each of the one-on-one meetings that day seemed productive, and each of the MEPs with whom we met requested backup materials (including my slides and the Hirsch Report). It was my impression that, for most of the MEPs hearing the Peak Oil message that day, this was new and disturbing information. My experiences did not confirm the widely held view that world leaders know about Peak Oil and have secret plans to deal with it. In my opinion, this could only be true if the members of the European Parliament are not sufficiently highly placed in world leadership to be privy to such plans. That is entirely possible. However, a more likely explanation, it seems to me, is that few if any world leaders understand this enormous, impending dilemma or have any idea what to do about it.