Energy War (IJsbrand van Veelen, VPRO 2006)

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?

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• energy
• oil
• geopolitics
• russia
• georgia
• war
• fossil
• fuel
• sustainability
• environment
• friedman
• globalisation
• solar
• biofuel
• economy
• saudi
• arabia
• gas
• dependency
• future

[freethinker17]

Thomas freedman is the most pompous person on the planet.

[paulsviplist]

Walk, ride a bike, carpool, and start a world boycot on oil.

The more oil & gas you people use the more you make the price go up.

[aviomaster]

FIRST USA is not a democracy dumb fucks. RUSSIA is angel compared to the USA the Satan.

[unomnacajit111]

there is absolutely NO WAY modern civilization can be maintained indefinitely, unless we find a way to make stuff out of thin air. Sooner or later, we will return to the dark ages, no matter what.

[unomnacajit111]

20 years from now oil will not be needed for energy production. 20 years from Saudi Arabia will produce everything that other countries produce, except food? What will Saudi Arabia give to the world to stay alive?

[unomnacajit111]

"no taxation without representation" works when you actually HAVE a country and are independent, not when you get money from the FED and your country is being un from London...

[unomnacajit111]

@0:55 Democracy??? Shit, not even 1 minute in and it already sounds like a western propaganda movie, or one of those documentaries meant to "enlighten" americans and british and prepare them for some coming war and distruction... Democracy is just a tool of the elite. Meritocracy is the only workable solution to governance

[io007a]

@xxxrrrxxxrrr agree man i'm from romania we fear and hate the russians at the same time nowone will forget them for what they did to our part of the country moldova .

[io007a]

@Matier2064 there will always be oil we didn't get out of stone age because we ran out of stones :)) nowone is going to get all the oil out of the grund actualy the last 30% resources can't even be extracted with today technology ,oil will get more expensive and then the economic sistem crashes so nowone will use oil anymore but not because it isn't there because the economy is gone.

[ENDOFANAGEMUSIC]

What leftist commie bull shit?

[dimvoly]

58:59 Burning the unusable part produces CO2? and burning the usable part doesn't? Because you'll get more CO2 emissions depending on whether the part that you burnt was usable (burnt in engine) or unusable (the waste). The plant soaked up all of that CO2 in the beginning, net effect is zero, even if you burn the whole thing.