AlterNet: Africa: The Next Victim in Our Quest for Cheap Oil

Africa: The Next Victim in Our Quest for Cheap Oil

By Scott Thill, AlterNet. Posted July 14, 2008.

The new book Curse of the Black Gold shows how Nigeria may be the epicenter of the full-blown resource wars to come.



Whether or not we have fully arrived at peak oil can be left to the nitpickers and bean counters to decide. What we know for sure is that the cost of black gold has exponentially risen in just a few short years, and the global economy it is built upon is currently straddling a razor waiting for the inevitable slice. That final cut may come from Nigeria, where all the major oil companies have done business, dirty and otherwise, for the last five decades, degrading the environment and depressing the general population along the way.

That disturbing feedback loop is the subject of the new book Curse of the Black Gold: 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta, which juxtaposes the arresting graphics of award-winning photojournalist Ed Kashi with the geopolitical insights of UC Berkeley professor Michael Watts to present Africa's most populous nation as a possible epicenter for the full-blown resource wars to come. You can watch a short slideshow video of Kashi's photographs on the right-hand side of this page.

They are wars that are already well under way. In mid-June, a Shell facility was attacked by local militants, disrupting production and sending the already sky-high price of oil to further heights before coming back online a week later. Attacks like those have increased in frequency, as Nigerian factions have fought for control of the nation's lucrative petroleum resources, which are the largest in Africa.

The problem, especially as indigenous populations caught between Nigeria's prosperous rich and their oil industry's environmental devastation see it, is that viable land and resources have been wasted on a handful while the majority of the country falls into further disrepair and depression. From natural gas flares and oil spills to the destruction of native plants, animal species and other salable commodities, Nigeria's oil industry has wreaked havoc across the land and its people.

And it's only getting worse. And if you think it doesn't affect America, think again. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/audits/89692/?ses=3b7087cf0077500d30e931ed7348e8a2

having it be about oil only means that this time the West actually cares about it.