by Professor Bob Carter
Control the language, and you control the outcome of any debate
Ten dishonest slogans about global warming, and ten little facts.
Each of the following ten numbered statements reproduces verbatim, or almost verbatim, statements made recently by Australian government leaders, and repeated by their media and other supporters. The persons making these arguments might be termed (kindly) climate-concerned citizens or (less kindly, but accurately) as global warming alarmists. 
Despairing of ever hearing sense from such people, some of whom have already attributed the cause of the devastating Japanese earthquake to global warming, a writer from the well regarded American Thinker has badged them as “idiot global warming fanatics”.
Be that as it may, most of the statements below, self-evidently, were crafted as slogans, and all conform with the obnoxious and dishonest practice of political spin – in which, of course, the citizens of Australia have been awash for many years. The statements also depend heavily upon corrupt wordsmithing with propaganda intent, a technique that international Green lobbyists are both brilliant at and relentless in practising.
The ten statements below comprise the main arguments that are made in public in justification for the government’s intended new tax on carbon dioxide. Individually and severally these arguments are without merit. That they are intellectually pathetic too is apparent from my brief commentary on each.
It is a blight on Australian society that an incumbent government, and the great majority of media reporters and commentators, continue to propagate these scientific and social inanities.
1. We must address carbon (sic) pollution (sic) by introducing a carbon (sic) tax.
The argument is not about carbon or a carbon tax, but rather about carbon dioxide emissions and a carbon dioxide tax, to be levied on the fuel and energy sources that power the Australian economy.
Carbon dioxide is a natural and vital trace gas in Earth’s atmosphere, an environmental benefit without which our planetary ecosystems could not survive. Increasing carbon dioxide makes many plants grow faster and better, and helps to green the planet.
To call atmospheric carbon dioxide a pollutant is an abuse of language, logic and science.
2. We need to link much more closely with the climate emergency.
There is no “climate emergency”; the term is a deliberate lie. Global average temperature at the end of the 20th century fell well within the bounds of natural climate variation, and was in no way unusually warm, or cold, in geological terms.
Earth’s temperature is currently cooling slightly.
3. Putting a price on carbon (sic) will punish the big polluters (sic).
A price on carbon dioxide will impose a deliberate financial penalty on all energy users, but especially energy-intensive industries. These imaginary “big polluters” are part of the bedrock of the Australian economy. Any cost impost on them will be passed straight down to consumers.
It is consumers of all products who will ultimately pay, not the industrialists or their shareholders.
4. Putting a price on carbon (sic) is the right thing to do; it’s in our nation’s interest.
The greatest competitive advantage of the Australian economy is cheap energy generated by coal-fired power stations.
To levy an unnecessary tax on this energy source is economic vandalism that will destroy jobs and reduce living standards for all Australians.
5. Putting a price on carbon (sic) will result in lower carbon dioxide emissions.
Economists know well that an increase in price of some essential things causes little reduction in usage. This is true for both energy (power) and petrol, two commodities that will be particularly hit by a tax on carbon dioxide emissions.
Norway has had an effective tax on carbon dioxide since the early 1990s, and the result has been a 15% INCREASE in emissions.
At any reasonable level ($20-50/t), a carbon dioxide tax will result in no reduction in emissions.
6. We must catch up with the rest of the world, who are already taxing carbon dioxide emissions.
They are not. All hope of a global agreement on emissions reduction has collapsed with the failure of the Copenhagen and Cancun climate meetings. The world’s largest emitters (USA and China) have made it crystal clear that they will not introduce carbon dioxide tax or emissions trading.
The Chicago Climate Exchange has collapsed, chaos and deep corruption currently manifests the European exchange and some US states are withdrawing from anti-carbon dioxide schemes.
Playing “follow the leader” is not a good idea when the main leader (the EU) has a sclerotic economy characterised by lack of employment and the flight of manufacturers overseas.
7. Australia should show leadership, by setting an example that other countries will follow.
Self-delusion doesn’t come any stronger than this.
For Australia to introduce a carbon dioxide tax ahead of the large emitting nations is to render our whole economy to competitive and economic disadvantage for no gain whatsoever.
8. We must act, and the earlier we act on climate change the less painful it will be.
The issue at hand is global warming, not the catch-all, deliberately ambiguous term climate change.
Trying to prevent hypothetical “dangerous” warming by taxing carbon dioxide emissions will be ineffectual, and is all pain for no gain.
9. The cost of action on carbon (sic) pollution (sic) is less than the cost of inaction.
This statement is fraudulent. Implementing a carbon dioxide tax will carry large costs for workers and consumers, but bring no measurable cooling (or other change) for future climate.
For Australia, the total cost for a family of four of implanting a carbon dioxide tax will exceed $2,500/yr* – whereas even eliminating all of Australia’s emissions might prevent planetary warming of 0.01 deg. C by 2100.
10. There is no do-nothing option in tackling climate change.
Indeed.
However, it is also the case that there is no demonstrated problem of “dangerous” global warming. Instead, Australia continues to face many self-evident problems of natural climate change and hazardous natural climate events. A national climate policy is clearly needed to address these issues.
The appropriate, cost-effective policy to deal with Victorian bushfires, Queensland floods, droughts, northern Australian cyclones and long-term cooling or warming trends is the same.
It is to prepare carefully for, and efficaciously deal with and adapt to, all such events and trends whether natural or human-caused, as and when they happen. Spending billions of dollars on expensive and ineffectual carbon dioxide taxes serves only to reduce wealth and our capacity to address these only too real world problems.
Preparation for, and adaptation to, all climate hazard is the key to formulation of a sound national climate policy.
Professor Bob Carter is a geologist, environmental scientist and Emeritus Fellow at the Institute of Public Affairs.
Notes:
*Assuming a tax rate of $25/tonne of CO2, and Australia’s emissions being 550 million tonnes, indicates a total cost of $13.8 billion. Spread across a population of 22 million persons, that equates with $627/person/year.
This essay originally appeared in Quadrant online and was reposted here at the invitation of Dr. Carter
For more information:
Australian Climate Science Coalition
Non-governmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)
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Wombat:
What’s surprising to me is the harm that warmists and supposed environmentalists are willing and eager to do to the environment in the name of CO2-induced global warming.
You insist that CO2 is a pollutant—and cite its reaction with water to produce carbonic acid—yet I presume that you are as happy as many of your colleagues are , to have many millions of tonnes of the aforesaid pollutant buried forever [ you hope], underneath great tracts of our land.
At an international CCS Conference in Melbourne recently, it was admitted that much was still to be learned about the safety of this process, yet the CO2 will be sequestered in close proximity to our Great Artesian Basin—one of the most important features of our continent—and one I presume we really don’t want to render unusable for future Australians.
Presumably, pipelines would crisscross the country to carry the CO2, and I don’t think the Australians who really do care about the environment, will accept that, any more readily than did the German citizens that put a stop to it there—the authorities eventually having to vent the CO2 to the atmosphere.
‘Environmentalists’ are the ones most eager to defile our landscape , and disturb our peace with wind turbines.
No beautiful headlands , ocean views or rolling farmlands are safe from the moneymen of the wind industry, who set farmer against farmer, with offers made to struggling farmers that cannot easily be refused.
Coal seam gas wells appearing whether they like it or not, in the middle of pristine and peaceful farms—sometimes right outside their back doors almost —-have become the terror of our East coast farming families.
Our environmentally-correct government mandates it
And your Gaia-worshipping lot are even prepared to play dangerous geo-engineering games with the systems so little is known about.
With so much still to be known about clouds and the oceans, your AGW friends are gung-ho for pumping massive quantities of chemicals into the atmosphere, and seeding the ocean with iron, amongst other things.
In the mid-70s, the late Stephen Scneider tried to alarm the world about ‘the coming ice age’—so it’s only since then that the energy that has brought us so much prosperity, has become in your eyes this monstrous and irredeemable threat to all humanity and the planet itself.
And your claim [ since you support the warmist view] is that by the late 2000s, the world knew all it needed to know about climate —about the threat of that previously- valued energy—all about CO2—all about the oceans—-the clouds—the winds—the ice—the sun—-the whole earth system—done and dusted—no further research needed or welcome , from any but the select and in sync cabal of scientists who agreed with each other, and built on each other’s work without questioning it—those who deleted emails, fudged graphs, corrupted the peer review process—-those who were part of the ‘consensus’.
Any new research that came to different conclusions, was not to be examined in the interests of truth , but to be desperately ridiculed and its authors demonised—-because the ‘science was settled’—-blinkers on—-mustn’t let any pesky alternative information encroach on that cosy little clique.
I would be ashamed to be supporting a desperate closed shop such as that in any instance——but in the field of science, for heavens sake!
DaveS says:
Norway is hardly a typical case. Where has a big chunk of that economic growth come from? Natural gas. Topography and geology have been very kind to the Norwegians – they can get a lot of their own electricity needs from sensible renewables (hydro – not much impact of carbon tax on that) while growing rich on the proceeds of selling fossil fuels (or however you wish to categorise natural gas) that lie under the North Sea. Lucky them!
and Australia sells fossil fuels and uranium, lucky them as well I would have thought?
Thank you Ross Brisbane for at least noticing. The percentage effectiveness of water vapour, methane and CO2 I first saw in John Daly’s book “The Greenhouse Trap” long years ago. As well he noted the three absorption bands for infrared for CO2 and the gaps between them. If you are at all familiar with Fraunhofer spectral lines which give a signature for elements in distant stars etc you would be aware that this is possible. As this bit of science is able to dispose of the whole CO2 yarn in one hit I have kept a weather eye open for many years for a rebuttal so far without success. The subtraction method of apportioning effectiveness is not quite satisfactory. I still await a convincing rebuttal. Geoff Broadbent
Ross Brisbane:
You’re worried about the ‘real dangers of climate change to following generations’, as we all should be.
But the only way to mitigate that, in your view, is to buy lock stock and barrel—and then regurgitate—the mantras and the propaganda we get from the Australian government and media , to cover up all developments in the science , that present alternative conclusions, and put climate change into a different perspective.
Yours is the star-struck Gaia-worshipping—‘people as pawns or useful idiots’ view.
It’s the view that always purports to honour the earth—future generations—foreigners—anyone but the present wicked generation of Australians.
It’s your cohorts and the elite who misinform you all, who are the real danger to future generations, in my opinion.
They have their global political agenda, and you will allow yourself to be mobilized to help them achieve it.
Don’t you ever ask yourself why the media and the rest of the Left in Australia has made certain that only one side of this issue is ever publicised if they can help it?
That’s propaganda —not information—why are you happy to have these Left wing elites suppress information eg the research of Dr Clive Spash, on the ETS?
Do you not mind at all that a scientist [ and he’s a warmist, not a sceptic], is gagged and censored, and ultimately nudged out of the CSIRO?
Didn’t you think the CSIRO was better than that? I certainly did.
Does it not bother you that ABC presenters [ with no scientific expertise —just a journalism degree if that]were allowed to make the decision to suppress information and discussion about the climategate emails—to keep that information from Australians—with impunity—to make sure Australians would get no information that would dilute the lies and distortions of the official Left/Labor/Greens propaganda?
Why , with all the discussion over the aborted ETS [ or CPRS], has there been almost no reporting at all , and certainly no discussion or debate, even when the ETS was the hottest of topics, of the research of Roger Pielke Jr, who concluded that :
‘ Australian carbon policy proposals present emissions reduction targets that will be all but impossible to meet without creative approaches to accounting as they would require a level of effort equivalent to the deployment of dozens of new nuclear power plants or thousands of new solar thermal plants within the next decade.’
I don’t think the Gillard government or its supporters and the media give a damn about whether the science stands up to scrutiny or not.
I believe they only care about the global political agenda.
I think you probably care about it—but not enough to look into the challenges to the science, and to question the corruption of our democracy that the Left’s strategy requires.
Anyone who really cares about the environment, would want the mitigation of the black carbon that’s responsible for 50% of the Arctic warming, undertaken forthwith.
They’d want it to be the immediate focus—to attempt to stop the melt—but it’s not even mentioned at all in Australia—and the burning that produces it goes on.
Any person who was serious about this moral imperative of our times, as they cast it, would desperately want the science to be scrutinized—and the raw data made available for falsifying or replication..
They would be damning of any scientist who tried to dodge the FOI laws, in order to avoid scrutiny, because they would want everything possible done to get at the truth.
If they believed in CO2-induced GW, they would fiercely guard the integrity of the peer review process, expecting that the AGW science would prevail.
If thy believed in it, they would want inquiries into the conduct of the science to be legitimate and thorough—not shams that a school kid could see through, as they’ve been so far.
And , above all, they would want to establish a climate of trust and respect with the citizens they expect to vote for measures they prescribe—to conserve energy , live sustainably etc.
Doesn’t it bother you that our government’s [ and the media’s ] focus is to shut down the science [ because they want us to think it was settled in the last decade, and there couldn’t possibly be anything else to inform it, even though little is known about so many of the most important aspects of it]—to shut down the flow of information—to attempt to shut down and vilify, any scientist or politician who wants to question ?
That’s totalitarian behaviour—not Australian.
That would be nothing but bad for the ‘following generation’ you’re worried about.
What will help them is a prosperous Australia, so that there’s abundant money available for research into everything—including renewable energy.
An impoverished Australia, and a demoralized populace won’t have the will and the heart—let alone the wherewithal— to get the research done.
Ross Brisbane:
You’re worried about the ‘real dangers of climate change to following generations’, as we all should be.
But the only way to mitigate that, in your view, is to buy lock stock and barrel—and then regurgitate—the mantras and the propaganda we get from the Australian government and media , to cover up all developments in the science , that present alternative conclusions, and put climate change into a different perspective.
Yours is the star-struck Gaia-worshipping—‘people as pawns or useful idiots’ view.
It’s the view that always purports to honour the earth—future generations—foreigners—anyone but the present wicked generation of Australians.
It’s your cohorts and the elite who misinform you all, who are the real danger to future generations, in my opinion.
They have their global political agenda, and you will allow yourself to be mobilized to help them achieve it.
Don’t you ever ask yourself why the media and the rest of the Left in Australia has made certain that only one side of this issue is ever publicised if they can help it?
That’s propaganda —not information—why are you happy to have these Left wing elites suppress information eg the research of Dr Clive Spash, on the ETS?
Do you not mind at all that a scientist [ and he’s a warmist, not a sceptic], is gagged and censored, and ultimately nudged out of the CSIRO, for not taking the ‘correct’ line ?
Didn’t you think the CSIRO that we all fund was better than that? I certainly did.
Does it not bother you that ABC presenters [ with no scientific expertise —just a journalism degree if that]were allowed , on the government payroll, to make the decision to suppress information and discussion about the climategate emails—to keep that information from Australians—with impunity—to make sure Australians would get no information that would dilute the lies and distortions of the official Left/Labor/Greens propaganda?
Why , with all the discussion over the aborted ETS [ or CPRS], has there been almost no reporting at all , and certainly no discussion or debate, even when the ETS was the hottest of topics, of the research of Roger Pielke Jr, who concluded that :
‘ Australian carbon policy proposals present emissions reduction targets that will be all but impossible to meet without creative approaches to accounting as they would require a level of effort equivalent to the deployment of dozens of new nuclear power plants or thousands of new solar thermal plants within the next decade.’
I don’t think the Gillard government or its supporters and the media give a damn about whether the science stands up to scrutiny or not.
I believe they only care about the global political agenda.
I think you probably care about it—but not enough to look into the challenges to the science, and to question the corruption of our democracy that the Left’s strategy requires.
Anyone who really cares about the environment, would want the mitigation of the black carbon that’s responsible for 50% of the Arctic warming, undertaken forthwith.
They’d want it to be the immediate focus—to attempt to stop the melt—but it’s not even mentioned at all in Australia—and the burning that produces it goes on.
Any person who was serious about this moral imperative of our times, as they cast it, would desperately want the science to be scrutinized—and the raw data made available for falsifying or replication..
They would be damning of any scientist who tried to dodge the FOI laws, in order to avoid scrutiny, because they would want everything possible done to get at the truth.
If they believed in CO2-induced GW, they would fiercely guard the integrity of the peer review process, expecting that the AGW science would prevail.
If thy believed in it, they would want inquiries into the conduct of the science to be legitimate and thorough—not shams that a school kid could see through, as they’ve been so far.
And , above all, they would want to establish a climate of trust and respect with the citizens they expect to vote for measures they prescribe—to conserve energy , live sustainably etc.
Doesn’t it bother you that our government’s [ and the media’s ] focus is to shut down the science [ because they want us to think it was settled in the last decade, and there couldn’t possibly be anything else to inform it, even though little is known about so many of the most important aspects of it]—to shut down the flow of information—to attempt to shut down and vilify, any scientist or politician who wants to question ?
That’s totalitarian behaviour—not Australian.
That would be nothing but bad for the ‘following generation’ you’re worried about.
What will help them is a prosperous Australia, so that there’s abundant money available for research into everything—including renewable energy.
An impoverished Australia, and a demoralized populace won’t have the will and the heart—let alone the wherewithal— to get the research done.
Thanks for all your input Professor carter. I’ve been watching you and some of your fellow compatriots for some decades now. Glad I made the right choice through empirical evidence and real science/physics rather than politics and word-smithing (read: LIES!!).
The next time you go on national TV, ensure you have some charts available for the hearing/orthographically impaired – if they even let you display such evidence.
Never forget that, in the Jurassic there was some 10x current CO2 levels, where life clearly thrived and delicate aragonite corals evolved in non-acid oceans – proof of which are those pesky un-dissolved fossils of corals and shellfish cramming our museum shelves and, never a runaway greenhouse – ever.
Congrats bob. Here’s to sanity and REAL evidence [tink].. 😉
Wombat you’re a quambi.
I live in Norway and should point out that the carbon dioxide tax here doesn’t affect electrical energy, since mountainous Norway generates much of it’s electricity by hydro-electric means (that would be the same sort of projects so vocally damned by the Greens during the 70s and 80s when ever the Tasmaniacs planned a new dam). The tax on CO2 is thus detrimental primarily to transport and mobility (perhap one reason why Noggies are so enamoured of spending ferie at home or their mountain hytte?).
The engine of Norway’s economy remains oil and gas, very little is still manufactured in Norway on the grounds of the outrageous cost (though in fairness, high wages are also to blame for that decline). The fact that Norway is a strong supporter of the Gullible Warming scare, speaks volumes; imagine how good for business it is when gullible fools in Germany close power stations burning indigenous coal in favour of gas imported from Norway, ditto for Britain, who also keep Norwegian pension plans afloat by squandering so heavily in subsidising offshore wind energy to the benefit of the neighbours (have a quick search for Sheringham Shoal or Dogger Bank, but see how wind energy in general contributes sweet f/a to a local UK industry).
Norway also researches tidal power, something we could have been doing in the north west coast in the 1990s if not for the intervention of the same Greens who now talk up ‘renewable energy’ (apparently the risk of damage to a few metres of mangrove swamp downstream of the turbine out-weighed the benefit of ‘green’ energy).
The only added cost to consumers of electricity in Norway recently has resulted from purely climatic reasons. That being the recent colder, drier winters and subsequently low storage available for generation. Remind me what the faithful have to say about the affects of Gullible Warming; hotter weather and higher precipitation as I recall hearing ad-nauseum.
Mining activities in Australia may remain theoretically profitable after being emburdoned with a 60M AuD carbon dioxide tax, but not as profitable as they would if moved offshore to Brazil or Mogolia. Once that inevitable occurs, the new gaping hole in the federal budget will require plugging, so the average family of four wouldn’t be better off due to a hypothetical reduction in GST. That’s without contemplating the copious government subsidy for extra wind and solar energy…
The only way food prices have been influenced by gullible warming is upwards thanks to infatuation with bio-fuels.
You seriously believe education is a driver of the Australian economy? Enough to replace mining, even after fees rise to counter the elevated cost imposed directly or indirectly by a tax on thin air? Assuming you specifically mean international students coming to study down under, how do you propose this driver will remain unaffected when those students and their sponsers are faced with a 20% tax on everything?
Aside from green-collar bureaucrats, how do you suppose there is any industrial or long term emploment benefit to Australia? Even if we follow Spain, Germany, Denmark and Britain down the path of ruinous squander in subsidising ‘renewable energy’, there is no on-going benefit to Australian industry; the hardware is manufactured abroad (the unrefined raw materials won’t even come from Australia once the mining industry is driven from the country by this deranged government), the facilities are erected and operated by foreign utilities and energy companies and once constructed, the flash-in-the-pan jobs windfall in the construction industry withers. All that is left to celebrate are more mindless bureaucrats trotting about auditing things and hows does a still more obese parasitic bureaucracy contribute anything actually useful to an economy. The observed statistic in EUssr experience is that for each ‘green job’ created three others are lost. Never mind the jaw slackening cost of subsidies.
Harping about ‘Green Jobs’ is like celebrating the diagnosis of tapeworm.
Praising plans for a Carbon (dioxide) tax is as nonsensical as praising the idea of cutting off your left leg before enrolling in an arse-kicking competition.
“Wombat you’re a quambi.”
Ben, do you realise, you called me a shelter?
“I live in Norway and should point out that the carbon dioxide tax here doesn’t affect electrical energy, since mountainous Norway generates much of it’s electricity by hydro-electric means”
Norway is also the first country to produce tidal power commercially. Without the Carbon tax probably they would have just burnt some of that fossil fuel that is the mainstay of the economy.
And under 300% GDP growth and 12% population growth, a 15% increase in emissions is very mild. It is very likely that the carbon price has contributed strongly to keeping this increase down.
“Remind me what the faithful have to say about the affects of Gullible Warming; hotter weather and higher precipitation as I recall hearing ad-nauseum.”
Globally, that is the expected outcome. Regional effects are expected to vary. So certainly if you think that a dry winter in Norway means that physics is broken, and greenhouse gasses no longer cause a greenhouse effect, then you certainly are gullible.
“Mining activities in Australia may remain theoretically profitable after being emburdoned with a 60M AuD carbon dioxide tax, but not as profitable as they would if moved offshore to Brazil or Mogolia.”
Australian mining does not compete with Brazil or Mongolia for either labour or plant. Plant is constructed on site, and abandoned when the mines close. Brazilians and Mongolians cannot work here unless they have professional expertise in an area that Australia is under-supplied in.
If the opportunity cost of the money spent operating a mine becomes greater than the profit from operating the mine, let it close. The price of every resource in the crust of the earth is increasing, and once it’s gone, it’s gone. The later it’s mined, the better for Australia.
“Once that inevitable occurs, the new gaping hole in the federal budget will require plugging, so the average family of four wouldn’t be better off due to a hypothetical reduction in GST.”
If the money comes in from the CO2 tax, then GST can be reduced. If no money comes in from the CO2 tax, then the family of four isn’t any worse off, because they paid no CO2 tax. If BHP open new mines more slowly, and so less Australians are paying income tax; good, those resources are finite, and Australia won’t always be able to look to the mining industry to keep us in food and water. Let us also look at other industries.
“The only way food prices have been influenced by gullible warming is upwards thanks to infatuation with bio-fuels.”
US subsidies for corn-ethanol, are extremely stupid. Sugar produces fuel at over four times the efficiency, but the US doesn’t like sugar, because it’s communist.
However, the gullible deniers would tell you that the food riots in Haiti, which has exactly zero bio-fuel production, were caused by competition with bio-fuels. In fact global warming is likely to be contributing to famines in Africa and the South East Asia for decades.
“You seriously believe education is a driver of the Australian economy?”
One of our fastest growing exports.
The service sector of the economy, including tourism, education and financial services, constitutes 69% of GDP.
Natural resources constitutes about 5% of GDP. Do you think that mining is a driver of the Australian economy? The education is about ten times that.
“Enough to replace mining, even after fees rise to counter the elevated cost imposed directly or indirectly by a tax on thin air?”
Yes, obviously more than enough to replace mining. You do realise that 69% is more than 5%, don’t you?
“Assuming you specifically mean international students coming to study down under, how do you propose this driver will remain unaffected when those students and their sponsers are faced with a 20% tax on everything?”
It’s not a 20% tax on everything. That would be a GST. We put on a GST. Students kept coming.
“Aside from green-collar bureaucrats, how do you suppose there is any industrial or long term emploment benefit to Australia?”
By increasing investment and infrastructure in renewable, and therefore in the long term, cheaper technologies. This will increase our long term competitiveness.
And, lets face it, there will have to be a global price on carbon at some point; or sanctions against those that don’t. We suspect that the world can’t take 2°C of warming and feed itself, and it might be 1.5°C. Extreme weather events have rendered Australia unprofitable this year already. People will wake up at some point.
“Harping about ‘Green Jobs’ is like celebrating the diagnosis of tapeworm.”
There are many industries that increase the efficiency of the economy, and are better than reliance on a finite resource. Electric Car manufacture. Wind turbine manufacture. Solar energy capture. Biofuel production. Agricultural research and IP.
The oil will run out at some point. You can edge the economy into the new world, and save some biodiversity and arable land while you’re at it, or you can hit the wall hard, when no money can get mineral oil, have all the same problems, magnified by increased demand and reduced time to transition, and have killed most of the world’s ecosystems in the process.
Not that hard a choice, Ben.