Are we locked in a dance to the death (economically anyway) with fossil fuels

The key rationale given for why we must persist with business as usual is an economic one. It is an appeal to Homo economicus, but is this appeal to economics an accurate one? Do we need to give up all the toys our neoliberal capitalist fossil fuel dependent society says we’ll get? One must question the actual sources of much of what one finds on-line about this. Is the commentator and/or opinion unbiased?

Here are some NO’s.
The Shell company offers a perspective on whether and how soon renewable sources could replace fossil fuels in this article . Naturally one might be a little suspicious of Shell as non-biased.
This article  is also negative about the likelihood that renewables can replace fossil fuels. See, also, for alternative pro-fossil-fuel info…

Here are some YES’s.
Cosmos magazine writes of Australia’s renewable future in 20 years.
Science Direct offers a less time specific and more cautionary piece but still suggests that the economics of fossil fuel production are essetnially favourable. If we factor in environmental concerns then renewables make great sense.

Summation
This article sums up the pros and cons of fossil fuels and renewables.

Et moi

I do not own enough scientific and engineering knowledge to make a conclusive YES or NO. But I think factors other than the purely economic must be taken into account. The problem with our purely economic thinking is that it is tainted with neoliberalist assumptions about worth. Humans, certainly all the ones in the first world, have been programmed to accept the notion that economic growth, most particularly at the personal level, is essential. To challenge this paradigm is to adopt the denialist annoying Greta Thunberg ‘how dare you’ stance. But in fact what we do need to do – if you factor anything other than pure  thinking – is to do away with stuff. Perhaps take a significant dip in our GDP rich life. Give up some goods, some cargo, some economic cudos. Will we be poorer for it? Will our health go into decline? Will our world become much smaller? Perhaps we’ll travel less, the carbon load of flying is prohibitive. But will we be poorer? Will our air and waterways be cleaner? Will some of the wilderness be restored? Will we rediscover community? I don’t know, but I don’t think we can continue with business as usual. Because business isn’t (despite what they tell us) everything. We can choose to remain fossil fooled or we can choose not to be.