I find this really frustrating, because I feel like it’s a co-option by oil and gas of the word “energy” for green-washing.
Here’s the thing: I am hugely pro-energy, in that I believe our society runs on energy, and that all things being equal, we can improve our quality of living, and address huge numbers of problems in the world with the application of cheap to free energy. Imagine a hypothetical world where fusion has become common place and the cost of electricity has dropped to approximately zero per kWh. Think about the way that world can work:
- We can eliminate the scarcity of fresh water by deploying desalination.
- We can harvest minerals from ocean water, reducing the need for mining.
- We can literally pull carbon dioxide from the air.
None of this “pro-energy” position makes me a supporter of oil and gas for energy. I think this conflagration of oil and gas with “energy” makes real harms, and is worth fighting against.
The biggest harm I think that comes from conflating energy with oil and gas is that people naturally then assume that if one isn’t supporting oil and gas, they’re advocating for scarcity: A contraction in living standards on all dimensions.
When we talk about sustainability, environmentalism, and action on climate change, mostly we hear about how we need to radically reshape our lives. I am terrified that is 100% right; I like my life, and I would like to keep living it. Let’s think ambitious for a moment (far more ambitious than is realistic — let us build some hope here). Take a peek at this amazing diagram from the World Resources Institute, where they draw the flows from sector to production of greenhouse gasses (slightly dated, as it was generated from 2003 data for the USA).
Of the end-use column in this, look at how little is inherently dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. Would it be easy to replace all this energy with sustainable resources? Heck no! Yet, I look at the diagram and I find an enormous sense of comfort: It’s not impossible to radically alter the emissions output of a huge industrialized nation like the USA. Sure, it’s a political nightmare; but the fact of the matter is: Almost nothing on that chart is intrinsically dependent on taking fossil fuels out of the ground and burning them for energy. That’s fantastic news.
Imagine a Thanos-like snap: We could stop worrying about climate change if we got rid of all the use of fossil fuels in that energy section. The world wouldn’t be a Star Trek-like utopia, and we’d still have problems galore (inequality, poverty, racism, sexism, war, and more), but, no one would necessarily have to lose the quality of living they’ve become accustomed to. In this Snap, of course we need to have a just transition for those whose livelihoods currently depend on oil and gas, but we need that in the real world too!
I feel that’s something we need to remind people of. Climate change is terrifying, and I feel like a lot of coverage and writing on it is causing people to freeze up. Only naturally, people want to protect what they have, and it seems like to battle climate change what is being asked of them is to give it all up, and live on a commune. Taking off my optimists hat for a second, I think most plans that take world emissions rates low enough to avoid 1.5 degrees of warming will be painful. Putting my hat back on, I think a huge amount of that pain is because we have allowed fear to rule, which means that we don’t consider the positive possible outcomes. I think a lot of people who fight action on climate change do it because they’re scared of what it means to them personally, something I totally sympathize with, but I believe we need to be fighting that. We need to give everyone hope that the future includes them, and their lives. It’s not something I think we’re very good at yet.
Returning to my original thesis, giving people hope means disconnecting “energy” from oil and gas. We need to be pro-energy in the sense that we need to produce large amounts of clean energy throughout the world, to help create prosperous society that limits our impact on the non-human aspects of the globe. We need to recognize that as much as climate change is a dangerous challenge to humanity, it’s also an opportunity to build a richer society that nevertheless ultimately has a lower impact on the globe. I think that’s worth fighting for.