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"Ending the use of fossil fuel technologies is the only way to tackle the
climate emergency we have created.Let’s be clear: burning coal, oil and gas got
us into this mess, and the only way to get out of it is to stop doing so.
The chronology of the climate emergency runs parallel to the exploitation of
fossil fuels as our primary energy source. The oil companies have lied about
this for decades, but increases in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere follow the
progress of industrialization, and get worse and worse as we introduce
multiplicative technologies such as the automobile.
As of today, power generation by fossil fuels such as coal, oil or gas is
responsible for the climate disaster, followed immediately by transportation.
Privately owned cars are the main source, mainly because they are tremendously
inefficient and, above all, because there are so many of them, but we cannot
ignore airplanes and ships. What’s more, 40% of all products transported by
large ships are oil, coal or gas, so if we were to stop using these products,
we would immediately reduce a very significant part of the pollution generated
by these large ships.
How realistic is it to stop using fossil fuels? Obviously, doing so overnight
would trigger a global crisis and starve millions of people, but a gradual
phasing-out and leaving a significant part of our reserves in the ground is
increasingly seen as realistic by a significant part of the business world.
In fact, more than 130 companies, among them Astra Zeneca, Ikea, Nestlé,
Unilever and Volvo, have just signed a declaration calling on world leaders to
phase out fossil fuels, which will be presented at the upcoming climate summit
in Dubai. The signatories say they are “taking action and actively working
towards phasing out their use of fossil fuels,” adding the caveat that they
“cannot make this transition safely or efficiently on their own,” and so are
calling on heads of state to set policies that will accelerate the use of
renewable energy.
The simple truth is that we have all the technologies necessary to carry out
this technological transition and consign fossil fuels, as directly responsible
for the climate emergency, to the oblivion of history, to the archive and
closure of that era that has come to be called the Pyrocene, the era in which
we humans dedicated ourselves to burning things non-stop."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
