Still skeptical?
In Climate Crisis, we have very much exhausted all discussion points on climate but there are people we have left un-convinced along the way. So where do we go next to still make our case? Well, it’s time to shift our focus to energy in this second part of our guide to talking with skeptics!
The other side of the coin
Energy is the fabric of our modern lives and fossil fuel abundance is what makes us so resilient today in the face of adversity – whether climatic or else.
We have argued that the giant climate crisis in the making is happening precisely because we have used a large portion of fossil fuels’ reserves. But let’s put this aside for now and explore the other side of the coin with this first video:
The more we burn fossil fuel, the more we put ourselves and future generations at the mercy of adversity, with less and less energy as a mean to face it.
Are we really running out of fossil fuels?
That is indeed the first question to tackle to determine if there is even an energy crisis!
This second video provides answers by
- Looking into the mystery of the ever-growing reserves of proved oil,
- Estimating when oil production will peak and
- Examining how many extra years of energy profusion we would gain by replacing oil with other fossil fuels like coal and natural gas.
Managing the decline
The decline of oil production will start in less than a generation and burning all coal, oil & natural gas would only take a short century. Given the timeframe, most people would agree that the better option is to manage the decline. But what exactly does it mean? Well I think it means having the answers to 3 fundamental questions:
- By how much do we need to reduce our consumption?
- How quickly do we need to attain the reduction targets?
- What are the tools we’ll use to get there?
We tackle these three questions in this third video.
There is no quick and easy fix: unlike a problem of local pollutant or even unlike the hole in the stratospheric ozone layer, banishing a few items from our daily lives won’t do the trick because fossil fuels are in everything we do.
Beyond the obvious – airplanes, cars, heating & cooling – fossil fuels are in the food we eat, in the music we listen to, in the coffee we drink in the morning, in web browsing, in the books and newspapers we read. It pretty much says it all when you realize that all plugged electronic devices consume energy even when they are turned off.
The next step is to survey the solutions in consideration today and see if we are indeed heading towards a happy year in 2050.
