The Moment I Saw How Fossil Fuels Ruled the World

They did not mean for me to be there

A few years ago, a private equity firm bought our company, and we moved offices to Knightsbridge, near Buckingham Palace. It was around the time of the MH17 crash over Ukraine. I remember this because my assistant was from St Petersburg and she had strong views about it. I also had a flight on Malaysian airlines only a few months later.

The new owners asked me to come in one weekend before our move to set up the new office.

It’s an eerie feeling to be in an office on the weekend by yourself. Time stood still in the milky London light. I had an all-access electronic key, so I went to check out the building owned by our new owners.

When I unlocked one room on the floor above, I will never forget what I saw.

Inside was a wood-panelled meeting room. It had six leather chairs around a mahogany boardroom table. The polished surface reflected the spindly tree boughs and the grey sky.

Behind the table hung a map that would be more at home in central casting for a James Bond film.

Then I realized what it showed.

The map covered Europe, North Africa, Middle East, and Russia. Not the geography, but all the gas and oil pipelines. The pipelines looked like black stitches or railroad tracks. Through Algeria, along the Ukraine border, through Iraq.

In fact, there were pipeline tracks anywhere there has been flashpoints in the past 50 years.

When I looked at the pipelines on a map in a deathly silent building in Knightsbridge, the penny drops.

My deep shock at the time seems naïve now. We all instinctively knew about oil and wars since the turn of the millennium. But this was the first time I had seen it laid out on one map in the wealthiest postcode of the world.

The case for war is public safety, democratic values, or even patriotism. This map made it clear. The conflicts, and the violence towards the people in these areas, is about fossil fuels.

We need to change how we consume everything.

There’s no part of the world untouched by fossil fuels:

• Plastics
• Clothing
• Air
• Oceans
• & all the way through the food chain

There is no real compromise coming from the fossil fuel industry. And why would they? The only option is to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels across all sectors of society.

In short, we need to stop fossil fuels.

Not a matter of less, but stopping it. Stop taking it out of the ground. Stop using it.

Just end fossil fuels already.

This was a tweet by a fed-up scientist during COP26 that made me laugh. I read it in a tired Mom voice: Just pick up your clothes off the floor. Just end fossil fuels already.

Fossil fuels are toxic to all life on this planet, then why not end fossil fuels already?

The fossil fuel companies explain to the government they need time to transition. They need to extract, they say, while the government works out a solution.

Is there a good reason we have waited this long?

You will find part of the answer on the map.

Further Reading:

5 Sad Reflections After Listening to 196 Countries Last Speeches at COP26

The Five Worst Polluting Companies On the Planet You Need To Know