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If we really want to split hairs over money, how much would it cost to replace Earth?

Like c'mon, we're really gonna incinerate our own biosphere over some money? Shouldn't this be a problem to tackle, spare no expense?

In the 19th century the fossil fuels justnlying around might have been more accessible (but at this point most of the world lived without them), but since the middle of last century it has been concerted effort to externalise the costs and widely documented conspiracy and violence used to destroy alternatives with externalised benefits.

Electrified rail (even if running on coal) uses a few % of the fossil fuels of trucks + roads, but top-down decisions by governments on the take were made to dismantle rail.

Same with trolley busses and trams.

Just building houses slightly taller and closer together reduces oil consumption by about 50%, but that was literally banned because it makes everyone owning a car impossible.

Wind + pumped hydro has been an option since the 40s (much cheaper than coal + lung disease), and would have come down the cost curve with even a tiny fraction of the subsidies fossil fuels get. The first large scale wind farm was abandoned because it cost 60% more than unfiltered, acid-rain-spewing coal as if that was a failure rather than an overwhelming success.

Trillions were spent securing oil. This isn't paid back at the pump though.

Solar thermal has always been a viable option for low grade heat everywhere and was proven viable for mechanical work in 50% of the planet in the 1910s. Coal soot makes it a lot worse.

The ones holding the deeds to the coal mines and oil wells don't murder, send armies, fund coups, buy the entire media, own most major political parties in the global north, purchase and dismantle transit systems, and strongarm universities because their product is better on technical merit.

Do you have an idea of how many billions were invested for fossile fuels to be what they are today? The roads didn't built themselves alone.

The problem is that capitalism is completely unable to invest for society's future, because the reward is too far in the future and spread across the whole society. Capitalism want cash now for themselves alone, the world can burn otherwise.

but I’m not going to bury my head in the sand and pretend there aren’t really challenges that need to be overcome.

except that's literally all you're doing in this thread - ignoring everything everyone else is telling you because you're not comfortable with reality and would rather just continue to protect your ego and cognitive dissonance (because you're wrong, but not the type capable of admitting it).

But all of this assumes no cost to continuing using oil. Because we don't count the damages done to climate or our well-being in terms of money.

If you include the externalities of fossil fuels, it's very very worth it.

yes,

only because profit is prioritised by a handful of people over the wellbeing of the planet and everyone on it, not because there is an actual lack of money (or even need for it, but I digress) to pay for these things.

What you're doing there is the bidding of those in power by shifting responsibility away from them and on to individuals just trying to survive (and yes, give in to the literal constant propaganda).
We wouldn't be consuming all that shit if there wasn't someone making shitloads of money from selling it to us.
Blame them.

Fossil fuels needed to be the embarrassing, temporary stopgap to renewables and nuclear... instead we shut our eyes and ears and told ourselves it would meet all our needs. We should have started connecting the planet with railways fifty years ago in preparation for cleaner energy. Cars ought to be as unnecessary and shameful as private jets, and freight shouldn't exist if it can't be done very cleanly... I suppose hindsight is 20/20 but we're not at a point where we can make any of those transitions without huge amounts of pain now.

@bob_wiley @UrPartnerInCrime this is all the news talks about. It was British Petroleum that originally coined the phrase 'carbon footprint' so people could calculate their individual climate impact. News cycles have eaten it up for decades since:

https://www.yesmagazine.org/environment/2020/07/21/carbon-footprint-big-oil