I found a transcript of the GEAS Power Struggle communique. Here it is:
Superthreat Number 3: Power Struggle
Welcome to the Global Extinction Awareness System.
You are watching Superthreat Number 3: Power Struggle.
In 2019 we’re all caught up in the “alternative fuel wars” as the world fights over what will take the place of oil.
Hardest hit: Oil-exporting nations, coal plants, autoworkers, consumers everywhere
GEAS Volunteers report from the frontlines of the Power Struggle superthreat.
GEAS volunteer CooperB is commemorating the third anniversary of the defeat of the Madrid Renewable Energy Accord, which would have set international standards for alternative energy technologies. It was three years ago today that the leading BioPEC nations of China, Russia, and Brazil faced off against the wind and solar powers in the U.S. and the EU to throw the world into an energy stalemate. CooperB writes: “We could have chosen to work together. Instead, we’ve got competing industries building technologies, products and infrastructures that just don’t work together. And today we’re paying the price.”
How can our competing industries and nations work together to break the grip of energy chaos?
GEAS Volunteer Carla Acosta updates us on the looting in Caracas. Several thousand youth have been wreaking havoc in the streets of the Venezuelan capital all week, after they were turned out of the government’s oil-revenue-funded “safe harbor” schools. The school closings represent an abrupt discontinuation of a major social experiment in poverty alleviation. Meanwhile, child poverty continues to climb in the disrupted oil economies of Ecuador, Nigeria, and Iran. Carla says: “We know we can’t count on oil wealth to feed our poor and fund our schools anymore. So what’s next for the children in countries like ours?”
How can we create safe harbor for children around the world without depending on oil revenues?
GEAS volunteer JSchiffer reports from Lusaka: This month, the millionth ethanol automobile will roll off the Zambian assembly line. Meanwhile, China, which invested in the Zambian plants, has just rejected Daimler-Tesla’s bid to build agile manufacturing plants for electric vehicles across China. The joint plan could have reduced automobile fuel emissions worldwide by 10% over the next 10 years, but would have weakened the ethanol industry and China’s interests in Africa. JSchiffer says: “The Zambians chose short-term gain at the expense of more global waste. Shouldn’t they—and the Chinese—have to do something to offset those emissions?”
How can we act together to hold nations accountable for their waste?
GEAS volunteer britneychu reports from the outskirts of Bozeman, Montana, where three people died in this morning’s violence at a makeshift camp for migrant wind farm workers. These migrants, many from the southern states of Alabama, Mississippi, Lousiana, and Texas, sought their fortunes in a region known as the Saudi Arabia of Wind Power. But angry locals say that the green windpower jobs belong to them. Britneychu blogs: “From where we stand, the energy economy isn’t keeping its promise. We need more green jobs, and we need them now.”
How can we create a stronger green energy economy and reduce unemployment from our fading carbon energy industries?
GEAS volunteer Linjr reports from Singapore that the docks at Pasir Panjang are eerily quiet today. Shipping giant Han Sook Logistics unexpectedly shut down its engines just hours ago, another victim of WalMart’s price war with local fabbing services. As a result, billions of dollars’ worth of oil—as well as electronic energy monitors, hydrogen fuel cells, solar panels, and other high-tech energy products—stand effectively embargoed on Singapore’s docks. Linjr writes: “This is a country where the entire economy depends on shipping. Workers of every stripe will now struggle to put food on their tables.”
How can workers worldwide protect themselves against the cascading collapse of industry giants?
