This course will look at the effects of making the use of hydrocarbons such a critical part of our economy. The course will not cover climate change but the many other aspects of the reliance on hydrocarbons. These include distorting the structure of economies, both global and national, promoting corruption, Islamic extremism, dictatorship, pollution, wars over hydrocarbons, and even distorting our way of life, particularly creating a society structured around cars, concrete and roads, requiring cement, space, promoting long commutes and social isolation. In addition, there are the many negative externalities created by their use. These include disasters involving oil drilling, shipping, pipelines, and vast areas of pollution from Venezuela to Nigeria to the former Soviet Union. The massive destruction caused by the production of coal is another multi-faceted effect. Extraction of hydrocarbons distorts politics and foreign policy everywhere they occur.

Richard Eason served as a U.S. Foreign Service Officer for 32 years, most of them overseas, including 12 years in the Middle East. He served as the Oil and Gas Attaché at the American Embassy in Saudi Arabia, and covered the same field in Abu Dhabi and Muscat, Oman. Eason also served in Europe, Latin American and Asia, at the Secretariat of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum in Singapore. He holds a BA in Archaeology from the College of William and Mary, and an MA from George Washington University in International Relations and an MA in National Security Policy from the US Naval War College.

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