United Kingdom

http://www.greenpolicy360.net/w/Category:United_Kingdom

Green Issues

Of course the industrial age found its beginnings in the island nation called Britain by some, England by others, the United Kingdom often when referring to the far-flung colonies and British 'holdings', and it is the industrial age that was exported as imports of raw materials flowed from world markets to the fossil-fuel powered 'mother country.'

The Victorian era at its height reached across the planet and oceans as the British fleet with its coal-powered ships replacing the former age of discovery and mercantalism of sail was to soon be replaced by oil-fired steam and discoveries of vast oil/gas reserves in the Mid East and Persia and the Caucus region would power the late-1980s through the turn of the century.

Resource wars began as national security began to be defined by access and control of fossil fuels that powered national economies. British interests led to multiple conflicts and new American interests, as the US economy fired up, would replace British, and European, and Japanese industrial powers as the ascendant economy. World War II saw the eclipse of the British empire even as the US reached worldwide to replace the Axis powers.

The Cold War pitting Soviet-bloc industrialization/militarization against the US-bloc industrialization-militarization, with non-aligned nations caught up in the cross-fire of interests, would lead to the eventual over-extension of the Soviets and its replacement by the Russian Federation, which is currently at the beginning of the 21st century aligning in a new 'Eurasian strategy'.

The UK watches as a new geopolitics forms on the horizon. Energy agreements between Russia and China, and China and Iran, are described in the news as "energy deals of the century" and they act to ensure the conventional oil/gas supplies and fossil-fueled modern industrial age even as the impacts to global security with carbon emissions and climate change are beginning to be realized.

The UK, as the land of the industrial age's beginning, perhaps will play a special role going forward, given its knowledge-base, its scientific capabilities, and its responsibilities.

The future will tell the tale.

Let's start with one of the more prescient Brit's stories of what's befalling the UK and its former 360, 'sun never sets' empire, planet earth.

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http://www.monbiot.com/

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