Comment by ThomW

2 days ago

"Yes, the planet got destroyed. But for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders.“

101 comments

ThomW

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davidw  2 days ago

And parking is abundant!

toomuchtodo  2 days ago

Clean tech will save the day (low carbon generation, batteries, electrification trajectories and rate of change, broadly speaking), but the global fossil industry will need to be dismantled faster than some will like. It is a matter of survival, not politics or economics. My hunch is there are not many globally who want to suffocate while trying to exist for shareholder value.

slibhb  2 days ago

[flagged]

  • microsoftedging  2 days ago

    Op was referencing a comic [0]

    Furthermore, yes, getting to the point where we're no longer starving and in thatched huts did require fossil fuels, but now we know what they do, and that they're actively having an effect on the environment, and clearly us, are we so stuck in our ways we can't change our actions to secure a life for those that come after?

    [0] https://www.bureauofinternetculture.art/memes/shareholder-va...

    • slibhb  2 days ago

      What difference does it make what they're referencing?

      I'm glad we agree that fossil fuels were necessary. It has nothing to do with "shareholder value" -- it has to do with minimizing human suffering.

      Also, it's noteworthy that US emissions peaked in 2007. We're down ~20% since then. The world is absolutely addressing climate change, and the worst case scenarios have already been avoided. Faster would be better but we're moving reasonably fast.

      8 replies →

  • pluralmonad  2 days ago

    Never heard this take before. Care to elaborate? It seems like crop failure and disease are the typical causes of food shortages, if not outright human logistical failures. Sounds like saying pouring gasoline on a tiny fire is the only reason we aren't cold (ignoring that more firewood would be the solution). An unsustainable solution is not in-fact a good solution. So if your assertion is correct, then we should all prepare for our thatched huts in which we will starve.

    • jmcqk6  2 days ago

      Not the person you're replying to, but I think I can explain it this way:

      The quality of life of a human being is directly related to the amount of free energy (i.e. thermodynamic free energy, not free as in no cost) they have access to. Life must be able to generate more energy than it needs, even tiny bacteria. As humans developed, we found more ways to access and utilize free energy.

      There is a phrase: Energy return on investment (or EROI). You can map the development of humanity pretty cleanly to an increasing EROI over the entire course of our history.

      Fossil Carbon allowed us to explode our EROI and gave us access to never before seen amounts of free energy. Unless we find ways to maintain that EROI, our quality of life will necessarily diminish.

      Obviously we need to cut our use of fossil carbon. And if we don't, we're simply going to run out, and then we'll be stuck anyway. But we also don't have anything with a comparable EROI to replace it with.

      This is the root problem we're facing. If we had working fusion, it would be a whole lot easier to decarbonize.

    • Krutonium  2 days ago

      I think their point is more along the lines of the energy availability of Fossel Fuels allows for the Mass Farming and Construction that we do, not so much that we can pour it on a fire in place of wood.

      1 reply →

    • slibhb  2 days ago

      You clearly haven't given a lot of thought to questions like "where does all this cheap food/housing/heating come from?"

      The fact that fossil fuels -- since their mass adoption in the late 19th century -- are the single largest cause of improved living conditions is standard economic history.

      > An unsustainable solution is not in-fact a good solution.

      It was a perfectly good solution. It replaced wood fires which are clearly worse. Coal was great until natural gas became available. As solar/wind/nuclear become abundant, they are conintuing to displace fossil fuels.

      3 replies →

  • pjc50  2 days ago

    All these things can be true at the same time:

    - fossil fuels have provided huge benefits

    - the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere is causing gradually increasing problems that will eventually become severe in some places

    - a lot of people made a lot of money along the way

    - at some point, some people chose to lie about the problems

    - lying about the problems is morally wrong

    - the transition off fossil fuels will be expensive

    - that is not a sufficient reason not to do it

  • api  2 days ago

    This was true until the advent of nuclear energy, and became very much less true after the addition of solar PV, industrial-scale wind, and Li-Ion (and now Na-Ion) batteries.

    I'd say this statement has been almost entirely false since roughly 2020. The only areas where fossil fuels aren't readily replaceable are long-haul aviation (only a few percent of global emissions) and long-haul shipping (also a few percent). So we can probably cut emissions by 80-90% with no meaningful impact to standard of living.

    At this point the pro fossil fuel position is kind of like "you realize camp fires are why we don't get eaten by lions!" Yes, that was true once.

    BTW the degrowthers are also wrong. We can cut emissions by 80-90% without degrowth.

  • wat10000  2 days ago

    Two things can both be true. Fossil fuels greatly improved quality of life for a large number of people in the past few centuries. And their continued use on a massive scale now threatens to hurt a lot of people.

  • _DeadFred_  2 days ago

    But society needs to progress. We left thatched huts and moved to cities with streets full of human sewage. Humans living together as a society was progress. And then we progressed further and lived together AND removed dumping sewage onto our streets.