Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Washington‘s Shale Boom Going Bust

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, May 12, 2014

Washington‘s Shale Boom Going Bust

Click here to access article by William Engdahl from New Eastern Outlook.

The extraction of fossil fuels by the new oil mining technology known as shale fracking or hydraulic fracturing is polluting, expensive, and of short duration. It is driven by hype, debt, and "quantitative easing". It is a desperate attempt to satisfy the voracious appetite of the beast known as capitalism.

Even the US Government’s EIA projects that US oil output will peak at 9.61 million barrels a day in 2019. They see tight-oil or shale oil topping at 4.8 million barrels in 2021. That’s only seven years out. And if the US Government is trying to fast-track approval of LNG gas export terminals on coastal ports to allow US gas companies to export their gas, completion of such complex terminals including environmental impact approvals typically takes seven years. Hmmmm.