WORLD ANALISIS, Politics, Religion, Economics, Industry, Telecom, Pakistan, Global Terrorism, movies, Music, Debate, Discussion and Detailed Study

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While the world fights war on terror and struggles against the economic exigency, it scuffles further into the ensuing haze of gloomy clouds, clouds of portending storm’ the storm of inexorable energy crisis. We as a race are heralding towards a future that is deficient in means to quench our insatiable needs, we lie at the very doors of an era where major shifts are in the making’ tectonic leagues of sufficient versus the energy deficient nations are in the casting, tremors are about to jolt the conventional power centers while shifting the ballast of influence and dominion away from the traditional West. What would be the consequences of such a colossal shift? Is the world ready to embrace the czar of the likes of Viladamir, accept the models of Hugos, bow before the coffers of Sauds and live with the nuclear tipped Najaads? With resources becoming vital, scarce and expensive’ would energy be the next weapon of mass influence, the tool for global hegemony and a win chip for blank concessions?

We already have stepped into this precarious era! Demand is stripping supplies and it’s just a matter of time when a sudden stampede would trigger massive avalanche of antagonism and clash. And that matter of time is only strides away when the world would be back on its feet’ when confidence would resurrect, pushing economies to grow’ thus setting off the dormant strains to press the till-now hibernated fault lines to fracture and explode. Towing the bottom-line and realizing a simple fact; our planet with all its resources cannot brace even a fourth of human population at par with the American Dream, thus the very presumption of today’s developing giants striding towards the realization of such a delusion is not just fallacious but also destructive. Living and consuming at such pace would render this planet a premature death’ thus ramming its inhabitants on to the path of suicidal whirl!

With the race already on for sealing’ if not stealing world’s vitality chowks, significant repositioning of alliance and allegiances are in the making. With the energy hungry dragon awake’ ready to devour what ever it takes to quench its thirst, those already having stakes stands hassled and perturbed and while they are entangled into getting themselves unravel from the financial calamity’ the red beast sails across continents on acquisition splurge. Standing tall on reserves worth trillions with wings spread wide’ a single month of o-9 saw her sealing resources from swathes of Zuela to the seas of PetroBras, from Horn of Africa to the Nefts of Siberia, from mines of Alum to the corps of Australia. Thus the resurgent Dynasty is ready to roar and roar loud’ enough to scare off the fatigued and fragile. Does this lead world to a path of collision? Could this be the beginning of an age of confrontation and desolation?

While betting upon one thing; neither the West with all its power concentration nor the ascending East with growing dynamism and weight’ are ready to give up on their existing or realizing paradigms. Thus in an ideal world based upon the foundations of mutual respect, space and honor for each others prosperousness’ we see both working together’ efficiently harnessing the unexplored while sagaciously distributing the existing ones. This not only would avert a prodigious clash but save the rest from crowding-out shiver!

But unfortunately’ our world as it stands today has transformed tremendously; getting complex, confused, entangled and yet more wary! We as nation states have metamorphed to become more skeptical and dubious then betting on trust and truthfulness. We have integrated under the umbrella of WTO yet have ceased to exist under the aegis of the existence of commons. And as the world comes out of the Great Seizure’ and exerts to gain control of world supplies under the marathon to redeem the lost glory, the realm of attrition would undoubtedly swell and bleed. And thus would dawn the age of an era of the ‘clash for resources’ and the ’struggle for survival’

Muhammad Shafqat

April 2009

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Walking through the most precarious times, with Present’ that is gloomier and Future more murky. We are already soaked into the torrents of meltdowns and ruination while augur the clouds of dearth and wrangle. Courses and resources, population and pollution, ideologies and religion, affluent and deficient’ all steaming up to become a perilous fusion’ getting ready to explode’ all at once. We can see the portending clouds heading right in our direction while we stand, forecast and yet prepare for nothing except’ to wrangle our acquittal through the quagmire of economic liquefaction. Thus we stand to embrace yet another era of struggle and scuffle spreading over an age confined only by perpetual imagination…

Every ensuing issue incarcerates a dilemma for human race’ while holding potential for a major spill over and disaster. Population explosion would ultimately dilate the sparking gap between have and have nots, while ensuing the potential for conflicts’ be ethnic or ideological. More the us’ genesis more the need and greed, requiring more land, resources, energy and capacity’ thus paving way for extra consumption, wastage, pollution and deterioration. Already’ we are into heated debates about reservoirs and rivers, age of peak oil, struggle for minerals and land grabs for dwellers. Mother earth for the first time in her billion year existence is perceiving ineffectuality in meeting demands of her inhabitants, who are becoming more of parasite then symbiotic. Can we survive this ruthless journey? We can’t cope with insufficient; can we cope with the absolute Nothing?

Opening Pandora with the imminent energy calamity…

Just like the lending spree that lead to mortgage fiasco and hence an economic turmoil, $40 per barrel also ticks as a stemming time bomb that when explode’ would shiver the substratum of freshly healed global economy! Fall of the Green Back lead the gates for massive investment to flow into the commodity souk, letting oil to stroke unimaginable ceilings, though it has fallen to new depths since but that tumultuous period broke the already fractured global economy’ hit hard by the ruptured mortgage bubble. The spike in oil prices lead those countries who other wise could have survived the global economic seizure’ to bankruptcies because of the massive imbalance of payments. The soaring prices acted as a stumbling breaker that flattened the momentum of an already ruptured engine that had lost its steam by the mortgage detonation. No doubt’ the sudden spike acted as a catalyst in intoxicating the whole system but on the other hand it boosted leverage of energy industry that suddenly saw massive capital flow for advancing exploration and development of under and undeveloped fields. In this close system of ours’ dilemma for one is a boon for other, and so is the other way round!

As we stand today on $50 ground’ the situation is equally perplexing, artificial and unsustainable as the previous one. Firstly’ damage the spike had done was acute enough to knock off the consuming impetus out of the system, strengthen by the collapse of financial order, thus no matter how thin the price gets’ its not going to comfort the pain of credit squeeze. Secondly’ every single day where the price stays, makes our future ache! Each dollar below the 70 threshold strains our future energy exploratory endeavor, thus defying present while dashing our future. Its been more then a decade that global oil consumption outstripped supplies, we consume more then discover, even if we discover’ the uncover barrel costs more to explore, gouge, process and dispatch then ever before. Three decades have passed since a field been explored to produce million barrel a day…But the real showdown would begin the moment global economy would bounce back, when demand would severely outstrip all previous supplies and capacity incapable to meet the desired urgency.

Muhammad Shafqat

Mar 2009