Start Date: August 25, 2023
There is a notion that if you want people to pursue your line of thinking that it is best to “lead by example” to guide their behavior. Unfortunately with many of the rich and powerful or simply fixated, it is usually more “Do as I say, not as I do.” I am inclined to take the “lead by example” notion and reduce it to the saying from childhood, “You first”. It tended to apply to a scary dare or something otherwise objectionable.
So in that spirit. If you want to ban fossil fuels to “save the planet”.
Well. YOU FIRST !
Yes this means no private jets, no yachts, no limousines. It also means no planes at all. Not commercial, first class or coach. Not even Southwest or Spirit or JetBlue. They all use fossil fuel.
Also you probably won’t be on a boat unless it is a wooden sailboat that you made by hand without power tools and can get it into the water without powered transportation. Then fine.
You can’t ride a train and you can’t have a car. Definitely not an electrical car. They generate more carbon emissions to manufacture than combustion engines as well as destroying 3rd world environments and encouraging slave labor for all of the requisite mining. They continue to require some further fossil fuels to ship and to charge. So none of that.
You must not purchase any product which was manufactured with fossil fuels, so pretty much everything. Also you will have to give up anything that has to be transported to you using fossil fuels. The phrase “locally sourced” will now have to apply to everything you have or use.
You won’t have any truly reliable source of power. The battery tools are not only more expensive and less useful, they also still require electricity. A very long time ago someone wrote “Yes Virginia, There is a Santa Claus”. Sadly “No Virginia, There is no electricity fairy.” Electricity is produced primarily from coal and natural gas. The are options for hydroelectric power which is not fossil fuel based but does depend on the rain and water levels. Then of course there is nuclear power, which requires no fossil fuels, except as needed to mine and process uranium.
In mining country they tend to understand the basics. But in NY state use of coal, perhaps the dirtiest fossil fuel, soared as a result of closing non-fossil fuel nuclear power plants [1].
Washington state is considering breaching four dams to increase the salmon population. So more salmon but less green hydroelectric power [2].
CA produces some solar energy. But to meet its power needs it imports more energy than any other state, between 1/5 and 1/3 of its electricity, including that generated from coal and natural gas [3].
Pursue these allegedly environmental policies to their end and you achieve nihilism. The salmon may thrive but the human population won’t do so well.
Also there will be no large backup generators. They use natural gas. In 2023 Los Angeles had an unplanned incident when a hospital had a complete power blackout, including backup generators. The county Fire Dept. had to evacuate over 200 patients in its Specialty Care Center. Some were on ventilators. It was deemed a “very large scope emergency [4] .
You will have to depend on organic everything as synthetic fertilizers are made with the use of natural gas. You may think that is grand. But as I noted in my post “Death by Natural Causes”[5], fertilizer was invented because we had reached the limit of people who could be supported on the Earth by organic farming, as it has much lower yield. So you, or your family will elect amongst you who will starve so the rest may live. If you think “Survivor” is an interesting reality show, wait until It becomes true reality.
You could try to join the old order Amish. They use horses and buggies and no power tools. No electricity is allowed. You will need to stay in farm country on dirt roads because asphalt is a viscous form of petroleum.
In fact there are hundreds, actually thousands, of products made from petroleum, such as soap, paint, fertilizer, candles, roofing, shampoo, toothpaste, glasses and contact lenses, and anesthetics. Also most medications are made from petrochemicals. I think even the Amish use soap and candles. So you will have to regress a bit further [6].
In my post, “Last Ones Standing” [7] I considered how and who would survive a major interruption of the increasingly frail and overtaxed electrical grid.
Perhaps you are “the right stuff” to live without electrical power. After all Versailles, the Renaissance, the Roman Empire, Periclean Athens, and Pharaonic Egypt all got by without it. We wouldn’t be here if they didn’t. But if you are a true believer you have to go one step further. And it is a big one. You have to give up wood fire.
You see one of the great elements of divine, or natural if you wish, order is that humans inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. Conversely photosynthetic trees exhale oxygen and intake carbon dioxide. Consequently, if you burn wood you release carbon dioxide stored in the trees. In fact for purposes of electricity wood emits more carbon dioxide than coal [8] .
The earliest use of controlled fire is estimated to date back roughly 1 million years [9]. Hominids existed but humans didn’t appear until a few hundred thousand years ago.
Congratulations! Work on your hunter-gatherer skills.
Your are now a CAVE MAN living in the EARLY STONE AGE.
I am sure that I can’t do it. But if you think that will make the world a better place.
Well , “You First”!”
REFERENCES
[1] Zambito, Thomas C., “NY’s fossil fuel use soared after Indian Point plant closure. Officials sound the alarm”, July 22, 2022, https://www.lohud.com/story/news/2022/07/22/new-york-fossil-fuels-increase-after-indian-point-nuclear-plant-shutdown/65379172007/
[2] Leggate, James, “Washington Dam Removal Would Cost Billions to Replace Related Services, Report Says”, ENR Northwest, June 13, 2022, https://www.enr.com/articles/54284-washington-dam-removal-would-cost-billions-to-replace-related-services-report-says. ]
[3] U.S. Energy Information Profile, April 20, 2023, https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=CA#:~:text=A%20California%20law%2C%20enacted%20in,expected%20to%20end%20by%202026.&text=California%20imports%20more%20electricity%20than%20any%20other%20state
[4] “LAFD transferred over 200 patients during hospital power outage”, EMS1, August 22, 2023, https://www.ems1.com/hospital/articles/lafd-transferred-over-200-patients-during-hospital-power-outage-lLJY6m1zWfI8zGg0/
[5] https://notcommonsense.com/death-by-natural-causes/
[6] Helmenstine, Anne, “Petrochemicals in Medicine”, February 21, 2018, Updated January 1, 2022, https://sciencenotes.org/petrochemicals-in-medicine/#:~:text=Drugs%20Rely%20on%20Petrochemistry&text=Petrochemicals%20cumene%2C%20phenol%2C%20benzene%2C,often%20purified%20using%20petrochemical%20resins
[7] https://notcommonsense.com/last-ones-standing/
[8] Helmer, Jodi, “No, Burning Wood Fuels Is Not Climate-Friendly”, NRDC, March 28, 2022, https://www.nrdc.org/stories/no-burning-wood-fuels-not-climate-friendly#:~:text=%E2%80%9CAt%20the%20smokestack%2C%E2%80%9D%20says,driven%20environmental%20policies%2C%20finds%20that
[9] “Evidence that human ancestors used fire one million years ago”, University of Toronto, April 2, 2012, https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/04/120402162548.htm