Wednesday I found myself at the Hyatt Regency here in DC for the Bipartisan's Policy Center's event on "The Geopolitical Impacts of the U.S. Tight Oil Boom" - I'll have more on that in a few days once the video is available. The ballroom in the Hyatt, where the event was held, is pretty familiar - in that same room a few years ago we held both the 2010 ASPO-USA Conference and the 2011 conference.

I thought about that room again this morning while reading yet another must read piece by Nafeez Ahmed that ties the recent release of NSA documents with fears of public unrest due to environmental disasters and energy shocks. The article mentions the 2010 US Joint Operating Environment report. And one of the leaders of the report, Rear Admiral Lawrence Rice, addressed the 2010 ASPO-USA conference. I've embedded the fascinating video here, and you can hear Rice describe the pushback they received from those who did not want them to include climate change and Peak Oil in the report. And you'll get a sense of how the military views these very serious matters of energy.

I bring this video out from time-to-time to push back on the notion that many promote: a view that the only people that discuss Peak Oil are cranks in the wilderness who are best avoided and ignored. That view is false. There are countless examples serious, sober, and thoughtful examination of these issues from voices in academia, the energy industry, Wall Street & finance, health care, and other fields.

And as Dr. Ahmed's article powerfully outlines, obviously our national security organizations take the risk analysis of these issues very seriously.