LIMA, Peru — With the entire western Amazon experiencing oil and mining booms, indigenous groups in the Amazon Basin and the Andes — already fighting encroachment by loggers and small-scale farmers, or else struggling to obtain title for their ancestral land — have now stepped up their resistance to efforts to exploit oil reserves, mineral deposits and other natural resources in and nearby their communities. In response, the region’s presidents have accused native leaders and environmentalists who help them of everything from terrorism to being U.S. lackeys. The trends cut across ideological divides. Peruvian President Alan Garcia has taken a [...]
Will the Deepwater Horizon disaster, already 2010’s best candidate for the most significant “black swan” event, have a similar, long-lasting geopolitical impact as the Three Mile Island accident 30 years ago? If that mishap had not occurred, it’s very likely that the United States would have a vastly different, and superior, position vis-à-vis energy independence today. The U.S. could have moved down a similar path to that of France, which generates most of its electricity — some 78 percent — from nuclear power plants. Some of the side benefits the French enjoy as a result include much cleaner skies, since [...]
For the first time since American and Soviet missiles silently faced off across the vast, icy expanse of their northernmost Arctic territories during the Cold War, the Arctic is again becoming a strategic concern. As global climate change forces both permanent and seasonal sea ice to recede, the world is gaining what amounts to a brand new ocean — one that has never been fished, rarely navigated, and has waters that are thought to be rich with natural resources. In 2009, the United States Geological Survey estimated that the Arctic contains over 90 billion barrels of oil, 1,669 trillion cubic [...]
