Oil Addiction: The World in Peril - 17
by Pierre Chomat (Universal Publishers, 2004)
translated from the French by Pamela Gilbert-Snyder
Part II. Age of Excess
Chapter 17. The Empire Elixir
We have spurred our energy horses to bolt and they are running wild. But the first machines devised by scientists did not drive them quite so hard. After creating his pressure cooker {a}, Denis Papin began working on a steam engine. He described its basic principles in detail in 1687, but never got it out of the laboratory. Newcomen, the "Blacksmith of Dartmouth", however, built one with a practical use. In 1712, he installed his "fire pump" in a Staffordshire mine to remove the water that was hindering the extraction of precious coal. Among the scientists of their day, Papin, Newcomen and a few others served as trailblazers for industry. Their new "steam-horses", made of metal and fed with coal, caught the public's eye and gave a glimmer of the great labor-saving devices yet to come. But the "horses" were not spurred to a gallop yet. Society still kept its sobriety. Nearly a century would pass before Man guided his steam-horses onto the path that we are on now.
In 1797, Robert Fulton, an American inventor living in Paris, presented the French Directorate, which governed France from 1795 to 1799, with a propeller-driven submarine called the Nautilus. This craft was a great leap forward for stealth navigation, but it still had no engine! It was operated by three men submerged in its chamber: one of them pedaled to move the vessel forward, another worked a hand pump to keep it under water, and a third stood ready to hand-drill a hole in the enemy craft's hull - providing it managed to get under it. Fulton's little marvel, run by manpower alone, did not tempt the royal navies of Paris or London, both of which turned the brilliant inventor down. Perhaps it was too much to expect the captains of great sailing vessels to do the work of submariners, with the added humiliation of traveling incognito. Fulton was undeterred, however, and in 1803 he tested a steamboat with side paddlewheels on the Seine and ushered in the era of steam-powered navigation. In 1807, he took his famous steamboat, the Clermont, up the Hudson River from New York to Albany, inaugurating the first maritime line with regular passenger service. Energy had entered modern life.
In Papin's time, there was very little liquid petroleum. Most ergamines were in the form of coal used for heating, and Man took all the credit for the work that was performed - although he was assisted as often as possible by draft animals. Denis Papin made steam; his research was lauded by physicists. But no one thought about the fact that he could not have done it without coal. Human progress was considered "manmade". For most people, coal was just that dirty stuff they used to keep warm. Its energy-generating capacities went unrecognized, even when it was being used by Thomas Newcomen to remove water from mines and by Robert Fulton to glide New Yorkers up the Hudson as smoothly as if they were being pulled by teams of dolphins.
But it is not surprising that energy was not seen as the driver of progress, for we still do not see it that way today. We admire a well-crafted machine and praise its amazing performances, and we sometimes even laud the efforts of inventors; but we pay no attention to the forces behind them making it all go. We fill up on gas without realizing we are feeding our vehicles some extraordinary fodder. Even though it is often the source of fabulous wealth, we are no more aware of the energy that fuels our egosystems than we are of the oxygen we breathe. For most of us, it simply does not exist.
And yet, our egosystems have invaded every aspect of our lives, and as beautiful as the metaphor of the dolphins may be, it is nowhere near reality. When progress is driven by energy, it becomes a runaway horse. We should have kept it under control when we first gave it this new fodder; instead we spurred it to bolt. Now we have transformed our planet into one big egosystem.
But why did we spur our energy horses to this point? The fact that energy is so easy to use does not explain the extent to which it now rules our lives in the Northern hemisphere. I have an explanation that may seem surprising. It has to do with the elevated testosterone levels of our leaders. I'm sure you'll agree this requires some clarification!
Whether they be blacksmiths, governors, emperors, presidents, kings or princes, men have always sought power over others. Dominance is an instinct, part of our genetic makeup that is necessary for survival. Among human beings, as among chimpanzees, those who express power the most forcefully are more likely to become the leaders of their groups. And once a leader dominates, his desire for power grows: power requires force, and force looks for power. The relationship is circular. It can even spiral upward: the more force, the more power; the more power, the more force. It is likely that Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte all had extraordinary levels of testosterone.
Man may be genetically programmed to seek empire.
An empire does not have to have geographical boundaries, like the Persian Empire in 550-330 BC. It can be economic, like the Venetian Empire, 1200-1670, or, more recently, the maritime empire of Aristotle Onassis. It can be industrial, like the empire of John D Rockefeller. But all of these empire-builders had one thing in common: in order to dominate th had to monopolize the wellspring of their power.
When fossil fuel revealed its highly concentrated force, it quickly captured the attention of the barons of industry. Today, it is what runs their companies. In fact, it runs all of society! Fossil fuel is the most extraordinary source of power the world has ever known. It is positively magical. Directly or indirectly, the world's wealthy owe all their billions to it. Ergamines hold the key to controlling the world. They have operated in the shadows for two centuries now, bringing many rulers to power. But since 2001, their relationship to power is out in the open, as far as the United States is concerned.
For decades, wealthy and politically influential Americans have been turning to their presidents for help in the battle to gain control over as much of the world's energy resources as possible - so they can become even more powerful. I'll say it again: it is circular. In Europe, as in the United States, oil is called black gold. But I wonder whether Europeans understand exactly why. In the Old World, subterranean resources almost always belong to the State. Underground riches - including coal, petroleum and natural gas - go into government coffers. But the State does not get rich per se, for there are always enough projects to absorb any new influx of cash. And although its citizens' personal bank accounts do not grow as a result, they usually reap the benefits of government wealth.
But in the United States things are different. This country was built by colonists fleeing bad situations or seeking a better life. But it was also built by pioneering opportunists looking for a way to make money - perhaps by striking gold, if they were lucky. From the beginning, these immigrants took it on principle that anything they found belonged to whoever took the risks associated with developing it. As the territory was colonized further west, this attitude was even strongly encouraged. Oil, like gold before it, belonged to the one who found it.
The gold diggers who descended on California and Nevada in the 1850s would let nothing stop them. They were not interested in building society; sharing their wealth did not occur to them, and no law obliged them to do so. The many who died with their boots on in miner's camps at the hands of those determined to beat them to the treasure attests to the prevailing ethic. In the quest for black gold, drillers in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas did not view society any differently than their yellow gold-seeking counterparts. They, too, wore revolvers in their belts. And though the early pioneers are all gone now, gold, whether black or yellow, still belongs to whoever is able to make off with it.
Under pressure from Big Business, the American government is ready to remove any obstacle that stands in the way of its oil companies and related enterprises - which include most of major industry. Members of the administration advance various principles and philosophies to disguise their true motivations, for governments are never at a loss for rhetoric, but their actions speak louder than words.
With the indispensable assistance of ergamines, the United States has built an empire. It is even the most powerful empire - and the most demanding - in the history of the world. But to retain this power, it needs constant influxes of the empire's elixir. Revolvers are not enough anymore; today's oil addicts use guided missiles launched from fighter jets.
We know how the Roman Empire was built, but we understand less about the origins of the more recent Western Empire. It might be of interest to learn how it came to assume its current form, with the United States at the center, orbited by the more or less loyal satellites of Western Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia and a few others.
Note
{a} With his "pressure cooker", Denis Papin produced steam under pressure, which he hoped eventually to use in a one-piston motor.
Bill Totten http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/
translated from the French by Pamela Gilbert-Snyder
Part II. Age of Excess
Chapter 17. The Empire Elixir
We have spurred our energy horses to bolt and they are running wild. But the first machines devised by scientists did not drive them quite so hard. After creating his pressure cooker {a}, Denis Papin began working on a steam engine. He described its basic principles in detail in 1687, but never got it out of the laboratory. Newcomen, the "Blacksmith of Dartmouth", however, built one with a practical use. In 1712, he installed his "fire pump" in a Staffordshire mine to remove the water that was hindering the extraction of precious coal. Among the scientists of their day, Papin, Newcomen and a few others served as trailblazers for industry. Their new "steam-horses", made of metal and fed with coal, caught the public's eye and gave a glimmer of the great labor-saving devices yet to come. But the "horses" were not spurred to a gallop yet. Society still kept its sobriety. Nearly a century would pass before Man guided his steam-horses onto the path that we are on now.
In 1797, Robert Fulton, an American inventor living in Paris, presented the French Directorate, which governed France from 1795 to 1799, with a propeller-driven submarine called the Nautilus. This craft was a great leap forward for stealth navigation, but it still had no engine! It was operated by three men submerged in its chamber: one of them pedaled to move the vessel forward, another worked a hand pump to keep it under water, and a third stood ready to hand-drill a hole in the enemy craft's hull - providing it managed to get under it. Fulton's little marvel, run by manpower alone, did not tempt the royal navies of Paris or London, both of which turned the brilliant inventor down. Perhaps it was too much to expect the captains of great sailing vessels to do the work of submariners, with the added humiliation of traveling incognito. Fulton was undeterred, however, and in 1803 he tested a steamboat with side paddlewheels on the Seine and ushered in the era of steam-powered navigation. In 1807, he took his famous steamboat, the Clermont, up the Hudson River from New York to Albany, inaugurating the first maritime line with regular passenger service. Energy had entered modern life.
In Papin's time, there was very little liquid petroleum. Most ergamines were in the form of coal used for heating, and Man took all the credit for the work that was performed - although he was assisted as often as possible by draft animals. Denis Papin made steam; his research was lauded by physicists. But no one thought about the fact that he could not have done it without coal. Human progress was considered "manmade". For most people, coal was just that dirty stuff they used to keep warm. Its energy-generating capacities went unrecognized, even when it was being used by Thomas Newcomen to remove water from mines and by Robert Fulton to glide New Yorkers up the Hudson as smoothly as if they were being pulled by teams of dolphins.
But it is not surprising that energy was not seen as the driver of progress, for we still do not see it that way today. We admire a well-crafted machine and praise its amazing performances, and we sometimes even laud the efforts of inventors; but we pay no attention to the forces behind them making it all go. We fill up on gas without realizing we are feeding our vehicles some extraordinary fodder. Even though it is often the source of fabulous wealth, we are no more aware of the energy that fuels our egosystems than we are of the oxygen we breathe. For most of us, it simply does not exist.
And yet, our egosystems have invaded every aspect of our lives, and as beautiful as the metaphor of the dolphins may be, it is nowhere near reality. When progress is driven by energy, it becomes a runaway horse. We should have kept it under control when we first gave it this new fodder; instead we spurred it to bolt. Now we have transformed our planet into one big egosystem.
But why did we spur our energy horses to this point? The fact that energy is so easy to use does not explain the extent to which it now rules our lives in the Northern hemisphere. I have an explanation that may seem surprising. It has to do with the elevated testosterone levels of our leaders. I'm sure you'll agree this requires some clarification!
Whether they be blacksmiths, governors, emperors, presidents, kings or princes, men have always sought power over others. Dominance is an instinct, part of our genetic makeup that is necessary for survival. Among human beings, as among chimpanzees, those who express power the most forcefully are more likely to become the leaders of their groups. And once a leader dominates, his desire for power grows: power requires force, and force looks for power. The relationship is circular. It can even spiral upward: the more force, the more power; the more power, the more force. It is likely that Cyrus the Great, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte all had extraordinary levels of testosterone.
Man may be genetically programmed to seek empire.
An empire does not have to have geographical boundaries, like the Persian Empire in 550-330 BC. It can be economic, like the Venetian Empire, 1200-1670, or, more recently, the maritime empire of Aristotle Onassis. It can be industrial, like the empire of John D Rockefeller. But all of these empire-builders had one thing in common: in order to dominate th had to monopolize the wellspring of their power.
When fossil fuel revealed its highly concentrated force, it quickly captured the attention of the barons of industry. Today, it is what runs their companies. In fact, it runs all of society! Fossil fuel is the most extraordinary source of power the world has ever known. It is positively magical. Directly or indirectly, the world's wealthy owe all their billions to it. Ergamines hold the key to controlling the world. They have operated in the shadows for two centuries now, bringing many rulers to power. But since 2001, their relationship to power is out in the open, as far as the United States is concerned.
For decades, wealthy and politically influential Americans have been turning to their presidents for help in the battle to gain control over as much of the world's energy resources as possible - so they can become even more powerful. I'll say it again: it is circular. In Europe, as in the United States, oil is called black gold. But I wonder whether Europeans understand exactly why. In the Old World, subterranean resources almost always belong to the State. Underground riches - including coal, petroleum and natural gas - go into government coffers. But the State does not get rich per se, for there are always enough projects to absorb any new influx of cash. And although its citizens' personal bank accounts do not grow as a result, they usually reap the benefits of government wealth.
But in the United States things are different. This country was built by colonists fleeing bad situations or seeking a better life. But it was also built by pioneering opportunists looking for a way to make money - perhaps by striking gold, if they were lucky. From the beginning, these immigrants took it on principle that anything they found belonged to whoever took the risks associated with developing it. As the territory was colonized further west, this attitude was even strongly encouraged. Oil, like gold before it, belonged to the one who found it.
The gold diggers who descended on California and Nevada in the 1850s would let nothing stop them. They were not interested in building society; sharing their wealth did not occur to them, and no law obliged them to do so. The many who died with their boots on in miner's camps at the hands of those determined to beat them to the treasure attests to the prevailing ethic. In the quest for black gold, drillers in Pennsylvania, Louisiana and Texas did not view society any differently than their yellow gold-seeking counterparts. They, too, wore revolvers in their belts. And though the early pioneers are all gone now, gold, whether black or yellow, still belongs to whoever is able to make off with it.
Under pressure from Big Business, the American government is ready to remove any obstacle that stands in the way of its oil companies and related enterprises - which include most of major industry. Members of the administration advance various principles and philosophies to disguise their true motivations, for governments are never at a loss for rhetoric, but their actions speak louder than words.
With the indispensable assistance of ergamines, the United States has built an empire. It is even the most powerful empire - and the most demanding - in the history of the world. But to retain this power, it needs constant influxes of the empire's elixir. Revolvers are not enough anymore; today's oil addicts use guided missiles launched from fighter jets.
We know how the Roman Empire was built, but we understand less about the origins of the more recent Western Empire. It might be of interest to learn how it came to assume its current form, with the United States at the center, orbited by the more or less loyal satellites of Western Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia and a few others.
Note
{a} With his "pressure cooker", Denis Papin produced steam under pressure, which he hoped eventually to use in a one-piston motor.
Bill Totten http://www.ashisuto.co.jp/english/
posted by Bill Totten at
10:54 PM
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