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This content was posted on  1 Apr 22  by   Metamoderna  on  Facebook Page
THE WAR STANDS BETWEEN PETROSTATE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY Russia is …

THE WAR STANDS BETWEEN PETROSTATE MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXES AND RENEWABLE ENERGY

Russia is the only major country that would actually benefit from climate change in the long term. Or, rather, the same may be true of Canada.

A warmer planet is one where the temperate zone on the northern hemisphere would climb further northwards, which would unlock untold areas of agriculturally viable lands within Russia, while making other countries more dependent on its exports. Considering that Russia has fewer large coastal cities, and that it is also too far away from the North Atlantic Gulf stream to feel the effects were it to stop (as one theory on climate change predicts), its position in the world would likely be strengthened by further climate change.

Given that Russia is more or less currently a petrostate, and that there is a close connection between the fossil-fuel incomes and the military and a limited number of oligarchs, we can see that Russia is passionately unmotivated to seeing a transformation into a decentralized and renewable energy system around the globe.

If Russia loses some of its initiative on the fossil-fuel market, and other countries become less dependent on its exports, the current centralized power structure (a patrol-state military-industrial complex) would risk falling apart.

Thus, I don’t feel that it’s too far a stretch to claim that the current conflict is, more than incidentally, a struggle between the maintenance of petrol-state interests and energy transformation.

Interestingly, centralized power jives well with centralized political power, just as decentralized power grids open pathways for greater dispersion of decision-making. A post-petrol world is a freer world, which is worth striving towards, even if the end is not yet in sight.

[For 9 other insights into the Ukraine-Russia war, click the link to my article on Medium in the comments field]

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