New 'Globality' Emerges

Fossil fuels, especially natural gas, is an integral player as "globalization" evolves into a "globality" of finance, technology and culture, author Daniel Yergin told 825 geologists at the All Convention Luncheon in New Orleans.

Yergin, an AAPG Journalism Award and 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of The Prize, The Epic Question for Oil, Money & Power, coined the word "globality" in his latest book, The Commanding Heights, in an effort to "describe a concept, a framework, to describe the new world."

He described "globalization" as a process and "globality" representing a situation, a condition -- "globalization is the road; globality where it ends up."

Embodied in "globality," according to Yergin, is a new international reality noted by:

• Less dependence on governments to run economies, relying on the markets as a guiding force. "The effect of this is seen in the increase of privatization and deregulation."

• The tying together of national economies (North American Free Trade Agreement, the European Union).

• The dramatic growth of international investment.

Placing the petroleum industry into the globality scenario, Yergin sees an increasing pace of areas becoming available for exploration to more companies (Libya, Middle East), with the demand for natural gas continuing to grow over the next 20 years.