Economist Escapes to Maui on Way to BOAO Forum
(3/22/2007)
When my pen dries up and I can't write it is not a pretty thing. Just ask Pamela and the kids. When it happens, it is not because I have nothing to say--I can do TV and radio and talk with print reporters about ideas all day long. It's because I can't figure out how to untie the knot of ideas and things I've seen so that I can make them follow the straight line required to write them down. Fortunately, there is a solution--a deadline.
This week I am blessed with a deadline to deliver an article on Asian Energy Security and the Middle East for the BOAO Forum for Asia, where I will speak in late April in Boao, Hainan, China's island province lying in the South China Sea. The Boao Forum is a non-government organization founded in 1988 by the former Prime ministers of Australia, the Phillipines, and Japan. It's mission is regional economic integration and development. It's General Secretary, Long Yongtu, is the extraordinary man who negotiated China's entry into the World Trade Organization. The conference will be attended by more than 1300 delegates from all over the world discussing a rich set of topics.
This topic is an important one for reasons that everyone knows. World growth is raising living standards for billions of people but is increasing energy demand faster than supply. Incremental supplies come largely from the politically troubled Gulf Region, where peace is not likely to break out soon. Stopping growth is not an option for most governments. Competition for energy resources is the most likely source of future conflict among nations.
I am going to use the article and talk at the forum to present some ideas I have been working on for some time that view economic activity as energy transformations powered by current and stored solar energy according to the laws of thermodynamics. The energy problem will only be solved if we broaden our notion of energy supplies to include all stores of energy, if we view economies as information networks, if we view investments in education and information technology as substitutes for fossil fuels, and if we realize that productivity growth is the only way the entire world can grow without fighting over oil.
More to come.