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B . L O G

[ 2022.05.14 ] Building a shiny shrine of deception with fossils of muddy green
MESSAGE 0024: BEGIN
Log author: by Amenoum
Log date: 2022.05.14
A couple of days ago Guardian published the results of a research about plans and investments of biggest fossil fuel firms. The result - all of them are investing heavily into new fossil fuel production, aiming to spend $103 million per day for the rest of the decade on these projects. On top of that, they have developed project options that could lead them to spend additional $84 million per day. If all that oil is burned it would increase global average temperature to almost 3° C above pre-industrial (1850-1900) levels - not counting the feedback emissions, which are increasing exponentially with increase in CO2. Taking these into account, the increase will be 4° C at least. These companies were always at the top of the richest companies in the world, and with current surge in oil prices they became even more valuable - Saudi Aramco has recently overtaken Apple as the most valuable company in the world. They are earning so much money that it is unlikely the additional options will not be realized. They knew about climate change before anyone else and they were counting (betting) on it so they can drill in the Arctic - these plans have not changed (they have even grown). Despite all the climate policies and hype about renewables, it's still business as usual for fossil fuel industry. Apart from having large influence on politics in democratic capitalism, you can be sure that these companies did a thorough research on the current and future state of the world and its technology - so if they're betting against humanity halting global warming you can also be sure it's a pretty safe bet.
For a lot of us, this is not surprising. Polarized people instinctively seek short-term profit, it's in their nature, and nature of beings cannot be changed easily - it requires transformation of consciousness which is likely predetermined to happen only for a small part of human population in the current generation.
It is not only the price of oil that is rising - among other things, the prices of lithium, cobalt and nickel are rising and so the price of batteries and electric vehicles have to rise too. Demand for lithium will only rise and, to prevent prices rising even more, new mines will be required. This is a problem with current technology due to water requirements - ≈2000 tons of water are required to extract 1 ton of lithium. In places like Nevada (which has lithium deposits) one would have to choose between spending water on mining and spending water on farming (it is currently used for farming). For local residents at least, food (and water!) should be more important than batteries. The price of oil (if taxes on oil don't increase) should be falling with all these new projects while the price of batteries could be increasing. But imagine what will happen if (or, more likely, when) China enters the 3rd world war. It surely won't be fighting against Russia. At that point, you can totally forget about cheap solar panels and cheap technology in general (cheap technology and food will be limited to China and Russia, although, Chinese and Russian people may not enjoy it much due to fear of nuclear weapons). You will then have a choice - to sacrifice your lifestyle or go back to cheap oil and gas. So... yeah - everyone goes back to oil and prays it's enough for one man (ie. Jesus) to sacrifice his lifestyle. Again. And that's how you get hell on Earth. While the Earth has mechanisms of self-regulation, the man has destroyed much of these mechanisms on its surface and is still destroying them. So there will be no global regulation of temperature (cooling down to sustainable average). The future is, thus, not abundantly green, but abundant with decay fueled by fossils of green. Neutral people should, however, be able to survive this hell. And for that, I recommend to start increasing local diversity of greenery and start burying your house.
If you really are neutral or non-cancerous for Earth, I believe god [Earth] will provide water for that greenery. In my case, god did provide - the land periodically ruptures, storing rainwater in shallow underground reservoirs, but there seems to be pressure periodically building deeper below too.
MESSAGE 0024: END