Although I don’t agree with JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon all that often given his general affinity for more government oversight as the typical solution to social and economic problems, I absolutely agree with his stance on the self-induced energy crisis that is currently plaguing the United States, our European allies, and most of the developing world.
In early December, Dimon appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box,” wherein he made this commonsensical statement, “We need cheap, reliable, safe, secure energy, of which 80 percent comes from oil and gas. And that number’s going to be very high for 10 or 20 years.”
To be clear, Dimon is not a shill for the fossil fuel industry, as the record shows that he is a full-fledged member of the “climate change is an existential crisis” club.
However, unlike most of the narrow-minded zealots who constitute the vast majority of the “global warming is going to destroy the planet” gang, it seems as though Dimon is at least conceding the fact that for the foreseeable future, it would behoove humanity to not completely abandon the backbone of our energy and transportation systems: oil and natural gas.
“Higher oil and gas prices are leading to more CO2. Having it cheaper has the virtue of reducing CO2, because all that’s happening around the world is that poorer nations and richer nations are turning back on their coal plants,” Dimon added while on CNBC.
Such is the case in Germany, which recently renewed five licenses for coal-fired power plants that were scheduled to be retired this year.
Germany, which went all-in on the renewable energy panacea decades ago, received a big slap of reality when its historical enemy Russia decided to turn off the flow of natural gas to mainland Europe after the Ukraine invasion.
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By its own doing, Germany put itself in a very untenable position by placing its energy grid at the mercy of mercurial Vladimir Putin and uber-unreliable and uber-expensive renewable energy.
Even hard-core environmentalists agree with the decision to keep Germany’s coal-fired power plants operating. “We can understand the government restarting coal-fired power plants in Germany,” admitted Greenpeace Germany’s Karsten Smid.
Yet, while Germany serves as a prime example of why it is a very dumb idea to abandon fossil fuels while relying on unreliable renewable energy, the geniuses in Washington, DC seem to have missed this somehow.
Earlier this year, Dimon made it clear to Congress that the United States (and the world, for that matter) is not ready to shun fossil fuels in place of not-yet-ready-for-primetime renewable energy sources.
When Dimon was asked to take a pledge to stop funding fossil fuel companies by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Dimon responded to the inane request by stating that doing so “would be the road to hell.”
And it surely would be. Were the United States to stop investing in fossil fuels, our standard of living would plummet. Not only that, our entire economy would come to a screeching halt as society would devolve into a state of total chaos.
If you think the U.S. economy is struggling now with high inflation and an out-of-synch labor market, you can’t imagine the horror show that would ensue if we were to instantly cut-off funding for fossil fuels.
Like it or not, advanced societies depend on fossil fuels. In fact, the advent of fossil fuels has lifted more people from abject poverty than any other human technological feat or endeavor in modern times.
Fortunately, for now, it seems like some sane, rational people like Jamie Dimon are finally standing up against the insane, irrational calls for across-the board fossil fuel prohibitions. I just hope as time goes on that Dimon’s views on fossil fuels become more representative of the mainstream, and that those calling for an immediate end to fossil fuels are rightfully lambasted as the heretics that they are.
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