Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico may give us the will to shape the future.
TWENTY-EIGHT billion is a big number. In tonnes it is a mighty load. It is the sediment eroded globally each year from all our mountains and carried by all our rivers to all our seas. It is also the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere each year from burning fossil fuels. In dollar terms, it is the extra money we would need to spend each year for 10 years to build a zero-emission energy system in Australia.
To make that carbon dioxide, we dig 7 billion tonnes of coal and suck countless litres of oil and gas from the ground. In total, we already excavate more rock from the Earth than nature does. We are almost at the point where oil production will start to decline, and sucking so hard it is creating problems.
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