Unrest in the Middle East

AS much as I'd like to dive into all the daily news stories about the middle East, I just don't have the time. I'm not quite sure why each country in the middle East is having a domino effect of unrest, and political rallies, to try and form a coup of the governments.

What I do know, is the world seems to be in the upheaval of some sort of major change. Call me crazy, call me bias. John Hoffmeister, former CEO of Shell Oil, recently came and gave a press conference to my journalism class. It was the closest I've come to the executive business world in my young travels, and his words will be kept with me for a long time. I had the opportunity of asking him the first question within the news conference, and with so much political unrest throughout the world at this time, the questions came out relatively easy. It was amazing. My journalism class had the chance to pick this former CEO's brain. The CEO of Shell Oil during the big oil booms of the Bush administration.

I'm not going to type a giant essay regarding my questions, I already have to type a major news story for my journalism class which I'll publish later, but I'll paraphrase what he said.

He basically summed up the resource wars we are setting ourselves up for and he admitted that China is already building up and taking up potential resources of the future. China and India both will be our biggest competition after 2015, when peak oil hits, and we are finally in the struggle to find alternative resources. Mr. Hoffmeister also spoke about the crisis of clean water, enough land to mine resources from, and the diminishing food levels we will soon experience. What he stated was that what we are seeing in the Middle East (unrest, anger at the governments) stems from the same issues. Food availability, water crisis, and oil distribution. All of these major issues have caused unrest, and will continue to spread across the world as the crises get bigger. That is unless we can do something.

America will not develop alternative fuels or solutions until it has to, Mr. Hoffmeister said. To change our path now, would cost big corporations too much money to shift in a different direction, when there is still an ample amount of resources for Americans to crank out. We can still make large profits, despite a looming concern not too far off in the distance. The resource war engagement with China and India will soon unfold, as well as oppositions from world powers. Russia, France, England, Brazil, America, China, Japan, Germany, and all the major market companies will soon experience crashes, or some sort of natural disaster (see Japan) that will cripple economies across the globe. Not to scare anyone, but modern day examples of resource wars have begun, and you will begin to see the inflation of prices sky rocket within the next few years.

Mr. Hoffmeister informed us of a lot of things last Thursday March 24th 2011 in Keene, NH. A lot of things that may seem far fetched and ludicrous, but I believe he is onto something. A man that has met with the more than a few presidents, and has been to Washington more than a few times, must have clues about something. A charismatic man to say the least, Hoffmeister did not dodge the questions, or feed us some bullshit answers. He was honest, and straightforward. The main message he said to us students, was to arm ourselves with knowledge, because times are coming where that's the only thing that's really going to make a damn in this world.

And I gotta say, I believe him. It's tough to say that we as a nation, or we as a world are heading in a positive direction. I don't think the world will end anytime soon, and I'm not a pessimist, and I'm damn glad to live in the best country in the world, but it's time we started to make things better, and we have to start in this country or other countries will leave us in the dust.