Petróleo, medio ambiente, cambio climático y seguridad: Macondo, otra advertencia más

Abstract

Current energy paradigm is essentially based on fossil fuels, mainly oil. The process of its extraction, transformation and consumption produces environmental and human costs that are usually not internalized. As such they can be categorized as hidden costs of the current energy pattern. Spills, such as the one of Macondo’s well that took place on April 2010, are among those hidden cost. This article considers that such costs should be analysed from a wider perspective, avoiding focalized readings in the sense of limiting evaluations to the impacts of each case. From such viewpoint the significance of Macondo oil spill is described, not as an exception, but as a constant fact within the current energy pattern. At the same time it is considered necessary to take into account at least three variables in our reading: peak oil, the expected increase of world population and climate change. Considering the latest, the text offers an appraisal of the energy paradigm’s security implications, concluding with a consideration on the necessity of rethinking development as starting point for a real and profound change of paradigm.