GREEN "JIM"

Mildly interesting interview with James R. - sorry, "JIM" - Woolsey up on Grist.  As probably the most visible green hawk/geo-green/whatever, most of his views here have been covered before here and elsewhere, but Grist's warm reception is kind of noteworthy -

An ex-CIA chief and unapologetic foreign-policy hawk is not someone most greens would think of as on "their side." But think again: James Woolsey has advocated tirelessly, through the Energy Future Coalition and other venues, for substantial increases in fuel efficiency and support for renewable fuels. The surprisingly gregarious veteran of four presidential administrations let loose his inner tree-hugger in a recent chat with Amanda Griscom Little...

Ms. Little also conducted the Clusterfuck Hustler interview, as noted last week, and maybe it's just me, but although both interviews are pretty mild, there's some implied raised eyebrows throughout the Kunstler piece, and nothing but goodwill here.  And look at that picture, I have never seen "Jim" wearing glasses before, are they for real or just a prop to soften his image?  I mean, I'm sure they're real, but they seem almost suspiciously shitty, you know?  Anyway, what I'm also saying is that Gristmill seems to be kind of feeling around for some kind of environmental left-center, playing TPM Cafe to Worldchanging's Daily Kos. 

As far as the interview itself goes, this exchange was the only really excerpt-worthy bit, I thought:

When do you think the world will either hit peak oil or encounter geopolitical barriers that will spell the end of the cheap-oil era?

I think risk of terrorism in the Middle East is much more likely to drive oil prices up than our running out of oil. Yes, it's true that a number of the world's fields are peaked out and production costs are going up and people are forced to rely much more on Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, who have two-thirds of the world's oil reserves. It's also true that you have India and China coming online and building middle classes and that will keep prices up. But the biggest threat to our economy in terms of oil dependence is the possibility of a terrorist strike against the oil and pipeline infrastructure in the Middle East.

I agree - while I'm optimistic that peak oil is 'solveable' with a combination of new technologies and market forces, it's an open question whether global counterterrorism efforts will be able to protect key energy infrastructure in the Middle East.  John Robb's Global Guerillas blog regularly hosts a terrifying variety of well-developed scenarios exposing our vulnerabilities in this area, if you want to feel the fear.  

As far as Woolsey's solutions go, I am not so into his heavy emphasis on biofuels, and have expressed doubts about whether there's really any future to this greens/hawks alliance, and I am hesitant to embrace the idea of extracting ourselves from the Middle East through oil 'independence' both because I think that that goal is chimerical in a global energy market and also because I think the Middle East needs to be liberalized and democratized, not abandoned - but - I dunno, I like where he's coming from, I like his style, and I like that  greens are listening to him.