Because It's Just Not Going Away


 

From The Guardian: "Let's say it without flinching: the fossil fuel industry is destroying our future."

Simon Lewis, professor of global change science at University College London, writes that our hopes for a liveable future rest on clearing away the fossil energy giants and the politicians who put corporations ahead of their people. 


The problem is ultimately that the use of fossil fuels is a “progress trap”. Decades ago, fossil fuels improved lives compared alternative energy sources, but now their use does the opposite, actively destroying lives and livelihoods. Fossil fuels have gone from an ingenious enabler of human progress to a trap that undermines it. The climate crisis is not caused by vague “human actions”; nor is it a result of some innate aspect of human nature. It is caused by specific investments by specific people in specific things. Change those, and we can change the future.

It may feel uncomfortable saying that fossil fuel companies, their investors and the politicians who enable them are the enemies of progress. But if we care about our collective future we need to say it, again and again, without flinching: using fossil fuels today is destroying our future.

The fossil fuel industry is a powerful and complex enemy. Historically, it is where the world’s most influential lobbyists have worked. Their efforts have secured subsidies, military campaigns and a free licence to pollute, all justified in the name of access to fossil energy. Oil, coal and gas are also intimately involved in our lives, from heating our homes to powering transport. There is no single policy, technological breakthrough or activist campaign that alone can help us escape this trap.

Governments accept the science of climate change. Now they need to be forced to act on what they know is true, and help us escape the fossil fuel progress trap.

"The fossil fuel industry is a powerful and complex enemy." Is it ever. It is our enemy and the enemy of our future generations. No matter what Big Fossil's political handmaidens claim, no matter how many billions of our dollars they throw at the fossil fuelers in subsidies, no matter how many pipelines they build, they are our enemy and it's time we treated them as such.

Our political caste needs to stop working both sides of this street. They're selling out one side and it's not their corporate benefactors. It is us. Face it. 

Comments

  1. TrailblazerAugust 10, 2021 at 7:33 PM

    We reap what we sow.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/08/11/siberia-fires-russia-climate/



    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibAugust 11, 2021 at 9:35 AM

      We do indeed, TB. I have a nagging dread of what will transpire in Glasgow in November. What can be done to curb the onslaught (I use that word advisedly) of the climate emergency short of a major re-jigging of the global economy? For decades world leaders have been bullshitting everyone, probably themselves included, with lofty aspirational commitments they have no plan to honour. Year by year global emissions have increased.

      I know several people, well educated at that, who cling to the notion that "they'll think of something" to forestall climate catastrophe. These people can't even say who "they" are much less what they have in mind to rescue us at the last moment.

      Delete

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