Here’s another article that looks at the global and geo-political consequences occuring because of rapidly rising energy prices.

Even if the prices are rising because of profiteering (not a surprising thing as supply lines become brittle) they’re still climbing. The effect is the same as if the cause were unequivocally connected with Peak Oil.

“It’s strange that the business and geopolitics of energy takes up so little space on American front pages — or that we could conduct an oil war in Iraq with hardly a mention of the words ‘oil’ and ‘war’ in the same paragraph in those same papers over the years. Strange indeed. And yet, oil rules our world and energy lies behind so many of the headlines that might seem to be about other matters entirely.

Take the food riots now spreading across the planet because the prices of staples are soaring, while stocks of basics are falling. In the last year, wheat (think flour) has risen by 130 percent, rice by 74 percent, soya by 87 percent, and corn by 31 percent, while there are now only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks left globally. Governments across the planetary map are shuddering. This is a fast growing horror story and, though the cry in the streets of Cairo and Port au Prince might be for bread, this, too, turns out to be a tale largely ruled by energy: Too many acres turned over to corn (and sugar cane) for the creation of biofuels; a historic drought in Australia and other climate-change-induced extremes of weather — a result of the burning of fossil fuels — that have affected crop yields; and many new middle-class consumers, in China and elsewhere, coming on line, with a growing desire for meat, the production of which is heavily petroleum based.”

The article goes on to list 5 key areas that the rising prices will effect – ranging from the rate of new energy infrastructure development to the slow failure of resource poor societies…

Read the rest here.