Geo Midterm - Justina
Terms
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- The economics of civil war
- internal unrest and conflict can have major repercussions for oil-producing countries; civil war can consume a large amount of a country’s income, which would alter their economy significantly.
- Predation
- technically the act of a predator consuming its prey; not completely sure how it applies here, but possibly having to do with the fact that oil extraction (and the predatory oil companies) depletes the local resources and economies (prey), not really bringing any benefits for them.
- Corporate social responsibility
- a business model where corporations would self-regulate their actions, act in ways that are in favor of the public interest, and contribute to the local community; some African oil communities appear to have many amenities that were provided by the local oil company, but a closer look shows the differences between appearance and reality.
- Shadow state
- when the government of a country is not completely active, is more like a shadow for what is actually there.
- Community rights
- the rights in both health and welfare of an entire community of people; the community rights of those living in the Niger River delta are pretty limited, which is why many of them turn to alternatives, such as MEND, and other violent outlets.
- Oversight
- defined as regulatory supervision over an action or process; the oversight of oil companies should prevent their harming of the local environment, economy, and community of the places where they drill for oil, but it often does not.
- Accountability
- responsibility for actions and their results; can be seen through Chevron’s accountability for the environmental damage done in Ecuador by Texaco.
- Oil boom/doom
- oil boom occurs when an abundance of oil is found in a particular country, and then that oil increases the country’s income; oil doom is the opposite: after the point of peak oil is reached and the amount of extraction decreases, the income from oil will decrease as well.
- Petro-state
- a state with an abundant oil resource, so much that their entire GDP and economy are based around oil; many petro-states encounter the paradox of plenty and all of the negative repercussions that go along with it.
- Human rights
- the basic rights that are held by all human beings; human rights offenses can be seen in oil-producing countries through the local results of oil extraction on the environment and the communities.
- Populism
- the line of thought that sets “the people†against “the elitesâ€; this can be seen in Nigeria, where the people are very much against the elites of the oil companies, from whom they receive none of the benefits of the oil industry.
- Oil shock
- in the early 1970s, OPEC put an embargo on oil, saying that they would limit oil going to the United States and other countries supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War; OPEC successfully raised world oil prices through this action.
- Refining (sweet vs sour)
- refining is the process of making oil suitable for its everyday uses, such as gasoline for cars. Sweet oil is clearer, lighter, and more easily refined than its opposite, sour oil.
- Offshore vs onshore
- offshore refers to when oil is extracted from the ocean floor, while onshore describes oil that is on land; offshore extraction is much more difficult than extraction from land.
- Peak oil
- the point where the world’s consumption of oil has hit its climax, when the amount of oil left in oil reserves is on a decline; difficult to calculate because it is dependent on human consumption; oil countries/companies tend to keep the total left in their reserves quiet, so that people don’t freak out.
- Petrodollars
- money earned through the sale of oil; petrodollars from OPEC were made into loans for developing countries in the 1970s.
- Bottom billion
- from Paul Collier; the name describes a group of countries that are “stuck,†are not improving economically, and need aid in order to develop further.
- Alien Tort Claims Act
- the US statute that allows cases regarding conduct outside of the US to be heard in US courts; example: the Ecuadorian lawsuit against Chevron for environmental damages.
- Development traps
- describes various issues that can prevent a country from development; can include the conflict trap and natural resource trap.
- MEND
- Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta; the emancipation of the delta would also emancipate all of the oil within the delta.
- Deepwater land grab
- the process of claiming areas of the ocean for oil drilling.
- Environmental security
- the relationship between security and violence concerns and the natural environment; directly relates to the issue of resource scarcity and conflict in the developing world.
- Environmental justice
- refers to the distribution of burdens and benefits to the community of people who live in the area in question; in Africa, the situation of the local communities seeing none of the profit from the process that is destroying their land and economy would be an example of an environmental injustice.
- Resource trap
- like the paradox of plenty: a poorer country with natural resources generally has limited other economic growth, such as the manufacturing sector; another factor of the bottom billion.
- Conflict trap
- conflict and violence within a country can end up costing a lot of money, so in developing countries, excessive violence can be harmful monetarily; this is also a factor contributing to Collier’s idea of the bottom billion.
- Resource dependency
- refers to and attempts to measure the dependency of a state on one or more resources, and how important that resource is to the GDP of that state.
- Ecological footprint of oil production
- the burning of flares (emits greenhouse gases), deforestation, oil spills, water pollution (oil in rivers and emitted water).
- Bunkering
- the process of storing oil, as in on a ship.
- Grievance
- the complaints that one might have about a situation; the case in Ecuador against Shell is based upon many grievances from local Ecuadorians regarding Texaco’s use and abuse of their land in order to extract oil.
- Greed
- defined as the desire to possess more than one actually wants or needs; oil companies illustrate greed through their land-grabbing and lack of concern for the environmental repercussions of their actions.
- Paradox of Plenty
- an excess of natural resources diminishes other aspects of the market, such as manufacturing; the natural resource raises the value of the country’s money, and others don’t want to pay more for their products, so the country’s products don’t sell.