WHAT HAPPENS TO THE GULF STATES AS DEPENDENCE ON OIL COMES TO AN END?

'As the world increasingly moves away from the use of oil, the possibility of regime collapse and societal breakdown in the Middle East will increase. Ironically, the region is also subject to some of the greatest impacts of climate change; with temperatures in many cities already at the borderline of “wet bulb” temperatures survivable by human beings. Within a decade or two, the Middle East may be reverting to the much simpler times before oil, but with populations ten plus times those of the pre-oil bonanza years. A colossal humanitarian catastrophe in the making, among the sky scrapers and other markers of the massive waste of the oil revenues while they lasted.

Another irony may be that as the Middle East becomes much less important as a source of energy, the West will become much less supportive of Israel. A country which in reality is a European settler colony specifically put in place to help control the fossil fuel rich region. When that region is no longer that important perhaps also Israel becomes no longer that important.'



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