signalmankenneth
Verified User
'While the rest of us understand supply and demand theory, our politicians, slick from all that oil money gushing into their hands, seem unable to firmly grasp this basic theory.'
It seems abundantly clear that something any man, woman or child with a reasonable understanding of the scientific method will agree on is that we need to stop burning fossil fuels if we are to avoid the breakdown of ecosystems and runaway global warming. If you aren’t convinced, maybe the CEO of the world’s second-largest publicly traded oil and gas producer, Royal Dutch Shell, can convince you. In 2020, Ben van Beurden said “The future of energy needs to evolve as something else, and we find a role for ourselves in it.” This is the same company that knew its product was causing the planet to warm, and yet for decades spent vast sums obfuscating the truth by funding myriad climate change denying think tanks and lobbying politicians across the globe. Ben van Beurden himself admitted his company’s guilt when he said, “Yeah, we knew. Everybody knew, and somehow we all ignored it.” It was only in 2019 that Shell finally opted to leave the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers lobbyist group, citing an incompatible position on climate change as their reason for exiting.
So, it is clear that we need to move away from burning any type of fossil fuel as a matter of urgency. Let’s try a little thought experiment. Imagine you are a world leader that deeply cares about your nation and its people, as we are all sure, our world leaders today do. It is your job therefore to transition your nation away from fossil fuels in a quick fashion in order to avoid planetary collapse. Which of these two courses of action would you take? A) Continue to subsidize fossil fuel companies in order to reduce the cost of their products and increase their consumption, or B) start to remove these subsidies in order to increase their cost and decrease their consumption while subsidizing the new energy sources that will replace oil, gas, and coal to make sure the population can afford them? You would think that most world leaders would opt for option B, knowing that this is the only way to reduce fossil fuel consumption However, this isn’t what is happening.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/...mail&utm_source=Weekly Newsletter&utm_term=AO
It seems abundantly clear that something any man, woman or child with a reasonable understanding of the scientific method will agree on is that we need to stop burning fossil fuels if we are to avoid the breakdown of ecosystems and runaway global warming. If you aren’t convinced, maybe the CEO of the world’s second-largest publicly traded oil and gas producer, Royal Dutch Shell, can convince you. In 2020, Ben van Beurden said “The future of energy needs to evolve as something else, and we find a role for ourselves in it.” This is the same company that knew its product was causing the planet to warm, and yet for decades spent vast sums obfuscating the truth by funding myriad climate change denying think tanks and lobbying politicians across the globe. Ben van Beurden himself admitted his company’s guilt when he said, “Yeah, we knew. Everybody knew, and somehow we all ignored it.” It was only in 2019 that Shell finally opted to leave the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers lobbyist group, citing an incompatible position on climate change as their reason for exiting.
So, it is clear that we need to move away from burning any type of fossil fuel as a matter of urgency. Let’s try a little thought experiment. Imagine you are a world leader that deeply cares about your nation and its people, as we are all sure, our world leaders today do. It is your job therefore to transition your nation away from fossil fuels in a quick fashion in order to avoid planetary collapse. Which of these two courses of action would you take? A) Continue to subsidize fossil fuel companies in order to reduce the cost of their products and increase their consumption, or B) start to remove these subsidies in order to increase their cost and decrease their consumption while subsidizing the new energy sources that will replace oil, gas, and coal to make sure the population can afford them? You would think that most world leaders would opt for option B, knowing that this is the only way to reduce fossil fuel consumption However, this isn’t what is happening.
https://www.commondreams.org/views/...mail&utm_source=Weekly Newsletter&utm_term=AO
