by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The economy of the western world – and this includes the likes of Australia and New Zealand in this equation – and basically with it the entire global economy is based on an unsustainable foundation.
While oil may not be at peak, as yet, as stated by some geologists in the oil field an d may not even reach this peak that is always spoken of for another century or so even, the fact remain that the basis of our (global) economy is not sustainable and that on more than one level.
And we are not just talking about oil. We are talking fossil fuels in general.
Coal is dirty and no amount of greenwashing can turn it into “clean coal” and that is just with regards to emissions and pollution.
The way that coal is being extracted, in the USA especially, as an example, via mountaintop removal is a sacrilege to the environment and must be abandoned forthwith.
Aside from the fact that coal is running out or becomes too expensive, in many aspects, to bring to the surface, the use of coal should and must be terminated.
This will not please the coal barons in the same way that other suggestions that will be made in this essay will not please the oil barons either and neither those that get their political funding from that lobby, in the USA and elsewherte.
Oil too is on its last legs – as regards supplies, probably, even if it may last for another hundred year or so, as the geologists stated – and it is definitely not sustainable as fuel, same as coal.
On the other hand oil is a substance much needed for other things, other than burning it up as an energy source, and we, therefore, should and must conserve it for those uses.
Fat chance of that, though, of that we can be certain. Oil producing nation s and the oil industry and its fat cats will never allow this to happen.
Once the oil industry was just in bed with government but nowadays the oil industry is the government, in the US for definitely, and controls all aspects of government.
The oil industry was it also that has prevented us getting alternative energy sources developed.
Fore G-d's sake, scientists have been talking about the dangers of the use of oil ever since the end of the 1890s and at a conference in London in 1941 wave, solar, wind, etc. was proposed on a large scale as the only thing that could prevent problems. The River Severn Barrage was being suggested already then. And how far have we come?
At the end of the 1800s and the beginning of the 1900s electric cars where about that we re far heavier than today; they were but horseless farm wagons fitted with very heavy batteries, that had a greater range and greater speed and charged much faster than anything that we can produce today as far as the electric car is concerned. Now why is that?
Simple. Every design of those days has been lost – on purpose. The oil industry saw to that.
The first electrical power stations were designed to run on sewage gas but those were change to run on oil on pressure of the oil industry and on coal.
Now you know who we have to thank for the problems we are in today. The coal and oil barons and corrupt and spineless politicians. Time people stood upp and did things themselves.
It is for the very reason of the power which the fossil fuel lobby has over government, both the coal and the oil one, that, despite the conference of 1941 called “Science and World Order” in London, suggested wave power applications, among them the River Severn Barrage, which still has gotten nowhere, solar, wind, etc,. and that well before solar voltaic cells, renewable energy is basically still in its very infancy.
Had development started just after that conference, and suggestions were put forward even before that, we might have a different kind of economy today, one based on renewable energy, and we would not be in the precarious situation that we find ourselves in as regards to our polluted Planet, the only life sustaining Planet in the universe. Please note: there is no Planet B.
The fossil fuel economy is not sustainable and we are committing mass suicide if we continue down that path and do not stop burning coal and oil.
It is pollution that is killing life that personally worries me more than any CO2 emission, for instance. We can deal with the CO2 by planting more trees and forests and by managing the existing ones properly and better, plus a few other things such as restoring soil health, in addition to cutting emissions.
The dangerous pollution from the burning of fossil fuels that affects life, and our greed that kills species, is what is a great threat to Mother Earth.
What good is a cooler Planet when the eco-systems have collapsed and can no longer support life, human and non-human?
Therefore I see the priority being the one of weaning ourselves and our economy off fossil fuels in order to get rid of the pollution of the air that we breathe and other aspects of that, including acid rain; the latter being something that greatly harmed and harms trees and entire forest eco-systems in Europe and elsewhere.
Individual trees in towns and cities, and trees in parks, suffer greatly from the effects from the exhaust fumes of cars and trucks and often die prematurely, some never reaching any age at all.
Alone for reasons of health of humans and non-humans alike, including plants, must we reduce, cut, and then let go entirely of the burning of fossil fuels.
What was the old famous and infamous London fog? It was no real fog at all but an acrid smog that caused the death of untold people and ever since the “Clean Air Act” when the burning of coal was banned in the Greater London area London has not had any such killer pea-souper again. This proves the point that the burning of coal is not clean, not by a long shot, and neither is the burning of fuel oil.
I am no scientist but have common sense enough to see that had we not, because of political pressure brought to bear by the vested interest people, and they are still at it to this very day and behind many of the so-called grassroots movements that object to wind turbines being erected, wasted decades we would not be facing the environmental disasters that we have before us today.
Scientists have warned as too the burning of fossil fuels and the dangers associated with it and the fact that they are but finite resources ever since about the later 1890s but politicians were deaf to those warnings.
The coal and oil lobby threatening them were too loud to be overheard and the drowned out all the warnings, and it all had to do and still has to do with money (for the politicians) and profits (for the companies); the health of the people and the Planet never even entered their thoughts.
But to only blame the capitalist system probably would be wrong as well. The socialist countries did not much better either, at least not the big ones and when we look at Hugo Chavez of Venezuela today who, claiming to be socialist, uses the oil in his political shenanigans like few other people.
In order for all of us to be able to survive on Mother Earth we have to get away, for starters , from burning fossil fuels, whether in furnaces or motorcars, and look at alternative ways. They exist and if we could but find some of the old plans for the electric cars of then we might just be able to learn something.
Our entire economy needs changing and weaned off fossil fuels and that fast; much faster than some would like it, but... So, let's stop dithering.
© 2009
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