Alones Creative/iStock via Getty Images As we write this, Brent crude sits above $107 per barrel . Earlier this month it spiked to nearly $120 , its highest level since mid-2022. The Strait of Hormuz—a 21-mile-wide waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas normally flows —has been effectively closed since late February, following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Iraq h...
Alones Creative/iStock via Getty Images As we write this, Brent crude sits above $107 per barrel . Earlier this month it spiked to nearly $120 , its highest level since mid-2022. The Strait of Hormuz—a 21-mile-wide waterway through which roughly 20% of the world’s oil and natural gas normally flows —has been effectively closed since late February, following the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran. Iraq has cut oil output by 60% . Kuwait and the UAE are shutting in production as storage fills. Qatar has throttled LNG exports. The International Energy Agency has coordinated the release of 400 million barrels from emergency reserves —about four days of global consumption. This is, by most measures, the largest disruption to global energy supply in history . Larger than the 1973 Arab oil embargo. Larger than the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution. The human consequences are already severe: Pakistan has closed schools to conserve energy, Bangladesh and Myanmar have introduced fuel rationing, and the Philippines has moved to a four-day workweek . Fertilizer supply chains—which depend on natural gas feedstocks now in short supply—face disruption just as the Northern Hemisphere planting season begins, raising the specter of cascading agricultural impacts. None of this is cause for celebration. People are hurting, and the pain is falling hardest on the world’s most vulnerable populations. But if we are serious about preventing the next crisis—and the one after that—we have to be honest about what this moment reveals. And what it reveals is not new. It is, in fact, exactly what a structural analysis of the global energy system has been telling us for decades: concentrated dependence on fossil fuels transported through geopolitically fragile chokepoints is a systemic risk, and systemic risks eventually materialize. What This Crisis Validates The immediate reflex is to frame this as good news for renewables. And at a high level, the logic holds: solar, wind, and battery storage do no...
"Because we took Aarav to a really good place, like he was in the best place for his care, and then they've basically killed him and that's how we see it.
"Because we took Aarav to a really good place, like he was in the best place for his care, and then they've basically killed him and that's how we see it.