Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Part of the Barbara Weinstock Lectures on the Morals of Trade
The geopolitics of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries from the world wars to US-China relations to the Iraq war is inseparable from oil. China’s present dominance of metal mining and, in particular, metal processing led directly to the deterioration in US-China relations in the 2010s, and the reintroduction of rare earth mining in the United States. Since there can be no escape from the dangers of resource extraction, finding ways at least to ameliorate zero-sum international competition and the ecological consequences, which did not happen over hydrocarbons, is a moral necessity for our times and entails recognizing the limits to the idea of Progress bequeathed by fossil fuels.
Part of the Barbara Weinstock Lectures on the Morals of Trade
The geopolitics of the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries from the world wars to US-China relations to the Iraq war is inseparable from oil. China’s present dominance of metal mining and, in particular, metal processing led directly to the deterioration in US-China relations in the 2010s, and the reintroduction of rare earth mining in the United States. Since there can be no escape from the dangers of resource extraction, finding ways at least to ameliorate zero-sum international competition and the ecological consequences, which did not happen over hydrocarbons, is a moral necessity for our times and entails recognizing the limits to the idea of Progress bequeathed by fossil fuels.
