It is very known  my predilection to understand most part of environmental and climate changes issues by an Economic approach. Just to remember Watergate quote: "Follow the money". it is quite interesting that in same weekend of Barcelona meeting about the climate, there is an article about the expenses with oil in Afghanistan, by Paul Roberts - I suppose that Christopher, Devin, Stephen and Peebles help will be very useful here.

China, Brazil, and mainly, United States say "there is no money to face climate changes". But, "Pentagon officials have told the Defense Appropriations Subcommittee in the House that every gallon of gasoline delivered to US troops in Afghanistan costs American taxpayers $400". It is more than US$ 100 by liter (Just for comparison, in Brazil a liter of gasoline costs US$ 1,42 dollar).

According to reports, the "US Marines in Afghanistan use 800,000 gallons of gasoline per day. At $400 per gallon, that comes to a $320,000,000 daily fuel bill for the Marines alone" - it would be interesting if we had the total amount of fuel that is used by US Forces. "Only a country totally out of control would squander resources in this way" says an indignant Roberts.

United States pays US$750,000 per year for each soldier in Afghanistan. There are 68,000 US Soldiers there, totalizing US$ 50 billion dollars per year. "The soldiers, who are at risk of life and limb, are paid a pittance, but all of the privatized services to the military are rolling in excess profits". Obama must choose where to put money: Afghanistan or in HealthCare and climate change.

Things are not so different in Brazil. Only for paying external debt interests, Brazil spent US$ 4 billion in 2008. During 2003-2008 period, the expenses with interests of national debt were US$ 475 billion. Brazilian health system had a budget of only US$ 33 billion in 2008. Environment Ministry had US$ 2 billion in same year.

All this data leads to a sad conclusion. The power of financial and oil lobbies is huge. In the post about solar panels, I said that this lobby is the reason why we don´t have "green roofs" yet. But I am afraid of another kind of fuel lobby, related to the release of electrical cars: the lithium lobby.

Bolivia, Chile and China - that is the reason the Asian country was on the top of this post - have the biggest metal reserves. Only Bolivia, has 70% of all lithium in the world. Some discuss the economical viability of lithium batteries while anothers discuss that these countries may create a "lithium OPEC".

PS - Let´s face de lithium lobby? Nothing to do with bipolar disease, tough.



Photo: Lithuim extraction in Bolivia (Foreign Policy magazine)