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bigoil455's InsaneJournal:
| Friday, December 26th, 2008 | |
| 3:51 pm | Perilous Prosperity - Ecuador - Texaco ` Ecuador's Minister of Energy and Mines recently proclaimed that this nation of 12 million is on the cusp of a second oil boom. The Government has set its sights on the southern Amazon rainforest - 5 million acres of the most biologically diverse environment in the world - and the estimated 775 million barrels of oil that lie below it Occidental Petroleum recently announced that it was planning to drill 47 wells in the remote Eden-Yuturi area of the Amazon Industry officials have compared the project, which involves the creation of Ecuador's second transnational pipeline, to the country's first railway and have marked its construction as the beginning of a new historical era. These are familiar promises. When oil was discovered in the Ecuadorian Amazon 30 years ago, it was heralded as the country's salvation. The first barrels were paraded through the streets and placed on public altars. Oil was used to treat arthritis and hair loss and national TV news programmes ended with gushing oil towers and the ringing phrase: 'Ecuador: Pais Petrolero!' (Ecuador: Oil Nation!) But three billion barrels and $32 billion later, the country is no better off for its boom. Crippled by debt, wracked by inequality and political corruption, Ecuador is more oil dependent than ever. And the oil companies just keep drilling and pumping. What happened to the dream of oil-fired prosperity? Let's go back to the beginning: Texaco discovered petroleum in the Oriente region of eastern Ecuador in 1967. By 1974 the country had become the second-largest oil exporter in Latin America. Oil became the biggest money-spinner in Ecuador's history, accounting for more than half the country's foreign earnings and approximately half of the national budget. It also attracted billions of dollars in foreign loans. But those figures mask another side of oil. Ecuador's Amazon covers 32 million acres of near pristine rainforest teeming with an incredible diversity of plant and animal life. It is also home to eight distinct indigenous groups with a total population of 200,000. Pre-oil, the Oriente was a neglected frontier, protected by its inaccessibility. Many native communities survived according to centuries-old traditions, living on the rainforest's resources, barely touched by outside influences. All this changed with the discovery of oil. The government had neither the resources nor the experience to develop the petroleum. Instead Texaco was allowed to exploit the region as it saw fit. The giant US company built a network of roads slicing through the rainforest and a pipeline running the length of the country - as well as refineries and hundreds of wells. The government followed by opening up the region to settlement as a way of relieving internal land pressures. Legal title was given to anyone who cleared and farmed the jungle terrain The result: local communities were devastated, forests were hacked down, land and rivers fouled by waste oil and toxic discharges. Traditional indigenous groups like the Cofan, the Secoyas and the Huaorani, once numbering in the tens of thousands, were reduced to a few hundred each. The Tetete people disappeared completely. As a government study admitted in the late 1980s, oil development had placed indigenous groups 'at the edge of extinction as a distinct people'. For two decades Texaco was the dominant player - pumping 90 per cent of Ecuador's oil and creating an environmental catastrophe in the process. An estimated four million gallons of heavy metals a day (including arsenic, benzene and lead) were dumped on to the land and into rivers and streams. Following a week-long fact-finding visit with communities in the Oriente, the lawyer and environmental campaigner Robert Kennedy described what he found: 'Sick and deformed children, adults and children with skin rashes, headaches, dysentery and respiratory ailments, cattle dead with their stomachs rotted out, crops destroyed, animals gone from the forest and fish from the rivers and streams.' Recent studies have borne out these observations, finding an increased incidence of many diseases, widespread malnutrition and cancer rates four times higher than other parts of Ecuador. The World Bank has described socio-economic conditions in the region as 'calamitous'. Poverty levels are close to 90 per cent; basics like sanitation, potable water and paved roads nonexistent. The oil companies, including the state-owned Petroecuador, promise to clean up their act but little changes. Despite this, the money continues to flow. Texaco alone claims to have paid $24 billion to the Ecuadorian Government over the years. Surely the other 12 million Ecuadorians are a lot better off? You would think so, but in fact the country as a whole has I fared little better than the Amazon s native people. With more than half its reserves now depleted Ecuador has higher levels of poverty, inequality, debt and unemployment than it did before Texaco arrived and is facing its worst economic and political crisis of the past 100 years. oily When oil was first discovered the new country was ill-prepared to handle the sudden flood of easy money, in part because Ecuador had yet to one escape its colonial past. When the country was liberated from Spain in the mid-1800s the economic and political system was dominated by a handful of powerful families who controlled the nation's export industries. Semi-feudal social relations still predominated when oil was discovered - making it inevitable that the old elite would hang on to the reins of power. As for the poor: their oil legacy would be 'the dust left by hundreds of newly imported vehicles' in the words of one commentator. In the decadent decade of the 1970s oil hiked growth rates as high as 25 per cent. By 1981 the economy was more than 10 times its pre-oil size. Public spending ballooned, financed by oil revenues and by prodigious borrowing. Oil opened the floodgates to foreign debt, provoking a spiral of indebtedness that has today left the country with the highest per capita debt in Latin America. Meanwhile, public spending and subsidies did little to boost employment or to address poverty or basic welfare. And agriculture was ignored. The tremendous early oil wealth was quickly soaked up by military spending, inefficient public projects and massive subsidies on petroleum products (the government kept the local price of oil at a third of the outside market value alongside predictable losses to corruption and capital flight. When oil prices eventually collapsed and foreign credit dried up / in the early 1980s the country was hopelessly over-extended. By 1981, public spending was 20 times 1970 levels and debt servicing was consuming an ever-larger share of the national budget. So the cuts began. Throughout the 1980s and the 1990s the government slashed public services like education, healthcare and social security. By 1999, the share of the national budget allocated to health had fallen to less than three per cent, while debt service skyrocketed to more than fifty per cent. Thanks in good measure to oil, Ecuador is today one of the world's most corrupt and stratified countries with one of the weakest political structures. Oil income has encouraged corruption, patronage and concentration of wealth And it has also shielded governments from more accountable decision-making and necessary democratic reforms With so much of the budget depending on petroleum exports and foreign loans the government has been immunized from the close public scrutiny that should have accompanied regressive tax measures and dubious social policies Even the World Bank, fully complicit in many of these policies, admits that the burden [of adjustment] has fallen most heavily on those public services paramount to fostering economic development (ie education and agricultural development), whereas the central government bureaucracy and other powerful interest groups (ie the military) have retained their relative and even absolute positions'. Despite the continued benefits of oil, the country has suffered increasing levels of poverty, inequality and unemployment. Basic social indicators (maternal and infant mortality, child nutrition, literacy) have stagnated or gotten worse. Alongside this social crisis a series of inept and flagrantly corrupt governments, tied to the old oligarchy, have provoked massive public outcry and uprisings, leading to six different presidents in the past five years - and Latin America's first military coup in a quarter-century. At the same time, oil has opened the door to powerful foreign interests - including multinational oil companies (many with revenues dwarfing Ecuador's GNP) public creditors and Northern governments with a stake in oil. These are ranged alongside equally dominant local groups: the national oil industry; a wealthy industrial sector benefitting from distorted oil policies; the military; and a powerful class of higher-paid oil employees and their union - the strongest in Ecuador. Add to that mix an impoverished and desperate public weaned on promises of oil wealth and the dominant force of oil begins to take shape. Reality check Ecuador has an estimated 10 to 20 years of oil left in the Amazon. At best the income will equal less than a fifth of the current national debt. The Government's most optimistic projections leave the country in essentially the same condition: mired in poverty and debt. As one local commentator quipped recently in response to the country's inability to gain from the high oil prices of the past year: 'Things are going so well, they couldn't be worse." ~ Sustainable Technology TRAINING for WOMEN http://sarahteach.livejournal.com/2 http://vegcar.livejournal.com http://www.electric-cars-are-for-gi http://www.electric-cars-are-for-gi book: Unlocking the Secrets to Living Your Dreams; by Jack Canfield book: Positive Imaging, The Powerful Way to Change Your Life; by Norman Vincent Peale SolFocus Aims to Beat Coal with Solar Concentrators http://air302.livejournal.com SOLAR Heated SWIMMING POOL, Spa, Hot Tub http://www.fafco.com http://www.solargenix.com http://www.canadiansolartechnologie ` HEATPUMP Heated SWIMMING POOL, Spa, Hot Tub http://heatpump301.livejournal.com RURAL SOLAR http://rural2solar.livejournal.com Eat LOCAL Organc Foods save energy http://www.localharvest.org http://www.organicconsumers.org http://www.greenpeople.org http://www.eatwellguide.org http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/localfo http://www.biodynamics.com http://www.coopamerica.org http://www.localsustainability.net http://livabilityproject.org http://www.sustainabletable.org http://foodchoice.livejournal.com http://www.startnow.org http://www.harvestcanada.com Proverb: Good Food is Good Medicine. <> Garbage in, garbage out. 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The military claims the Wind Farms are a threat to national security. Maybe the Wind Farms are a threat to Big Oil and Big Coal? HOW STUPID ARE AMERICANS? http://pickensplan101.livejournal.c FOSSIL FUEL ECONOMIC DISASTER http://ovl.indymedia.org/news/2008/06/2 http://argentina.indymedia.org/news/200 ~ book: Tyranny of Oil; by Antonia Juhasz book: Halliburton Agenda - The Politics of Oil and Moneyl; by Dan Briody book: Cronies - Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas; by Dan Briody book: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man; by John Perkins book: Economic Gangsters; Ray Fisman book: Sound Truth and Corporate Myth - The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill; by Riki Ott book: Poisoned Wells - The Dirty Politics Of African Oil; by Leandre Poisson book: Justice Under Siege; by Eva Joly book: Texas Oil and the New Deal; by Steve Isser book: Corruption In Iraq & World; by Vance Jochim book: Teapot Dome Scandal: How Big Oil Bought the Harding White House and Tried to Steal the Country; by Laton Mccartney book: Untapped - The Scramble for Africa's Oil; by John Ghazvinian book: Eating Fossil Fuel - Oil, Food and the Coming Crisis in Agriculture; by Dale Allen Pfeiffe book: Blood and Oil; by Michael Klare book: Backstabbing for Beginners; by Michael Soussan book: A Culture of Corruption; by Daniel Jordan Smith book: THE RISE, CORRUPTION AND COMING FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SAUD; by Said K. Aburish book: Greed and corruption in the Caspian; by Derek Brower book: Corporate Corruption - The Abuse of Power; by Marshall B. Clinard report: All the Presidents’ Men - The Devastating Story of Oil and Banking in Angola’s Privatised War; by Global Witness book: Curse of the Black Gold - 50 Years of Oil in the Niger Delta; by Michael Watts book: Crude - The Story of Oil; by Sonia Shah book: Where Vultures Feast: Shell, Human Rights and Oil; by Ike Okonta book: The Prize - The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power; by Daniel Yergin book: A Game as Old as Empire - The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption; by Steven Hiatt book: Blood Bankers; by James S. Henry book: Grand Theft Pentagon - Tales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror; by Jeffrey St. Clair book: Oil and the Glory - The Pursuit of Empire and Fortune on the Caspian Sea; by Steve LeVine book: Indonesian Production Sharing Contract, an investor's perspective; by T. N. Machmud book: Grand corruption in the regulation of oil; by Tina Soreide book: Oil on the Brain; by Lisa Margonelli book: Many Faces of Corruption; by J. Edgardo Campos http://www.thebushagenda.net Pure, clean air is the invisible staff of life. Smog is the invisible staff of death. book: Super Power Breathing for Super Energy and Longevity; by Patricia Bragg Does Big OIL or Big COAL have a Body BAG with your CHILD'S Name on it? http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24663.htm http://air301.livejournal.com http://air309.livejournal.com book: Big Coal, The Dirty Secret; by Jeff Goodell OIL - GAS REFINERIES = DIRTY AIR & DEATH http://www.refineryreform.org GENERAL MOTORS and the NAZIS War Profits at any cost - Auschwitz - Death Camps - Slave Labor Is there any difference between the Neo Nazis and the American Neo Conservatives? ARE YOU DRIVING A GM HITLER CAR? DVD: Who Killed the Electric Car? http://www.amazon.com/Who-Killed-Electr http://vegcar.livejournal.com/24209.htm book: Internal Combustion; by Edwin Black http://www.internalcombustionbook.c WHY DID GENERAL MOTORS DESTROY ELECTRIC CARS http://www.saveev1.org http://www.dontcrush.com NAZIS in the AMERICAN MILITARY Defense Fund for Freedom from the Extremist - please donate. Keep the Nuts away from the Nukes - Book of Revelation. George Bush and the End of the World Death Cult society of america - KKK http://bigoil600036.insanejournal.c http://www.militaryreligiousfreedom.o CRIMES AGAINST NATURE DICK CHENEY Made Millions with SADDAM HUSSEIN Enemies of Democracy http://bigoil431.insanejournal.com SHOCKING CORRUPTION by BIG OIL http://bigoil101.insanejournal.com DO WE HAVE TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION? Are your politicians taking Bribes - campaign contributions - from Big Oil and the Drug Companies? Is your Congressman a Drug Pusher for the Pharmaceutical Companies? Halt the incestuous relationship of sleazy politicians in bed with Big Oil. CAMPAIGN FINANCE INFORMATION CENTER Where does the money come from? http://www.campaignfinance.org/stat CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY stop the Fat Cats from BRIBING your politicians http://www.publicintegrity.org DVD: Capitol Crimes by Bill Moyers The fall of super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff has exposed what may be one of the biggest political scandals in America's history. What does the dizzying scope of corruption say about how laws are made and who really owns the U.S. government? 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IS GOD GREEN? http://solarafrica307.livejournal.c `  ~ POLLUTION and RACISM, INJUSTICE book: Confronting Environmental Racism; by Robert Bullard book: Environmental Injustices; by David Camacho book: Environmentalism and Economic Justice; by Laura Pulido book: Pollution and the Death of Man; by Francis Schaeffer book: From the Ground Up, Environmental Racism; by Luke Cole book: Struggle for Ecological Democracy; by Daniel Faber book: No Safe Place, Toxic Waste and Community Action; by Phil Brown Bush slams Christians, Bunch of NUTS http://bigoil600037.insanejournal.c book: Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction; author: David Kuo Republican Child Molesters and Pedophiles http://bigoil600039.insanejournal.c Homosexuals for Republicans & George Bush http://bigoil600038.insanejournal.c WINE INDUSTRY ANNIHILATED by GLOBAL WARMING http://www.ukfreepages.co.uk/publish/pa Global Warming Destroys Maple Sugar Industry STOP CLIMATE CHAOS and the DESTRUCTION of the POOR http://www.itdg.org/?id=stopclimatechao http://campaigncc.org http://stopclimatechaos.org WASTE NOT, WANT NOT http://em202.livejournal.com http://em203.livejournal.com http://pr.indymedia.org/news/2006/08/17 http://qc.indymedia.org/news/2005/10/51 GARDENING for VICTORY http://victory2garden.livejournal.c BIG OIL MAIN PAGE http://bigoil101.insanejournal.com GENERAL LINKS http://vegcar.livejournal.com/25537.htm ~ Proverb: A good person leaves an inheritance to their children’s children. 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They shall walk and not faint. ~ ~ book: Unlocking the Secrets to Living Your Dreams; by Jack Canfield book: Amazing Results of Positive Thinking; by Norman Vincent Peale book: Miracle of Fasting, for Physical, Mental and Spiritual Rejuvenation; by Patricia Bragg book: Fasting Can Save Your Life; by Doctor Herbert Shelton book: Super Power Breathing for Super Energy and Longevity; by Patricia Bragg book: Coconut Cures; by Bruce Fife book: Healing Power for the Heart; by Robert Abel http://adhd101.livejournal.com http://organic4school.livejournal.c http://em202.livejournal.com your HEALTH (Wholeness) is your WEALTH ~ book: Rwanda, The Land God Forgot; by Meg Guillebaud DVD: In Lies We Trust; director: Dr. Leonard George Horowitz ~ Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves. Choose to BE A WINNER. Be a bringer of the LIGHT. `  Earth Praise God. Be Thankful. Give God the Glory. |