Trust
In my last editorial I spoke about a kind of awakening in countries around the world that makes them realise that the
benefits they receive from their natural resources “need improvement” and hence new terms about
“sharing” are being set in an increasing amount of places.
This is only one of the symptoms of the new times that are coming, in which we will see a greater transparency and
“things being put in a different light” which is one of the bodes of change in the world the coming
years.
Sometimes revolutions happen in an instant, or are set in motion by a relative small occurrence which tips the scale of judgement in the other direction. It will be different for every person or country.
How often do we trust a person, a neighbour or a government that is caught in lying, or needs to admit it has been
lying, even to its close friends? And also has been misleading and misusing the trust that has been put in it?
The “old Europe” was shocked last week when it needed to admit that one of its closest allies has been
cheating on it for quite some years, and has not been telling the truth, deliberately, about some matters, and in the
process “trespassed” on the sovereignty in ways that would normally be unacceptable.
In the same week it became clear that already for quite some years it was known that no major weapons were present in Iraq, or ties to terrorist organisations, or a quest to get nuclear material from Africa, nor biological weapons manufacturing capabilities which all had been presented so adamantly to the whole world. Apparently we were quite deliberately “misinformed”. Why?
Then comes in mind, quite unrelated, the oil reserves that were expected in the Caspian, up to 350 billion barrels some years ago, that have never been found. Or the enormous reserves that seem to be under the Arctic, that still need to be proven, or the billions of barrels of oil that suddenly seem to be expected in the Eastern parts of the Gulf of Mexico, now that Cuba is starting to search there. Or the vast quantities of oil and gas that suddenly seem to be present in Afghanistan, of which not even the responsible minister had an idea.
We are now again in a situation that a country with vast energy-reserves is in the spotlight of allegations that are turning into truths just because they are repeated often enough and of which proofs for the allegation are not present or at best “helped” in what they are saying. We may see some parallels here and ask ourselves: why is this happening?
Many of the proven, probable and possible reserves-figures that are being used, and trusted, worldwide, are sourced to very few places and even some of the best-known global statistics base their figures on sources that are not verifiable. This may explain why there is such a difference between the expectations of the high-profile “experts” and some of the peak oil “believers”. The last ones moved away from the “official“ statistics and started to do their own calculations, which apparently leads to different conclusions on the state of affairs in relation to known and expected reserves.
We may find ourselves in a situation in which many of the things we trusted blindly, figures, statistics but also
opinions or world-leaders, are eroded in their credibility or lack a proper basis because they were set up with a
different “agenda” in mind. The problem is that we also may discover there are very few other sources we
know or can trust and may find ourselves in a situation of “not knowing anymore” because that which we
trusted till now, may not be that trustworthy.
Well, welcome to the club. This is another sign of the times of things “of old” that will change, and the
best thing is to know it and to start to develop a more independent mind and more sources that can be trusted and are
verifiable.
Hope this helps,
Alexander
Responses are welcome at alexander@gas-oil-power.com
