Phasing Out Fossil Fuels—By When?
The other day I wrote a post suggesting that the timeframe associated with the G7’s decision to phase out fossil fuels by the year 2100, 85 years from now, was “an eternity.” Now, I’m a guy who enjoys good writing (as well as people who agree with me), and so I had to applaud this article that includes:
How old will you be 85 years from now? Oh, right. You’ll be dead. Me too. I doubt 134 will be the new 30 at the turn of the next century. No one writing this accord will get to personally declare the world’s energy matrix fossil-free. Probably none of their children either.
Punting to a generation not yet born isn’t leadership. Real to-do lists are doable during your own lifespan.
Did Abraham Lincoln promise when he delivered the Emancipation Proclamation that all enslaved people would be free by 1948?
When the Supreme Court demanded an end to the segregation of American schoolchildren with all deliberate speed, did the justices add “so get it over and done with before 2039 rolls around”?
And when Ronald Reagan shouted in Cold War-weary Berlin “Tear down this wall,” did he elaborate with the words: “no later than the year 2072”?
No, no, and no.
Wow, that’s terrific use of the language, IMO.
There are many who resist necessary changes like this – some out of respect or devotion for a past real or imagined, some out of private interest in the status quo, some for ideological reasons, some out of unwitting adherence to propaganda, and and some out of honest misapprehension.
People often ask, “Who’s going to pay for it?” My response: “We’re all going to pay (or our children are) – either now in money, or later in blood.” The time to pay money is still ticking away.
Well said, as always. And I argue that cleantech (renewable energy in particular) will be regarded as the defining industry of the 21st Century. We’re only hurting ourselves by resisting it as the rest of the world jumps in with both feet.