Will peak oil spark the third world war?

If there is a major war for oil it won't be the fault of any President, Dictator, or Communist Regime, it'll be all YOUR fault. Well mine too, and every other consumer in the world. Don't forget only half the oil used is for cars and heating the rest goes to manufacturing all those wonderful plastic throw away items we all love so much. No, if there are wars, it won't be governments to blame, you'll all demand that they do something when all of a sudden a bottle of Coke costs $6 bucks because oil is at $150 a barrel.

I think people are missing a big part of the Peak Oil discussion, and that's the manufacturing aspect. Just take a quick glance around the room you're in and see how many items have petroleum in them, every piece of plastic does. All of your CD-Roms do, and your DVD's too, don't forget their cases, and oh yeah, your keyboard too.

Not many of us would say "Let's go to war for oil!" if gas tripled in price, but wait till all those single use syringes at the hospital triple in price or your Nike's go through the roof because of all the petroleum used to make 'em.

We have got to look at Peak Oil as a whole picture not just whether or not we can afford S.U.V.'s. There's sooo much more to it than the "price at the pump". Even if we stopped driving cars alltogether right this very moment then we'd still only cut the oil useage down by less than half. People look at China's astronomical growth in their oil consumption and think it's because of all the new cars their drivin' but it's more than that for sure. The Chinese and Indian middle classes are growing very fast and there buying all those wonderfull gadgets that eat up oil in their manfacture.

If we want to avoid wars for oil then we're gonna need to do alot more than start driving hybrid cars. But regardless, at some point we're all gonna demand that oil be secured for us in order to preserve our way of life. We don't wanna go back to the 1700's.

No, you won't hear people scream "Let's go to war for oil" but you'll demand lower healthcare costs and want to keep inflation down, try to keep us competitive globally, and all of those arguments. Meanwhile all the world leaders know you have to keep cheap oil to achieve those things, so you'll be asking them to fight for oil, without even knowing it.

At anyrate.....YUP war=bad oil=bad Were gonna have a bad war for bad oil.

By starting a war for oil we arent prolonging the demise of oil, we are bringing it about quicker. Tanks, boats, planes, jeeps, helis, trucks, etc all need oil, and since oil supply is decreasing, by having all these vehicles that use tons of oil is just going to cause more problems. This doesnt mean that Bush or our government is smart enough to use this advice and focus on alternative energies more but yea. Its going to be like World War I all over again.

Hasnt been a world war in a while, a lot of problems will lead up to it, one small event will spark the entire conflict. The underlying cause will probably be oil, but id expect a smaller event to spark the war, like an assassination, huge terrorist attack, or something of that order. Can just hope for the best, quick war, with minimal casualties and no huge plagues after the war is over.

Originally posted by alawler
By starting a war for oil we arent prolonging the demise of oil, we are bringing it about quicker. Tanks, boats, planes, jeeps, helis, trucks, etc all need oil, and since oil supply is decreasing, by having all these vehicles that use tons of oil is just going to cause more problems. This doesnt mean that Bush or our government is smart enough to use this advice and focus on alternative energies more but yea. Its going to be like World War I all over again.

Yeah, ain't that ironic. Actually, more like hubris I think.

Hasnt been a world war in a while, a lot of problems will lead up to it, one small event will spark the entire conflict. The underlying cause will probably be oil, but id expect a smaller event to spark the war, like an assassination, huge terrorist attack, or something of that order. Can just hope for the best, quick war, with minimal casualties and no huge plagues after the war is over.

You know, when this thread initially started, I thought it was a bit doomy and gloomy. Gotta say that that stepped it up a notch. I agree tho. History has shown that there tends to be a very specific event that sets wars in motion. Peak oil, in a sense is an event however, just a little less obvious than an assasination or terrorist attack.

I was listening to Coast To Coast last night and the guest Charles R. Smith discussed technological advances in weaponry as of late. He also spoke to his own belief that there would be a coming war betweeen China and the US around 2008 based on a few things.

1) China and the US have been escalating weapons programs in the past ten years in a sort of "silent cold war" that is bound to erupt into a hot war at some time in the near future.

2) China has landgrabbed or purchased important areas (ex: Panama Canal, oil-rich areas of the Indian ocean) and are energy-hungry.

thought it was interesting and thought of this thread.

I am surprised as it seems that only one person has posted that this is already going on. For some reason when people think WW they envision some sort of apocolyptic vision, of the whole planet in a giant confrontaion. War takes many shapes and forms. War does not need to be "total war" to exist. Just to let you know we are already at "peak".
www.hubbertpeak.com...

Of course there are plenty of pertroleum supplys still out there, however we do realize that it is a finite resource, that can only last soo long. Most nations with a signifigant amount of oil have admitted their peak production either 1) Has already hit, or 2) is estimated to within a year. Why else do you think that all the nations of the world that happen to have a signifigant amount of petroleum are all in some sort of conflict(internal, or external)

Besides, the supplies that are "known" would require extremely invasive technology, thereby increasing environmental damage, from an already dangerous interprise.Even still, known resources do not meeet needs when compared with the estimated growth rate of the global population (and demand).
www.odac-info.org...

Anyone who believes that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with oil is simply mistaken. Saddam was intending on converting his oil prices into Euros (as Iran is considering, and probably will do) which could deal a fatal blow to the U.S economy, especially considering that the Euro is worth more. Besides them being the worlds second largest supply of petroleum, we have pledged several billion to increasing their refining capacity. Then once we find a semi legitamite reason to invade Iran we will do the same. This is all a pre-emptive attack by the U.S to ensure control of global resources as outlined years ago in the PNAC, statement of principles.

" we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles."
www.newamericancentury.org...


www.globalpolicy.org...
www.globalresearch.ca...
www.globalresearch.ca...

Without going on forever,and listing more useless facts....to answer the initial question; Yes peak oil could spark WWIII, and as a matter of fact it already has.

Wow, awesome links there. Way Above!

Originally posted by darwinman1
Wow, awesome links there. Way Above!

Thanx!! Glad to be of some help.

The chances are with the progression of time, the factors which exacerbate the likelihood of War will relentlessly increase, not just Peak Oil, but depletion of Minerals, Metals, Phosphorous (used in food production), Uranium, and Fresh Water reserves. Nations may find themselves at loggerheads over resources, populations could breach boarders due to food and water availability. Poverty will increase as costs for resources escalate. Nations could restrict access to their valuable resources leading to conflict. I've tried to present this information in a network diagram (PDF file), which leads to some interesting conclusions :

www.dropbox.com...

Will society change from any of the above highlighted paths? Lets hope so...

I think everything is under control and that the only threat of an all-out third world war would be started by the belief of the inescapable demise of the planet caused by the (still polluting the world) Fukushima disaster. The power players that would start this war would be the tragic pissy type of people who only want to unload their weapons and blow stuff up because they got frowns in their hearts and a hate for life. Oil is certainly not going to be the central excuse for starting the third big one.

Personally I think we could be on the verge of it.I hope not though.
At the moment the big 3 Nuclear powers USA,China and Russia seem to be playing Economic Warfare Games and antagonising each other to the point that a little incident could escalate rapidly.
If we have a global nuclear war obviously none of them will have to worry anymore about who benefits from the oil.
I have just read a couple of articles which although some go way back,they are still pretty good and are worth a look.

The Coming War with Iran: It's About the Oil, Stupid

The Coming Oil Wars

The wars that really are about the oil