'There Is No Alternative': Fossil Fuel Deposits Must Stay in the Ground

“There is no alternative.”

Those famous words were once used by former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to describe the preeminence of deregulated, so-called “free market” capitalism as compared to all other economic systems.

“The fossil fuel industry will inevitably have to experience major cutbacks and, over the longer term, near-total demise. There is simply no choice in the matter if we believe the research produced by climate scientists. The profits of oil, coal, and natural gas companies will have to yield to the imperative of sustaining life on earth.” —Robert Pollin, PERIHowever, in the contemporary context of planetary global warming and climate change, the phrase was employed this week by Robert Pollin, professor of economics and director of the Political Economic Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, as he presented a green energy and jobs growth plan for the United States that he and his research colleagues say could transform the fossil fuel-based economy into one based nearly entirely on renewable power in just two decades.

In an essay published in the Boston Review this week, Pollin lays out the broad contours of his research team’s proposal to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions while simultaneously creating jobs and meeting international obligations. An official summary of the research was released last week by the Center of American Progress, which sponsored the work, and the full report is scheduled for release on Thursday, September 18.*

In addition to massive public and private investments in truly cleaner and renewable forms of energy paired with dramatic increases of energy efficiency in buildings, transportation systems, and industrial processing, Pollin declared that the other essential feature of his team’s plan would be that the world’s fossil fuel companies be compelled to leave their untapped reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas unexploited and in the ground.

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Though Pollin acknowledges that the wealthy and politically powerful titans of industry will not let an estimated $3 trillion worth of coal, oil, and gas to become what are called “stranded assets”—simply left in the ground—”without a fight,” he argues that this is  precisely what the physics of climate science and the hope for a more sane economic future both demand.

“There is no alternative,” declared Pollin, stealing the famous phrase.

“The fossil fuel industry,” he concludes, “will inevitably have to experience major cutbacks and, over the longer term, near-total demise. There is simply no choice in the matter if we believe the research produced by climate scientists. The profits of oil, coal, and natural gas companies will have to yield to the imperative of sustaining life on earth.”