PLEA Network

5 June 2015, Truth Dig, Big Oil Soon to be Extinct: What do Big Oil and whale oil have in common? According to Amory B. Lovins, chairman and chief scientist of the sustainability-focused Rocky Mountain Institute, Big Oil is soon to follow whale oil’s downward trajectory toward extinction. At the Ceres Conference 2015 for sustainable business, Lovins challenged big businesses to rethink the outdated belief that investing in fossil fuels remains the safest way to get rich (dolphins, seabirds and humanity be damned). At first look, Lovins appears to be a nerdy, middle-aged scientist in a suit, but once he starts talking, it becomes clear that he’s actually a brilliant revolutionary. Lovins’ message hasn’t changed much in the four decades he’s been doggedly trying to get the world to embrace renewable energy, but he’s accumulated more data to prove his point to a host of unlikely converts, from communist China to Arab sheiks and presidents of companies like Texaco. Even if you don’t care much about the environment, Lovins makes the case that you’d be economically foolish not to invest in renewable energy, because green technology today is akin to the discovery of petroleum and its effect on the whaling industry of the 19th century. Read more here