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We should not be reliant on fossil fuels for energy, period. There's a mountain of scientific evidence showing that extracting, transporting, storing, and burni
by cs702 4y ago
We should not be reliant on fossil fuels for energy, period. There's a mountain of scientific evidence showing that extracting, transporting, storing, and burning all that poisonous crap is very bad for humankind.
The sooner we move to other sources (fusion (!), solar, wind, etc.), the better for humankind. However, companies that make money from fossil fuels don't want that, and for the past four decades they've had the political and economic cloud to slow down or even stop progress.
We have such "single points of failure" in the global economy because we have allowed market power to become highly concentrated, nationally and globally, without any checks and balances.
- LargeWu 4y agoYou're missing the point a bit. Replace energy with food, water, medicine, microchips, or any other commodities necessary for modern life and the point still stands.
- cs702 4y agoI think I understood the point. The counterpoint I was trying to express, in response, is that this is a consequence of allowing high-concentration of market power in many of those commodities, nationally and globally, without any checks and balances.
- tacitusarc 4y agoReliance on other nations for critical resources is a separate concern from technological mechanisms for acquiring those resources, even if the later may help solve the former.
- cs702 4y agoI think reliance on highly-concentrated markets (globally/nationally) for any critical resource is the bigger issue.
- throwaway894345 4y agoYes, but this is entirely at odds with globalization. A primary reason we outsource production to developing countries is to exploit their lack of regulation (including environmental regulation). If the UK transitions to green energy, they’re not subject to Putin, but they’re still subject to Xi and they are still contributing substantially to emissions. Moreover, transitioning to green energy will probably create reliance on rare earth metals and other minerals that will likely be controlled by despots.