Peter Zeihan

But if all of a sudden the only other source of crude on the planet goes away...

then a lot of them have some very difficult decisions to make.

They're not nearly, nearly as energy-intensive as the United States is.

They probably get the same amount of GDP for half the crude, but that doesn't mean that they don't need it, and that doesn't mean that there's a good solution.

Green tech in Europe, as a rule...

doesn't work nearly as well as it does in, say, the United States.

They don't have the equivalent of the Great Plains or the American Southwest that are good for wind or solar.

And so even if they were to somehow magically wave a wand and everyone had an EV, they just wouldn't be able to do much.

They don't have the charging capacity.

Even if the infrastructure was there, the climate doesn't help them there.

And so their future is probably coal, specifically lignite, and that will be a bitter pill for them to swallow.

But if your choice is your environmental goals or your national security, I know what the Germans and the Poles will select because they really don't have another option.

But we are certainly looking at the end of Europe Inc.

as a major manufacturing presence in the world.

At the same time, we're looking at the end of China Inc.

as a major manufacturing presence in the world.

And either of those issues would be globe-spanning catastrophe impacts.

And to have them both at the same time, at the same time we have a global energy crisis,

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I wrote a book about this.

And it's a little frustrating that I haven't retired before it came true.