Day 609 – On Shell

Here’s the story.

Right. Let’s just get my position out in the open at the start, shall we?

1. I appreciate the need to move away from fossil fuels.
2. I would love to have a simple, straightforward, economically viable way to not use fossil fuels anymore.
3. I would rather that Shell (or anyone else) were not doing seismic testing in the waters around South Africa.

BUT...

We all use fossil fuels every day here in SA.
Our electricity here comes (when it comes) – overwhelmingly – from coal, diesel and gas.
Our cars use petrol, and if they did use electricity, then that electricity would come – overwhelmingly – from coal, diesel and gas.
Eskom chucks out about 18 million tons of CO2 each and every month.

We need to understand that the vast majority of this country has no choice but to use dirty fuels to live their lives. It would be great to change, but we can’t just switch that off: our power grid doesn’t work full stop, let alone work with clean or renewable sources of energy.
And we should certainly be trying to step away from fossil fuels, but as you are flinging around your hashtags and basking in the righteousness of your slacktivism, please remember that we need to get our energy and electricity from somewhere: someone has to provide it.

And why shouldn’t that be Shell? How do their seismic surveys and oil drilling habits differ from whoever’s powering your car today, as you “#BoycottShell” and go to Engen or Sasol or BP?

Do you know? Do you care? Or is it just about jumping on a conveniently passing (hopefully hybrid-powered?) bandwagon?

And if you are going to pop online and tell us how to live our lives, and which dirty oil company we should use over which other (I love the “tip the pump attendants” idea, by the way, lol!), then at least think before you post.

After all, nothing quite says “Leave our oceans alone” or #SaveOurOceans like a “cleverly” altered corporate logo and is that a picture of… er… a local sewage outflow…

Right.

Presumably you are boycotting your toilet as well, then? How’s that going for you?

Look, I’m not saying that a seismic survey off the East Coast is a good thing – I’d much rather it wasn’t happening, but as I noted above, that’s not really a tenable option right now.

But I have to say that this exceptionalism, hyperbole and misinformation around this one issue when numerous such surveys have happened around SA before and we’re all still here? Well, it’s weird, it’s misplaced, and it’s rather hypocritical given that we are all using products and services that rely on oil and gas each and every day.