Fossil fuels kill more people than Covid. Why blind to the harms of oil and gas?

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/feb/28/fossil-fuels-kill-more-people-than-covid-why-are-we-so-blind-to-the-harms-of-oil-and-gas

by gardenfelder • 3 years ago

9 7 3 years ago

theguardian.com

red-iron-pine• 3 years ago

because they're the largest firms in the world with fingers in everything, to include media outlets.

plus there is a clear trade off -- someone is dying from it, but the world is benefitting via plastics goods, travel, imports, etc.

gus_massa• 3 years ago

On the other hand, if we are lucky and we go to covid-19 zero in a year everyone will be happy, but if we go to fossil fuel zero in a year everyone will complain that the electricity bill doubled.

aquarium872• 3 years ago

You underestimate what happens without oil. First, every tree in the world will be cut down, except perhaps the Amazon. Then billions will starve as there is no fertilizer or transportation. The cities collapse, sending hoards of refugees seeking food to raid farms.

In short, everyone becomes a killer or dies. And gun toting small scale agriculture becomes the norm.

Around this time the world's wood will be exhausted, and only the middle latitudes will be habitable.

No mining will take place. No chemicals for purification. No new green energy. No new batteries.

Etc etc. Etc.

rnosov2• 3 years ago

I think the answer is a lack of large scale storage mechanism for renewables. Perhaps, synthesising ammonia from renewable hydrogen could be a potential solution.

aquarium872• 3 years ago

Covid doesn't help people. Oil and gas can be thanked for everything in the modern world including medicine, infrastructure, GDP, etc etc etc.

Billions would die if oil and gas all of a sudden stopped coming out of the ground.

That someone would write such a vapid headline is disheartening. That there is a target audience for this is disheartening.

The world truly is getting dumber, and it's time to just splinter into future haves and future have nots.

Can you imagine a world map split ideologically based on capitalism VS socialism rather than ethnic lines?

rnosov2• 3 years ago

I think the point they make is that emissions from oil and gas industry are as deadly as Covid. Medicine, infrastructure, GDP all existed before we started to exploit large scale fossil fuel deposits. It would make our civilisation a lot more sustainable in the long run if we could mainly rely on renewables.

sharemywin• 3 years ago

There is no capitalism/socialism only mixed economies.

Even in highly socialist countries black markets exist.

Fossil fuels kill more people than Covid. Why blind to the harms of oil and gas?

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