The Fossil Fuel Debate

To be frank, I never truly understood what "fossil fuel" meant. I knew what they were (coal, oil, and the like), but I didn't understand why they were called that. Now, I do. Fossil fuels were formed after millions and millions of years of decomposition of organisms and plant material. The uses for these fuels seem endless, but their supply is not. We've burned through millions of years of fossil fuel production in about 200 years. Pretty incredible, you have to admit. To get a sense of just how reliant we are on fossil fuels, check out this video by Post Carbon Institute:

 As a global community, we use 85 million barrels of oil A DAY. The oil companies' agenda to keep drilling is also quite remarkable. "There's plenty of oil, we just need to know where and how to get at it." Their campaign against using corn for ethanol production was really quite something as well.. But even better is the coal's argument that there is such thing as "clean coal" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmVDu_gIpc4). Ok, so there are ways to capture the carbon so as to not release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But to what end? The byproducts and their health and environmental effects of "clean coal" are far worse (these include sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter). So really, is this better? I don't think so, but the coal industry sure does.

There ARE ways to produce environmentally friendly alternative energy sources, but the costs of transitioning over and the opposition to them are impossible to ignore. What, then, is our next step? The Kyoto protocol has expired and we're living in a world where people just can't seem to wake up to the fact that our planet is DYING. We are robbing the earth of it's natural resources all for what? To get the next iPhone? Couldn't we all agree that the world doesn't need another iPhone that looks exactly the same as the last? I will admit that I myself would have a hard time letting go of some of these luxuries, but if it meant being able to know that my grandchildren could live in a world that was on a better path to self-sufficiency and renewability, I'd do it. To believe in fossil fuels as a sustainable energy source is just ridiculous.