By Brum rebel Budah
When we have a shift in technology, it’s because we’ve found a more efficient, more convenient way of doing something. In the days of old, we used oxen power to move our machinery. This was neither convenient nor efficient. Then we invented steam power and we could power anything, Hurrah for wonderful steam! Those big old locomotives were fast and beautiful, but only about six percent efficient. You had to chuck in an awful lot of coal to make that steam. Then came the internal combustion engine with its amazing 30% efficiency. Hurrah for the wonderful internal combustion engine!
Today we have electric motors with 95% efficiency and freely available cheap energy to run them. This sounds like good news if you make electric vehicles but it doesn’t sound so good if you are involved in the oily industries. They have many trillions of dollars invested in pipelines, tankers, rigs and refineries for their dirty product. They have a real problem. A new and much better technology is now available and they have an obsolete product on their hands.
Are they going to quietly shut their businesses down and walk away with heads held high?
Nah.
This is why our media is full of horror stories about the downright dangerous electric vehicles, the nasty old bat murdering wind turbines and those filthy photovoltaic panels. They are using FUD. Fear, uncertainty and doubt. The same sort of tactics that the Cigarette industry used when they were accused of causing lung cancer.
There is big big money to be made by keeping the world hooked on their grubby product so we can be sure that they won’t give up without doing everything they can. This includes lobbying the decision makers to ensure that the changeover to electricity will be as slow as possible. It will eventually happen but our implacable enemy won’t give up easily and our glorious leaders will never bite the hands that feed them.
At the recent COP, the number of lobbyists exceeded the number of delegates. We all know that oil
has to go but there was not one word in all the pages of their final report about even reducing our
use of fossil fuels. Exxon Mobil, B.P etc all pay large sums to the political parties on both sides. There
is reason behind this generosity. Politicians are no different to anybody who is given a bribe, they do
what their donors want.
Where does this leave us? Up a creek sans paddle.
Actually we do have a paddle, it’s the power of numbers. If we add up all the people who are
involved in Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, Unions, XR, JSO and Friends of the long eared bat, then we become an unstoppable force. Uniting with others is what we need to do and I’m glad to know that it’s alreadystarted.
We all know that our governments work hand in glove with the giant corporations. Like a bundle of
sticks held together by a rope, they move together. The Latin word for such a bundle is Facista. Hitler
and Mussolini worked very closely with big industries like Bayer and Coca Cola. So we need to be
vigilant when governments and industry get together.
