Written by We are addicted to oil. It is tangled up in our lives, in everything we do, everything we use, even what we eat. But we have to stop using oil. It’s totally do-able if we look hard at how it’s tangled up in our lives, and take steps to deliberately untangle it. Here are some recent headlines.
- How to drive fossil fuels out of the US economy, quickly: The US has everything it needs to decarbonize by 2035
- Letter from economists: to rebuild our world, we must end the carbon economy: The carbon economy amplifies racial, social and economic inequities, creating a system that is fundamentally incompatible with a stable future
To dive deeply into the technical and economic policies needed, read the “Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in the United States.” They break it down into three key areas:
Deep decarbonization requires three fundamental changes in the U.S. energy system:
(1) highly efficient end use of energy in buildings, transportation, and industry;
(2) decarbonization of electricity and other fuels; and
(3) fuel switching of end uses to electricity and other low-carbon supplies.
Yes, it’s complicated and will not happen overnight, but there’s no excuse not to do it. It’s good for us, we know how to do it, so it’s just a matter of choosing to do it. We can figure this out.