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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsFuture historians -- if there are any future historians, that is, if civilization doesn't collapse --
Future historians if there are any future historians, that is, if civilization doesn't collapse will be astonished that we let the planet burn for the sake of an industry that employs less than 3 percent of workers even in West Virginia
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femmedem
(8,187 posts)My fury at him will never die.
Irish_Dem
(45,618 posts)hunter
(38,263 posts)...even here on DU.
We could probably ban fossil fuels in fifteen or twenty years but most people, including the renewable energy enthusiasts, are still in denial about global warming.
Coal is no longer the most dangerous fossil fuel because most people understand it's dirty. They've seen pictures of strip mines and ash pond failures, they've smelled the smoke from coal power plants.
The fossil fuel that will end the world as we know it is natural gas because most people still think it's an acceptable alternative to coal. It's not.
paleotn
(17,778 posts)Phasing out for most transportation needs that is. Petroleum is a very useful material and not just to put in our gas tanks. Same with nat. gas.
hunter
(38,263 posts)When natural gas is used to make nitrogen fertilizers, for example, the carbon ends up in the atmosphere.
When petroleum is used to make plastics that are later incinerated, the carbon ends up in the atmosphere.
We have to block all industries that turn natural gas, petroleum, and coal into materials, especially fuels, that will end up as greenhouse gasses.
For any process that requires carbon based chemicals, including fuels, we need to create an industry that synthesis them using carbon dioxide captured from the atmosphere or sea water.
The most minimal fossil fuel use by 8 billion humans still overwhelms natural carbon cycles and leads to increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide.
If we took this problem seriously, recognizing fossil fuel use as a threat just as dire as Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan was in the past, then yes, we could shut down the entire fossil fuel industry in fifteen or twenty years.
The odds of us setting that kind of deadline any time soon are not good. Things will have to get a lot worse before most people recognize the problem. It will probably take something horrendous like the extinction of a major city obviously caused by global warming.
Binkie The Clown
(7,911 posts)We just don't have renewable capacity yet to replace coal.
Look at what's happening in China right now.
fescuerescue
(4,448 posts)After we have ran out of oil, uranium, rare earth metals (solar, wind).
The last of humanity will be huddled around coal fires.
But they won't be historians. They will be hunter/gathers