All national currencies are deep in debt-- indebted to nature-- because human economies extract from nature faster than we replenish.

Our economic and financial system is captured by the fossil fuel industry, and I say this extremely seriously. It’s not just B.C. We see it across Canada. Canada was economically built on resource extraction. I think that it’s important to acknowledge that, and it’s important to respect and be grateful for what resource extraction has done for our country and be grateful for what petroleum products have brought to civilization. But just because we have come from a place where fossil fuels have been embedded into our economic and financial system doesn’t mean that we need to continue forward in that way. We have to transition. We have seen…. I have seen in my time as an MLA here how captured our entire system is by this industry, how it influences the way that individuals see their options for prosperity in certain parts of the country. We have seen the way that it limits the kinds of choices that governments feel like they can make. I have learned about how many wars, how many regime changes, how many sanctions have been placed on countries around the world, based on whether or not they will or won’t play ball in terms of fossil fuel and gas and petroleum exports — in particular, with the United States. This is something that we all need to grapple with as we go forward into actually meeting our climate targets, because it’s not just about emissions. Emissions on their own won’t release us from the grasp of the fossil fuel industry.

The inflow of capital from the developed countries is the prerequisite for the establishment of economic dependence. This inflow takes various forms: loans granted on onerous terms; investments that place a given country in the power of the investors; almost total technological subordination of the dependent country to the developed country; control of a country's foreign trade by the big international monopolies; and in extreme cases, the use of force as an economic weapon in support of the other forms of exploitation.

In sum, countries that depend on oil for their livelihood eventually become among the most economically troubled, the most authoritarian, and the most conflict-ridden in the world.

We used many techniques, but probably the most common is that we will go to a country that has resources that our corporations covet- like oil- and we will arrange a huge loan to that country from an organization like the World Bank or one of its sisters. But almost all of the money goes to U.S. corporations, not to the country itself, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, General Motors, General Electric, these types of organizations, and they build huge infrastructure projects in the country- power plants, highways, ports, industrial parks- things that serve the very rich and seldom even reach the poor. In fact the poor suffer because the loans have to be repaid, and they are huge loans, and the repayment of them means that poor won’t get education, health, and other social services and the country is left holding a huge debt, by intention. We go back, we economic hitmen, to this country and say, “Look, you owe us a lot of money. You can’t repay your debts, so give us a pound of flesh”.

In many Asian, African and Latin American countries that have won political independence, the economic lifelines are still controlled by colonialism and imperialism in varying degrees, and the old economic structure has not changed fundamentally. The imperialists, and particularly the superpowers, have adopted neo-colonialist methods to continue and intensify their exploitation and plunder of the developing countries. They export capital to the developing countries and build there a “state within a state” by means of such international monopoly organizations as “trans-national corporations” to carry out economic plunder and political interference. Taking advantage of their monopoly position in international markets, they reap fabulous profits by raising the export prices of their own products and forcing down those of raw materials from the developing countries. Moreover, with the deepening of the political and economic crises of capitalism and the sharpening of their mutual competition, they are further intensifying their plunder of the developing countries by shifting the economic and monetary crises on to the latter.

Can we reuse some of the technologies we use for other economic activities to recoup some of the investment already made in economies dependent on fossil fuels?

The denial about [the] global peak in the United States is already fierce, as investments in car-dependent, oil-addicted infrastructure are greater here than in any other nation and Americans consider their way of life a[n]… entitlement. […] The economic... [struggle] among... all nations, [...] will be considerable and is certain to lead to increasingly desperate competition for diminishing supplies of oil [and every other resource].

We must put our energies into solving the difficult problems, in many disciplines, which are involved in renewable sources - on which both the developed and the developing countries must eventually depend.

Zaire is the country that has been the most heavily exploited in the world. That is why farms, ranches, plantations, concessions, commerce, and real estate agencies will be turned over to sons of the country.

As we move to diversify our economy, we are particularly aware that we need oil to get out of oil.

The global industrial economy is the engine for massive environmental degradation and massive human (and nonhuman) impoverishment.

Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave nations vulnerable to extortion and intimidation and that is why we congratulate European states such as Poland for leading construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.

The critical oil and natural gas producing region that we fought so many wars to try and protect our economy from the adverse impact of losing that supply or having it available only at very high prices.