Another Reason to Avoid Fossil Fuels

You already know that climate disruption and pollution are reasons to cut non-renewable carbon-based fuels out of your life. But today I became more aware of some other reasons: most of the countries with economies dependent on oil, natural gas, and other extractive forms of energy are authoritarian states with high degress of gender inequality (you can guess which gender is most unequal). (Think Saudi Arabia)

Among the reasons for this? Taxes, ironically. Leaders of these countries don’t need the taxes of their people to run their country. And because people don’t pay taxes, they have less of a say in how the government spends money, and the government is not concerned about providing social benefits to its people. (Think oil-rich Nigeria, with 62 percent of its people in poverty.)

Extracting oil and natural gas requires significant capital investment. Gaining access to this capital may lead to disadvantageous deals with other countries or with companies based in other countries. It may lead to corruption and poor management. It may lead to conflict as different parties try to retain control of these resources. (Think Yemen)

These concerns become less of an issue in countries with more diversified economies. In that case, we need to go back to our original reason for avoiding nonrenewable fuels: climate disruption and pollution.

[Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/industrial-machine-during-golden-hour-162568/]