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64 comments on Sudan, Chad, Oil and Genocide

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totoneila on April 17, 2006 - 3:42am Permalink | Subthread | Comments top
Excellent post, Dave!

I have posted articles on Zimbabwe and other African countries for about 3 years on the Yahoo forums.  Glad to see it officially started here on TOD.  I believe Africa can be the first continental-sized 'canary' we can watch to see how things will go elsewhere as we hurtle postPeak.

Consider if all the money spent on African weaponry was instead wisely spent on building a sustainable biosolar lifestyle and voluntary population control through education.  Picture Africa with all kinds of solar panels and windmills spinning across the Serengeti Plains or massive permiculture efforts in the Nile Valley and elsewhere.  Huge animal parks where the now severely threatened species would not be poached or forced into ever smaller spaces.

My feeling is that Richard Duncan's Olduvai Theory will be first confirmed in Africa, possibly in Tanzania itself-- home to the real Olduvai Gorge.

Corruption by detritus, and overpopulation by ignorance are really going to hammer Africa.  Global Warming is predicted to amplify this hammer into a piledriver.  Sad.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Big Gav on April 17, 2006 - 9:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
What makes you think the average Tanzanian will even notice peak oil ?

Unless Tanzania is a large net food importer (something I doubt they can afford) I suspect they may remain quite unscathed - the country is pretty much unindustralised as far as I can remember - most of the roads are barely passable by your average vehicle - and the locals by and large get by on a subsistance agriculture economy - kind of a twisted version of a relocalisationist's vision of the future (but with a lot of malnutrition and disease).

As an aside, I've got to say that I like Tanzanians - the country seems to have a hierarchy based on height - on entering the country I found myself at the back of a queue of maybe 500 people waiting for processing by the immigration officials. I immediately found myself hauled up to the counter (wondering frantically what offence I'd caused), had my passport stamped rapidly and was sent on my way - the most emphatic queue jumping I've ever performed.

That sort of thing happened repeatedly - even out in the middle of nowhere tribal chiefs would make a beeline for me to shake my hand and congratulate on my noble bearing (in their limited vocabulary).

Great country - though its a shame the snow is disappearing from Kilimanjaro (if it isn't gone entirely already)...

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Leanan on April 17, 2006 - 10:27am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
They might notice more than you think.

Fuel prices go up in Tanzania

DAR ES SALAAM, April 16 -- Prices at filling stations in Dar es Salaam have gone up over the weekend, after the price of crude hit 67 U.S. dollars a barrel on the international market.

    Unleaded petrol is now selling at 1,260 Tanzanian shillings (1.024 dollars) per liter while diesel is selling at 1,256 shillings (1.021 dollars) per liter.

...Local analysts attributed the fuel price hike to threats posed by Iran's nuclear standoff with the United States and the violence in the African oil-producing country of Nigeria.

    They also predicted that the country's inflation was set to rise further in that fuel prices would affect the transportation and distribution of food in the country and fuel prices themselves,just like the food prices, also weigh heavily on the inflation scale.

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Big Gav on April 18, 2006 - 5:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Thanks for the link - as with elsewhere in the really poor parts of the world, the urbanised part of the Tanzanian population is no doubt getting severely squeezed by rising fuel prices.

The Tanzania I'm thinking of largely consists of people who don't consume oil at all though - no fertiliser, no pesticides, no transport - maybe some cooking oil if they are a bit luckier than most - it really is one of the poorest places on the planet.

If these people are dependent on food aid to get by (and I'm not sure they are) then maybe that segment of the population (and its a large one) may notice peak oil - but I think the only thing they'll notice is fewer vehicles driving through the areas they live in.

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totoneila on April 17, 2006 - 4:57pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Hello Big Gav,

Thxs for responding.  Never been to Africa, just googling whatever info I can.  Everybody will be affected by Peakoil to some degree.  True, many Africans use none to very little detritus, but eventually they won't even be able to afford metal for hoes, shovels, or machetes.  The inevitable decline of complexity will reach every societal level.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

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Big Gav on April 18, 2006 - 5:50am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
"True, many Africans use none to very little detritus, but eventually they won't even be able to afford metal for hoes, shovels, or machetes. "

Some of the people I'm thinking of are already at that level.

At the risk of boring everyone with my anecdotes this reminds me of a rafting trip I did down the Zambezi once. The river guides took along a small packet of fish hooks with them, which I vaguely assumed they intended to fish with.

It turns out they were actually for a trading - as you got out into the Zambian boondocks the locals never saw anything metallic - and a fishhook was considered a valuable item - so they'd trade quite a lot of their agricultural produce for a single hook (presumably they also traded for fishing line), which made some of the rafters very happy.

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64 comments on Sudan, Chad, Oil and Genocide

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