Crude World (34 page)

The skeptic will point out that even the best of remedies, administered in the right amounts, cannot turn a curse into a blessing. This is true. There is too much corruption-inducing, economy-deforming, conflict-enhancing, fate-altering value locked up in natural resources like oil. As I’ve said, only the most stable of democracies, such as Norway, and the tiniest of emirates, such as Abu Dhabi, have avoided the downsides of dependency on a natural resource. They are the outliers. The great middle of resource-rich nations do not have bribery-proof institutions or enough oil to make everyone rich beyond complaint. To exorcise the resource curse, you would almost need to get rid of the resources. I had that wish at times. You cannot navigate the violent creeks of the Niger Delta or visit the contaminated mess of Ecuador’s Oriente region without thinking that everything would be better if oil had not been found.

We cannot undo geology, but we can try to make these minerals less valuable over the long term so that afflicted nations might have a chance to reset their priorities. The twilight of oil, after a century in which the resource reshaped the world, will last for years, after all. When we wake up tomorrow, we will still be dependent on petroleum and complicit in the forms of violence—physical, environmental and cultural—that are the consequences of its extraction. The twilight needs to be as short as possible. This is where a fortunate convergence occurs between the answers to global warming, peak oil and the resource curse.

Almost every climate scientist agrees that catastrophic warming will occur if we fail to dramatically reduce our carbon emissions. Changing light bulbs and driving a Prius are just the first, the smallest and the easiest of steps (though only if you can afford a Prius). The good news, according to Princeton University scientist Robert Socolow, is that “humanity already possesses the fundamental scientific, technical and industrial know-how” to solve the climate problem. Socolow and his colleague Stephen Pacala have introduced the notion of “stabilization wedges”—a set of programs, ranging from conservation efforts to fuel efficiency and renewable energy, that would collectively reduce our emissions to levels that should ward off catastrophic warming. But it won’t be easy. New technologies must be proved and scaled up, massive amounts of money must be invested, and lifestyles oriented around cheap fossil fuels must be altered. Socolow and Pacala describe their plan as “a limited set of monumental tasks.”

There is a healthy debate over the best solutions, but when scientists shake their heads in grave doubt it’s usually not because of problems with wedge 5 or wedge 7. They are most concerned about whether we will do what we can do. The United States is by far the worst offender. It is the world’s largest consumer of energy and the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases (China, due to its reliance on coal, the “dirtiest” of fossil fuels, has nosed ahead in the greenhouse gas category). Even in the Barack Obama era, the United States continues to lag behind Europe in the development of everything from solar panels to carbon trading and mass transit. It’s impossible to blame a shortage of ideas. New technologies and Einstein-level genius are not required for new railways and wind farms like the one at San Gorgonio Pass.

My travels in the unhappy precincts of oil intensified my support for the efforts to avert global warming. A world in which the priority is not getting oil but getting
off
oil would be better not only for the atmosphere but also, as I’ve seen, for the people who live in Nigeria, Iraq, Equatorial Guinea, Russia, Iran and other resource-rich nations. The advent of peak oil is yet another incentive to cut our dependency, because in the years ahead the price will only rise—skyrocket, really—if we fail to arrest our desires for it. If you are concerned about spending too much money on gasoline, just sit back, do nothing and see where those prices are in five or ten years.

If you happen to believe in omens, it’s tempting to think that the sky and earth are speaking to us with their shouts of global warming and peak oil, warning us to reduce our consumption of fossil fuels. If we respond, the climate will survive in its present form and oil prices will have a far better chance of staying at reasonable levels. The substance, less lucrative than before, will offer less of a temptation toward bad governance, and it will play a smaller role in our decisions to wage war. After all, why invade country X or support tyrant Y if you can survive without the dark liquid they possess?

These issues were on my mind as I drove into the San Gorgonio Pass and saw its windmills. I would have liked to linger, but another destination called me. I turned onto Route 62 and followed it until I reached Twentynine Palms and its sprawling military facility, which is the base for the marine battalion that toppled the statue of Saddam Hussein. The base, with thousands of marines wandering around in desert uniforms, with rows of beige Humvees and the occasional
whoop-whoop
of helicopters overhead, brought me back to Iraq and everything I had seen there.

I visited Colonel Bryan McCoy, who’d given the order to drop the statue of Saddam Hussein. I noticed a couple of cardboard boxes in his office, half filled; he was packing up before his battalion deployed on a new mission. It was a Friday afternoon, so the battalion’s headquarters was emptying out for the weekend. We headed for the officers’ club to have a drink with the major who’d driven the first tank into Firdos Square. It was cool and dark inside, where just a few other marines with crew cuts were passing the afternoon in a restaurant that had an amiably dingy feel. We sat near the bar, drinking beer, eating popcorn and bringing ourselves up-to-date on each other’s lives.

We talked about Firdos—for these marines it was a small event that, to their surprise, had become a global icon. But mostly we talked about the battles fought on the way to Baghdad. The battalion had lost several of its own in the invasion, including a scout sniper shot dead during an ambush; McCoy was just a few feet away when it happened. The battalion would head back to Iraq in the coming months, because invasion had turned into occupation, and McCoy knew it would lose more troops while shedding the blood of others.

After a few hours it was time to go, so we left the club and blinked into the still-bright sun of the Mojave Desert. After our farewells, I got into my rental car and drove west on Route 62. Soon I was back at San Gorgonio Pass, looking up at the beckoning windmills. The war in Iraq had not left my mind; nor had the trouble in Nigeria, Ecuador, Russia, Saudi Arabia and other oil-drenched corners of our planet. I realized that in just a few miles I had gone from one vision of the future to another. I knew for sure that the windmills were far more revolutionary than all the toppled statues in the world.

Acknowledgments

I am not alone as a writer. I am surrounded by people who share their time, knowledge and friendship, to the extent that it is misleading for my name to appear alone on the cover. In these final words I wish to thank a cast of generous collaborators.

From the day he plucked my first manuscript from obscurity fourteen years ago, Jonathan Segal has been my editor at Alfred A. Knopf as well as my greatest supporter and friend. Jon not only turns my words into prose, he provides the sort of guidance and stability that are vanishing in the publishing world. Along with Sonny Mehta, editor in chief of Knopf, Jon is a literary treasure. He is truly the best editor and advocate a writer could wish for. Without him, this book would not exist.

For the marathons that are my books I stay in shape by writing articles for the
New York Times Magazine
. Editor in chief Gerald Marzorati has sent me around the globe, allowing me to learn how the world works. Without Paul Tough, who edits my stories at the
Times
, I couldn’t have written narratives worthy of publication. I really don’t know where I’d be without his help.

It is common for writers to thank their agents, but my esteem for Kathy Robbins exceeds the norm. Counselor, guardian, friend—there is no role or task that Kathy and David Halpern, who works with her, have not fulfilled. It is hard to imagine a writing life without them.

Quite obviously I am able to write because of the special literary biosphere I am fortunate to inhabit. The people I have just mentioned have been constant presences over the years, but for this book I was helped by an additional group of collaborators.

I often worked in foreign countries with interpreters who did much more than translate; they were political and cultural guides who also kept me safe at moments of risk. In Iraq I had the great fortune of teaming up with Thaier Aldaami, who learned English by listening to the songs of Donny and Marie Osmond. I also worked with Salam Pax, a blogger who was reading a Philip K. Dick novel when we met.

In Nigeria I was led by Tony Iyare, who had the ability to not only smooth my passage into the violent Niger Delta but to smile throughout our journey. In Ecuador, where things went slightly more easily, Yury Guerra and Julian Larrea were my linguistic companions. In Venezuela, Leonardo Lameda steered me from Gramoven to Miraflores. In Russia, Anya Masterova was at my side. In Pakistan, Majeed Khan arranged entrée into the halls of power and the corridors of madrassas; his humor was a welcome bonus.

I conducted hundreds of interviews with executives, politicians, dissidents, activists, lawyers, warlords and others. Some of them may not agree with my views, but they were kind enough to talk without preconditions. Those who were generous with their time or facilitated my work include Matthew Simmons, Sadad al-Husseini, John Bennett, Frank Ruddy, Carlos Robles, Gabriel Nguema Lima, Dokubo Asari, King Tom Mercy, Chris Finlayson, Steve Donziger, Donald Moncayo, Marlon Santi, James Giffen, J. Bryan Williams, Colonel Bryan McCoy, Osama Kashmoula, Mohammed Aboush, Dathar Khashab, Captain Tom Hough, Bassim Alim, Ibrahim al-Mugaiteeb, Vagit Alekperov, Bernard Mommer, José Toro-Hardy and Charlie Cooper.

With journalists facing economic challenges, the support of nonprofit and educational institutions is more important than ever. I was fortunate to have a semester-long teaching position at Princeton University’s Council of the Humanities, a spell as a Regents’ Lecturer at the University of California at Berkeley, and a residency at the Blue Mountain Center in the Adirondacks. All were wonderful respites from the slog of writing as usual.

In much of my travels I had the luck of working with remarkable photographers, including Gilles Peress, Christopher Anderson, Laurent van der Stockt and Thomas Dworzak. This book features pictures by Anderson and Dworzak, as well as Michael Kamber, Ed Kashi, Antonin Kratochvil and Christopher Morris, among others. I have often thought that if my words could be half as powerful as their photos, I would have succeeded at my job.

Friends have pitched in, too. Michael Massing has been a source of enlightenment and advice. Alexander Stille and his son, Sam, have been warm and inspiring hosts. Catherine Talese provided crucial advice on the photos that appear in this book. I received excellent readings on various chapters from Paul Tough, Ken Silverstein, Michael Watts, Owen Matthews, Robert Worth, Michael Massing and Chris Anderson. Chuck Wilson and Dan Kaufman did the hard work of fact-checking. Thanks also to Gary Bass, Anne Kornhauser, Richard Kaye and Ruti Teitel. And as ever, thanks to my colorful family—mother, siblings, stepmother, nephews, nieces and cousins.

I have saved the best for last. My wife, Alissa Quart, is my love, my friend, my teacher and my partner in mirth. She had the patience to read early drafts of my manuscript and the wisdom to realize when I was heading into a ditch; she shaped this book. The writing process was not easy for me, but I suspect it was even more difficult for her, because an author struggling with a manuscript is an author in pain. I have dedicated this book to her, but more justified is the dedication of my life to her.

Peter Maass
New York City
MAY 2009

APPENDIX A

WORLD CRUDE OIL RESERVES
^*

SELECTED COUNTRIES

(First figure is barrels of oil in billions; second figure is percent of world total)