What next for humanity?
By David Newman, Managing Director, BBIA
The BBC and the CNN reported on April 2nd that the leaders of the USA oil industry are heading to see the President to ask for support as oil prices crash to almost zero in some market places(1). On this news, prices rose again with the hope the USA will close the doors to low cost Saudi oil, or that the Saudis and Russians will reach a deal to reduce production(2).
Well, I couldn’t help thinking. I mean, with some time on my hands, there’s a lot of thinking going on.
On the one hand Governments in every country will borrow trillions (dollars, euros, pounds, yen, francs) and pump them into the economy to kick start it again after what will be months of lockdown. Where will this money be spent and who will benefit? What is the model determining how this money is spent? Will it go (as in most countries I think it will) to rebooting the old model? Or will it go (as some more intelligent governments might understand) in redesigning the model altogether?
In those months we will lose some 5-10% of global oil capacity as bankruptcies disrupt production due to the collapse in use - down some 25% already - and prices, down to around $20/barrel. These same oil industry chiefs running to the White House are the paladins of small government, low taxes, low regulation, big business, open borders, free trade. Until they are in trouble, then suddenly they are the paladins of Government intervention, protectionist tariffs, minimum pricing, tax payer money to protect them.
These same industry chiefs are the people who successfully lobbied the White House to reduce the standards on emissions so their industries could produce without the need to reduce pollution(3). It is these same people who are now asking (and will receive) support to produce, pollute and survive with our money, whilst using that money to destroy the environment we all live in. I call this hypocrisy at the highest level. It is quite shocking given everything we know.
It is this same group of people that deny what the scientists have been saying for decades about how we are destroying our Planet, warming the climate, reducing our resilience through the destruction of biodiversity, forests, natural habitats. COVID-19 just did what five decades of scientists failed to do. It proved the science to be right.
On a positive note, the lockdown has shown how quickly we can adapt, how we generally obey, how resilient we can be in the face of a totally unpredictable global event. We just got hit by a metaphoric meteorite but we are all surviving. That is quite incredible. Well done humanity!
What next?
If we have intelligent governments they will think: hmmm, lots of money to spend, where do we want to be in 10, 20 years time once that money works its way through the system? What will work best FOR OUR PEOPLE ? After all, Governments govern for the benefit of their people don’t they ? So what works best ?
We need clean air, water, food. Once we start to mess around with those three essentials, Humanity is screwed. No small wonder the virus started in an open market in a heavily polluted city where people were buying snakes, bats, dogs to eat. Dirty air weakens our lungs, viruses have a field day jumping from animals to humans as we destroy the habitats animals live in; and here we are. So priority number one, we need to invest to clean up our air, water and food supply chain.
We can do this with renewable energy, including biogas, electric cars, etc. We have all the technologies we need, here, now, to implement a clean air, water and food policy immediately. And we’ll be spending trillions, so put them here. That will good for the climate too. The biogas industry can reduce those emissions 12%(4). Why don’t we do it, now?We need to make non-essentials expensive to dissuade people from using them. It is clear that all this running around to meetings and conferences left, right and centre is generally unnecessary. Whilst a trade show needs person to person interaction, conferences are going to become virtual events. So, invest some of the trillions in making sure the infrastructure works to support that, including fast broadband everywhere, especially developing countries so they are connected into the global commons too. Tax air tickets for their Co2 emissions. Double the price of petrol as we did with cigarettes. Make local public transport free, as Luxembourg has done. Use petrol taxes to subsidise and invest in rail travel.
I’ll miss the beaches in the Med, but hey, if the weather is kind the Cornish Riviera’s not bad - or I will take the train south. Imagine getting from London to the Costa Brava in five hours on a train? We have the technology to do that, we just need to invest to make it happen.
The virus just showed us how essential public services are. As some comic recently said, all those people who voted against socialism (in the UK) in October 2019 are now clamouring for investments into the social state. So make sure that some of those trillions go into creating the capacity for social care when the next emergency hits (warning, it will). We need to pay our essential workers a proper living wage. I am deeply ashamed that people are risking their lives for me and are struggling themselves to pay their bills. It is inhuman, disgusting, unacceptable.
Lastly, let’s consign the oil dinosaurs(5) of the 20th century to the history books. People will look back on this in 50 years time and say, how could they have been so stupid ? How come they bought into the narrative that polluting our air, water and lands is good ? How come they even subsidised that with their own tax payers money? Not only were they poisoning themselves, they were paying to be poisoned! People will be laughing and shaking their heads in disbelief, just like we do today when we think about how, just years back, we allowed nuclear bombs to be tested in the open air, lead in petrol, asbestos in our buildings, chemicals in our food, despite knowing they were all deadly.
I hope we are all not so stupid as to continue this narrative. If nothing else, the time COVID-19 has given us should also stimulate us to changing our behaviour and forcing Governments to do so too. Maybe the next time around we won’t have that opportunity if the next virus is more powerful. We’ve been given a warning by Nature, let’s heed it.
David Newman, April 2nd 2020
(the views expressed here are personal and do not reflect the position of any organisation I represent or work with)
(1) https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/01/business/oil-prices-crash-storage-space/index.html
(5) The oil industry is also responsible for 99% of the world’s plastic output.