In Michael Klare’s latest book, The Race for What’s Left, he discusses the intense investment and competition to find and exploit the world’s diminishing supply of oil, gas, minerals, rare earth metals and elements. Just as the international appetite for fuel and materials needed for technological development is bounding ahead, the easily recoverable supplies are rapidly being exhausted.
It is estimated that 13 percent of the undiscovered oil and 30 percent of the gas left on earth is above the Arctic Circle. Five countries have claims to the sea and land of this area: Russia, Canada, the U.S., Norway, Denmark, and Greenland (which is dependent on Denmark).
Because this territory was formerly not thought to be very valuable, precise international boundaries were never drawn. In fact, when the Russians planted their flag beneath the North Pole in 2007, it was less an act of national pride than an attempt to claim that the continental shelf extending north from Russia belongs to them. All the major oil companies-Shell, BP, Exon, Conoco Phillips, Imperial oil of Canada and Russian state companies are investing billions to explore for oil in this region.
Military capabilities are being increased by all the involved countries as conflicts over boundaries intensify. The hurdles, in terms of cold, violent storms, and icebergs, are huge. The extreme conditions also will make it impossible to rush rescue or leak-stopping equipment to the site of a spill. Ironically, global warming will extend the drilling period by two months each year and make arctic development easier.
Other new sources of gas and oil are in very deep offshore waters, where drilling techniques have not yet proved feasible or safe. One hundred billion barrels of oil are thought to lie under 1.5 miles (2.41 km) of water and 2.5 miles (4.02 km) of salt off the coast of Brazil. Other very deep oil beds exist off the Atlantic coast of northern Canada, far into the Gulf of Mexico, off the coasts of Venezuela, western Africa and in the South China Sea. The latter is disputed by China, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam and is a growing source of conflict.
Lastly, oil is being sought in “unconventional” sites, buried in tar sands, shale, or in an “extra heavy” state. Canadian tar sands are estimated to contain 170 trillion barrels of oil, but it is thick and frozen. Its recovery requires open pit mining, which not only destroys the land but contaminates downstream water. It can also be recovered by injecting large amounts of steam, but this uses huge amounts of water and is powered by natural gas, thus causing a great release of greenhouse carbon dioxide. The percentage of unconventional oil is predicted to rise from 3 percent in 2009 to 9 percent in 2035.
Most of the world’s mines for such important substances as copper, tin, titanium, and bauxite date from World War II and are on the decline. New reserves are in the arctic and in potentially rebellious areas of Africa and Asia. Afghanistan may contain some of the biggest mineral resources in the world. The biggest uranium deposits are in Niger. Russia and China are fighting over large deposits in Mongolia. Both governments of developed countries and mining corporations are angling to control new mines in these unstable areas.
Seventeen rare earth elements, such as lithium, are necessary for new “green” technologies like electric car batteries, because they are light, magnetic, and strong. Ironically, obtaining them is becoming more difficult and energy intensive. In fact, China had been allowed to almost monopolize production because they did not care about environmental contamination or worker protection, but the West is now hesitant to allow China’s dominance to continue. Utah and Australia will probably become the sites of new mines, at huge monetary and environmental cost.
In addition to trying to guarantee their access to oil and minerals, the wealthy nations are also exploiting the poor to guarantee themselves food. Saudi Arabia has acquired 750,000 acres in Ethiopia; the United Arab Emirates (UAE) controls 700,000 acres of farmland in Sudan. India and China are buying up huge chunks of land in various African countries. Not only is arable land being sought to feed the populations of these wealthy nations, but it is being promoted as a good investment for rich individuals and corporations. About two thirds of all the land being purchased for food is in sub-Saharan Africa. A 2010 World Bank report concluded that most of these projects leave the local population worse off than before.
Finally, Klare discusses the consequences of this competition for resources. Among the oil and mining companies, only the largest will survive as the costs of exploration and exploitation mount. Government-controlled operations will become ever more important, especially in Russia and China. Military means will be used to protect and secure resources, as with the presence of U.S. troops in Nigeria, the Persian Gulf, and Southeast Asia; Chinese forces in Sudan and Zimbabwe; and Russian troops in central Asia.
Although Klare understands that competition for resources has caused wars for centuries and that we are headed for even bigger conflicts, he holds out hope that humanity can avoid catastrophe by competing to adapt to shortages rather than control the shrinking pie. He hopes that the realization of the depletion of non-renewable resources will spur a focus on new technologies and efficiency by governments and private enterprises.
What we as Marxist analyzers of history know, however, is that capitalist competition demands that profits drive investment and war. As do most liberal societal critics, Klare hopes that common sense and decency will change the economic laws that propel the actions of the capitalist ruling class. He must hope this because he cannot conceive of a mass movement of workers building a better world. He hopes that the magnitude of the resource problem will force the ruling class to dispense with the laws of capitalist competition and exploitation.
Although some puny efforts may be made to develop green technology, no capitalist country can forego its immediate need to produce and sell more than its rivals and control its sources of raw materials and markets. Moreover, the capitalist class is willing to sacrifice the lives of millions of workers, including citizen workers, in order to maintain economic and military superiority.
Only an international communist society — an egalitarian society based on maximizing workers’ quality of life, would enable the long-term planning for adaptation to shrinking resources and the development of new modes of production. To create that communist society we must build a mass international movement to destroy the capitalist rulers who, if allowed to survive, will lead us all to a debacle of death and destruction. Be part of that movement by joining and building the Progressive Labor Party around the world.