And behold, a White Horse...

It's not actually in the Book of Revelations, but my own home-spun sort of folk wisdom tells me that when eminently conservative folk like the FT's Gideon Rachman start expressing these sorts of opinions, it's time to take cover:

Soccer crowds in England like to abuse match referees by chanting: “You don’t know what you’re doing.” If protesters had been able to get near the World Economic Forum in Davos last week, they could justifiably have aimed the same chant at the world leaders who assembled in the Alps...

...competition for food, water and energy could also provoke conflict between countries. One session at Davos was devoted to the prospect of drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic. It heard that military activity in the area is increasing, as eight rival countries – including Russia, the US, Canada and Norway – gear up to assert their claims over the fossil fuels that lie beneath the melting Arctic ice.

The theme of this year’s World Economic Forum was meant to be “collaborative innovation”. It is difficult to think of anything less collaborative or innovative than a new era of resource wars.