Priorities?

 

It's difficult, even for folk with vested interests in oil and gas, to deny that global heating and climate change are occurring. Extreme weather events, like heatwaves, droughts, floods and violent storms, are globally increasing in frequency and intensity. One current line of argument is that climate change worries have been 'overblown' and that 'fuel poverty' must be a greater concern. There's certainly an increased demand for electricity, to power many aspects of modern life (including data centres for AI). If there's any merit in this apparent reversal of priorities, however, it can't logically follow that increasing the extraction of oil and gas provides an answer. That would inevitably exacerbate the problems caused by global heating by 'greenhouse gases'. Surely, a more rapid replacement, where possible, of gas, oil and coal usage (already very finite resources) by solar, wind, hydroelectric and wave power (much less limited in terms of availability and longevity) makes more sense?