Michael T. Klare

Six Recent Clashes and Conflicts on a Planet Heading Into Energy Overdrive

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time.  Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or...

How the Big Energy Companies Plan to Turn the United States into a Third-World Petro-State

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

The “curse” of oil wealth is a well-known phenomenon in Third World petro-states where millions of lives are wasted in poverty and the environment is ravaged,...

Why Twenty-First Century Oil Will Break the Bank -- and the Planet

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Oil prices are now higher than they have ever been -- except for a few frenzied moments before the global economic meltdown of 2008. Many immediate factors are contributing...

Why Closure of the Strait of Hormuz Could Ignite a War and a Global Depression

Cross-posted from TomDispatch.com

Ever since December 27th, war clouds have been gathering over the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow body of water connecting the Persian...

The Three Top Hot Spots of Potential Conflict in the Geo-Energy Era

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

Welcome to an edgy world where a single incident at an energy “chokepoint” could set a region aflame, provoking bloody encounters, boosting oil prices, and putting the global economy at risk. ...

Obama’s Risky Oil Threat to China

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com

When it comes to China policy, is the Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the fire?  In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East,...

Cross-posted from TomDispatch.com

America and Oil.  It’s like bacon and eggs, Batman and Robin.  As the old song lyric went, you can’t have one without the other.  Once upon a time, it was also a surefire formula for national greatness and global preeminence.  Now, it’s a guarantee...

Winners and Losers in the Great Global Energy Struggle to Come

Cross-posted from Tomdispatch.com

A 30-year war for energy preeminence?  You wouldn’t wish it even on a desperate planet.  But that’s where we’re headed and there’s no turning back.

From 1618 to 1648, Europe...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com

Here’s the good news about energy: thanks to rising oil prices and deteriorating economic conditions worldwide, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that global oil demand will not grow this year as much as once assumed, which may provide some temporary price relief at...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com

In his 2010 book, Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, environmental scholar and activist Bill McKibben writes of a planet so devastated by global warming that it’s no longer recognizable as the Earth we once inhabited.  This is a planet, he...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

Ending the Petroleum Age

Let’s try to take the measure of what exactly is at risk in the current tumult.  As a start, there is almost no way to give full justice to the critical role played by Middle Eastern oil in the world’s energy...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

Get ready for a rocky year.  From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest. Start with a simple fact: the prices of...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

If you want to know which way the global wind is blowing (or the sun shining or the coal burning), watch China.  That’s the news for our energy future and for the future of great-power politics on planet Earth.  Washington is already watching -- with...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

On June 15^th, in their testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the chief executives of America’s leading oil companies argued that BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico was an aberration -- something that would not have occurred with...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

Yes, the oil spewing up from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico in staggering quantities could prove one of the great ecological disasters of human history.  Think of it, though, as just the prelude to the Age of Tough Oil, a time...

Crossposted with TomDispatch.com.

Think of it as a tale of two countries.  When it comes to procuring the resources that make industrial societies run, China is now the shopaholic of planet Earth, while the United States is staying at home.  Hard-hit by the global recession, the United States...

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com.

The anticipation may be building, but we’ll all have to wait for the 82nd Academy Awards on March 7th to find out just how many Oscars the global box-office smash Avatar will receive. That 3-D sci-fi spectacle, directed by James Cameron, has garnered nine...

Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com.

As the second decade of the twenty-first century begins, we find ourselves at one of those relatively rare moments in history when major power shifts become visible to all.  If the first decade of the century witnessed profound changes, the world of 2009 nonetheless...

Cross-posted with Tomdispatch.com.

Memo to the CIA: You may not be prepared for time-travel, but welcome to 2025 anyway! Your rooms may be a little small, your ability to demand better accommodations may have gone out the window, and the amenities may not be to your taste, but get...

Cross-posted with Tomdispatch.com.

The debate rages over whether we have already reached the point of peak world oil output or will not do so until at least the next decade. There can, however, be little doubt of one thing: we are moving from an era in which oil...