VPRO: Energy War

La televisión holandesa VPRO emitió recientemente un documental muy interesante, que nos permite entender la naturaleza de la crisis energética y prever sus efectos.



Resumen (extraido de Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEF0TQxw7go):

Forget the axis of evil, its the axis of oil


The Cold War and the War on Terror were about ideology and globalization. The 21st century will be dominated by the struggle for energy: It will be every man for himself and it's going to get dirty.


In the two-part documentary Energy War, VPRO's Backlight investigates the major developments with regards to energy sources. Featuring NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman.


The film describes the geopolitical consequences of the dependency on fossil fuels. In the struggle for the last sources of fossil fuels, countries all over the world are forced to take new political and moral decisions and have to enter into awkward alliances: rogue regimes must be tolerated and befriended. With a special focus on the gas conflict between Georgia and Russia and the position of Saudi Arabia.
Featuring a.o. Thomas Friedman, author of international bestseller The World is Flat. Friedman sheds his light on the inverse connection between rising oil prices and the establishment of free democracies.
The film then moves on to take a look at the international markets for alternative energy. If oil and gas are scarce and expensive in the future, where will countries turn to keep their economy going and their population warm and happy? Could solar energy or bio fuels become the main energy sources of the post-fossil fuel era? Will governments, multinationals or small producers be the motor of the green race?

¿Quien está mejor preparado para sobrevivir al colapso?

Citando a Jared Diamond en su reciente entrevista para El País:

"[...] si ocurriera algo realmente terrible, si la economía mundial no sólo viviera un gran susto como en 2008, sino que en 15 años colapsa o hay guerra nuclear…, ¿quién estará en mejor situación, haitianos o madrileños? Yo apuesto por los haitianos. Son muy pobres, pero no dependen de nada. En Madrid, si el Primer Mundo colapsa, las soluciones no son fáciles.

La probabilidad de que ocurra ese colapso no es desdeñable. Aunque fuera pequeña, cuesta menos estar preparado que resolverlo a posteriori.
Los madrileños (como paradima de los urbanitas españoles) prefieren mantener su ceguera, confiar en que alguien va a resolver la situación y que tras la crisis las cosas volverán a ser más o menos como antes.