Upon the discovery of our environment's degradation, Humanity has been forced to grapple
with the question of how do we change our methods of living so as not to destroy the
environment we depend upon? But as troubling as this question is, it's not the one our
civilization should be asking itself. Rather, how do we change our methods of living without
obstructing the people who depend upon it? This irony, although absent from research, is
unignorable when considering the current state of climate-friendly resource usage in the
modern day. Simply put, adopting environmentally friendly practices can unintentionally
compromise the livelihoods of many people.
This dynamic explains why legislation to reduce the environmental impact of unsustainable
fuel sources stalls in governments around the world. adopting a renewable energy grid
would put tens to hundreds of thousands of working professionals in the fossil fuel industry
out of a job. The economic impact of which would be troublesome, to say the least. But this
is considering a developed economy which can easily adjust. Many undeveloped or
underdeveloped nations rely on fossil fuels as the single principal economic driver of their
economy (the so-called “Petro-states”). As such, shifting away from these fuels globally
would destroy their economies and cause mass su ering. This happened to Venezuela in
the 1980s, when cheaper sources of refined oil were discovered elsewhere and major oil
companies abandoned their sites there. This resulted in putting millions out of a job and
driving the local business ecosystem to the brink. Today, Venezuelans grapple with food
insecurity, inflation, and a corrupt authoritarian government.
Moving away from fossil fuels doesn't even consider the setbacks of restructuring almost a
century and a half worth of infrastructure. If you have or know someone with a gas stove in
their home, they will be forced to replace it. The regional power grid that allows an
individual resident to live an e icient and interconnected life will have to function at
reduced capacity as its gas turbines get replaced with solar panels. A further concern is the
very high expenses these kinds of renovations accumulate, which we are uncertain what
members of our society would even hypothetically cover. There are many that believe the
companies responsible for producing and supplying the resources which are destroying the
environment should foot the bill. For those who consider this our best option, I bid you luck
going to National Grid headquarters to inform them that they need to throw out their entire
business model while financing changes to the entire energy grid. Of course, they’ll bluntly
point out that they would go out of business. If they don’t laugh at you first.
Moreover, most of the renewable energies aimed at not harming the environment end up
doing the exact opposite. How can you claim you're reducing your state/town/nations'
carbon footprint if you're chopping down the one thing designed to deal with atmospheric
carbon? Yet this is the policy adopted by many governing bodies to showcase their
devotion to the environment, replacing one crippling issue with another. An even worse
example is electric car batteries. Electrification of transport vehicles promises to provide a
similar everyday transit experience to that of gas-powered ones while being
environmentally safe. But that statement is false, as many fail to consider the dangerous
techniques required to dispose of the internal batteries. In order for a true positive change
to occur the world must consider who, not what, it benefits.