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		Why Demonize Carbon?	2021-10-31 22:01:05

Why Demonize Carbon?

Carbon atoms are an essential component of life. The levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are very low due to strong demand for carbon from living organisms. The increase of carbon dioxide increases the carrying capacity of the earth. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. Its increase makes the earth a greener place. If so, why the mainstream society demonize carbon?

Carbon is essential to life. Why are many of us so oblivious to this obvious fact? Long ago, George Orwell asked a similar question in his 1937 book, The Road to Wigan Pier. He concluded,

Practically everything we do, from eating an ice to crossing the Atlantic, and from baking a loaf to writing a novel, involves the use of coal, directly or indirectly. … But most of the time, of course, we should prefer to forget that they were doing it. It is so with all types of manual work; it keeps us alive, and we are oblivious of its existence.

it is only because miners sweat their guts out that superior persons can remain superior. … all of us really owe the comparative decency of our lives to poor drudges underground, blackened to the eyes, with their throats full of coal dust, driving their shovels forward with arms and belly muscles of steel. (P 31)

If we acknowledge the essential role of coal and carbon in our life, we can no longer ignore the harsh life of essential workers, the coal miners and other frontline workers. If we improve the working conditions and pay for the essential workers, many of us will no more afford the luxury of modern life. This is why superior persons ignore the essential role of coal in the past.

With the development of technology, the chains from the raw materials and the final products become longer over time. In early days, people keep their house warm by burning coal directly. Later, they burn coal to generate electricity, then using electricity to warm their houses. Still later, some burn coal to generate electricity, then using electricity and other raw materials to produce solar panels. Others would use solar panels to generate electricity to warm their houses. The chains from production to consumption become longer and longer. It becomes profitable for those at the higher end of the production chain and food chain to charge carbon tax toward the lower end of the production chain and the food chain.

Take electric cars as an example. The production of battery is very dirty. The driving of electric car is very clean. The actual production of battery is by the inferior. The driving of electric cars is by the superior. By charging carbon taxes to the inferior and distributing carbon credits mostly to the superior, the superior get more superior and the inferior get more inferior, all in the name of saving the world. At the time of writing, Elon Musk, whose electric car company Tesla makes profit solely from carbon credit, is the richest person in the world.

This is why superior persons demonize carbon today. Superior persons are only a small portion of human population. But they dominate most mainstream opinions. This is why most mainstream opinions demonize carbon today.

At any time, in any society, the ruling class is a small minority of the population. The ruling theory of the day is to justify the control and consumption of large amount of resources by the ruling minority. The key is to package the exploitation of the working class by the ruling minority as a common good for all. Since there is no intrinsic rationale why the ruling minority should control and consume large amount of resources, any ruling theory of the day is a false narrative. Today’s ruling theory is no exception, whether it is coated in religion or science.