The report on climate risks released by ExxonMobil last week was received with a lot of fanfare by the environmental community - after all, here was the largest oil and gas company in the world, evil personified to some, bowing to the demands of a small group of activist investors who wanted an admission of vulnerability to the growing threat of climate change. But the initial sense of hope was quickly dashed to the ground when the report essentially concluded that while climate change was a risk (something the company has maintained for some years now, in itself a step change from the 1990s when it was of the firm opinion that global warming was a load of hot air!), the fact that growing populations around the world would choose their personal tangible economic development over the relatively intangible common threat from climate change made the risk of "stranded reserves" a remote possibility. correction - a very remote possibility. Ergo - there was no real threat that the company - indeed, the world - would need to stop chasing oil and gas reserves to keep its continued economic growth on track.
The reaction from as green a person as Bill McKibben was expectedly one of disgust - but unless he, and a whole bunch of others, are willing to go out there and educate the masses to embrace green energy and accept that a high standard of living does not necessarily equate to large amounts of energy usage, the status quo will not change. This is the underlying premise behind ExxonMobil's view (and something that they are counting on) - that growing economies need large amounts of energy and the company has a duty to go out and help the millions of destitute people around the world find salvation in the form of an oil well. This "civilizing" mission is certainly not unique to ExxonMobil in this day and age - it of course has its roots in the Christian missionaries who, while spreading the gospel in all parts of the world, also found it convenient to open up those countries for exploitation of their natural resources. "Lord, accept this person as your disciple - oh, do I see a large copper mine over yonder?"
Anyway, I digress - a treatise on resource grabbing will require much more than a blog post. What would it take to truly get people to change - move away from fossil fuels, lower their carbon footprint, live sustainably - in short, all of the things that folks like Bill McKibben already know and do? The solution provided almost always comes down to economics - put a price on carbon, tax the living hell out of gasoline, give incentives to people who want to buy an electric car and so on. But since we live in a global economy, a small change in one part of the world could have a massive effect elsewhere. For example, take China's decision to increase electric car sales - that leads immediately to increased mining activity in far away Bolivia, which by far has the world's supply of lithium on its vast salt flats. And economics has its limitations - an increased tax on gasoline does little to hurt the rich, who will easily bear the added burden, and it hits the poor much harder as they might need to forego something more important (like food) in order to keep driving. Yes, you could argue that the poor can benefit from public transport - but unless public transport is reliable and affordable, the poor will invariably get driven to private means of transport, even if that is an aged gas guzzler! My humble opinion is that a change of this nature cannot be forced - it has to come from within, with a full knowledge of the pros and cons. The modern way of life, while definitely a step up from a subsistence way of living, also brings with it a certain paucity of human contact. We get in our cars, drive on roads, sit in cubicles, communicate via electronic devices - all of which takes energy, but leaves us with not much in the way of interacting with other people. Man is a social animal, said Aristotle, and that has not changed in the over two thousand years since he said it. So getting back to the climate risk assessment put forward by ExxonMobil - it is upto each and every person to digest the information and decide how they want to act. There are plenty of vested interests that would cause us to maintain our current thinking about economic growth - but very few that would have us take the road less travelled. There are lone voices and some organizations that are trying to make a difference - but they don't usually get advertising space on TV or a spot on every street corner. Imagine an organization that existed solely to not have you consume anything but to convince you that you were better off without that consumption?
The reaction from as green a person as Bill McKibben was expectedly one of disgust - but unless he, and a whole bunch of others, are willing to go out there and educate the masses to embrace green energy and accept that a high standard of living does not necessarily equate to large amounts of energy usage, the status quo will not change. This is the underlying premise behind ExxonMobil's view (and something that they are counting on) - that growing economies need large amounts of energy and the company has a duty to go out and help the millions of destitute people around the world find salvation in the form of an oil well. This "civilizing" mission is certainly not unique to ExxonMobil in this day and age - it of course has its roots in the Christian missionaries who, while spreading the gospel in all parts of the world, also found it convenient to open up those countries for exploitation of their natural resources. "Lord, accept this person as your disciple - oh, do I see a large copper mine over yonder?"
Anyway, I digress - a treatise on resource grabbing will require much more than a blog post. What would it take to truly get people to change - move away from fossil fuels, lower their carbon footprint, live sustainably - in short, all of the things that folks like Bill McKibben already know and do? The solution provided almost always comes down to economics - put a price on carbon, tax the living hell out of gasoline, give incentives to people who want to buy an electric car and so on. But since we live in a global economy, a small change in one part of the world could have a massive effect elsewhere. For example, take China's decision to increase electric car sales - that leads immediately to increased mining activity in far away Bolivia, which by far has the world's supply of lithium on its vast salt flats. And economics has its limitations - an increased tax on gasoline does little to hurt the rich, who will easily bear the added burden, and it hits the poor much harder as they might need to forego something more important (like food) in order to keep driving. Yes, you could argue that the poor can benefit from public transport - but unless public transport is reliable and affordable, the poor will invariably get driven to private means of transport, even if that is an aged gas guzzler! My humble opinion is that a change of this nature cannot be forced - it has to come from within, with a full knowledge of the pros and cons. The modern way of life, while definitely a step up from a subsistence way of living, also brings with it a certain paucity of human contact. We get in our cars, drive on roads, sit in cubicles, communicate via electronic devices - all of which takes energy, but leaves us with not much in the way of interacting with other people. Man is a social animal, said Aristotle, and that has not changed in the over two thousand years since he said it. So getting back to the climate risk assessment put forward by ExxonMobil - it is upto each and every person to digest the information and decide how they want to act. There are plenty of vested interests that would cause us to maintain our current thinking about economic growth - but very few that would have us take the road less travelled. There are lone voices and some organizations that are trying to make a difference - but they don't usually get advertising space on TV or a spot on every street corner. Imagine an organization that existed solely to not have you consume anything but to convince you that you were better off without that consumption?
No comments:
Post a Comment