Perhaps one good thing will come out of the brutal fighting between Russia and Georgia this past weekend; a renewed push away from oil.   Just when falling oil prices had begun to sap some of the urgency out of the need for a viable alternative to a petroleum based economy, Vladimir Putin’s newly enriched Russian Petrostate came through with yet another compelling reason to let oil go the way of the dinosaur.   The attacks on the tiny Democratic Republic of Georgia have not only highlighted the urgency of leaving the future of our energy needs in the hands of unpredictable, sometimes openly aggressive countries around the world.   They have also, at least temporarily, driven slumping oil prices back up, with Russian bombing campaigns over Georgia just nearly missing the Baku-Tblisi-Erzerum oil pipeline, a conduit for 1% of all world supplies, coming out of Azerbaijan.

Whether the purpose of the Russian invasion and bombing of its tiny neighbor was intended to drive oil prices up again, or even to disrupt the pipeline which provides a viable alternative route for petroleum en route to Europe that bypasses Russia entirely, we can’t say for sure.   What we can say is that we do not need to be playing this stupid game any longer.   The need for US energy independence not only to save our environment but also to improve peace and stability in the world while keeping our money out of the hands of aggressive and despotic regimes has never been clearer.   It is permeating every area of our lives, being an environmental issue, a security issue, and economic issue that must be solved sooner, not later.

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LINKS:

The Times (UK): Analysis: Why the Russia-Georgia conflict matters to the West

CNN Money: Oil jumps on Russia-Georgia conflict

AP: Oil rises on Russia Georgia conflict