Last updated on January 9, 2024
The ocean will rise by two-thirds of a foot and engulf 70% of the earth’s coastlines (NASA), six to 19% of the world’s 4,447 islands will drown (Bellard et al 2013), and crop yields will shrink by 10-25% (Deutsch et al 2018). No, this is not your favorite YA dystopian book; this is the world’s future and the Point of No Return. Climate scientists have warned executives, policymakers, and even ordinary citizens of impending climate doom for years, emphasizing that Earth has a deadline to meet. A deadline, as Yale points out, society cannot afford to postpone. And it’s time we meet it.
What would a ban look like?
While one could imagine the grand gestures of an immediate ban, a ban on federal oil or fossil fuel extraction would be much more incremental, requiring the phasing out of leases.
The average drilling length in the federal oil industry lasts approximately ten years. So reasonably, a ban would refuse to sign new leases and patiently wait for current leases to end. Therefore, as leases expired, the federal fossil fuel industry would quietly die alongside them.
Concurrent to halting leases would be the rapid expansion of renewable energy. Renewable energy costs are at an all-time low, allowing for quick expansion. Several models from Yale Climate Connections and the National Library of Medicine found that renewable energy in the next 15 years could expand and account for 60% of our energy source, or even 82% of it. But this is contingent on funding and robust improvements in our infrastructure and energy grid- the energy grid severely overlooked by policymakers. What a ban on federal extraction does, however, is force policymakers to answer to their constituents, find new energy sources, and create a greener America.
Justifications for a ban
While policymakers and industry insiders often fearmonger the idea of job loss and a reduced GDP, the implications of climate change are far worse. Climate change is poised to cost the United States an annual 2 trillion dollars by the end of the century (White House), augment the yearly 12,500 natural disaster deaths (Scientific American), and damage national infrastructure. Furthermore, green energy creates more jobs as Garret Peltier and colleagues find that for similar level spending, the renewables market creates three times as many jobs and in 2022, compensated for unemployment created by the fossil fuel industry.
Another concern has been the cost of oil for poorer and underprivileged communities. But once more, climate change undoubtedly hurts poorer citizens and ethnic minorities. In a new report, the EPA documented that climate change hurts Black communities the hardest as these communities are 40% more likely to suffer from climate change-related deaths. Additionally, the communities that suffer undue healthcare risks from nearby oil rigs and drilling sites are mostly POCs including Latinos, African-Americans, and Indigenous people. It becomes clear that when the choice is between life and death, our policymakers should protect their people, not justify industry excuses.
America needs to change eventually. At some point, federal fossil fuel extraction will cease, and the same with private extraction. The question is when does implementation occur? When will America act? Should we be working to postpone the Point of No Return?
The answer? Undoubtedly, yes.
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