Time to Put the Fossil-Fuel Industry Into Hospice. If humanity is to survive the climate crisis, we must manage a just and orderly transition away from fossil fuels. The correct models for this resolution are triage, euthanasia, and hospice. Stanford Social Innovation Review Andrew J. Hoffman & Douglas M. Ely Fall 2022What should we expect from a socially responsible fossil-fuel company in a world threatened by climate change? The answer is simple yet extremely challenging: Such a company and the executives who run it must devote their financial, technical, and political resources toward a just and orderly transition away from fossil fuels. In effect, leaders in the fossil-fuel sector must bring about the end of their industry as we know it. How should we think about how to proceed? We suggest applying models adopted from the compassionate care of an individual, her loved ones, her caregivers, and everyone involved in the recognition of extreme, if not terminal, care. Society and the fossil-fuel industry face grave challenges. If humanity is to enjoy a stable environment at the end of this century, the fossil-fuel industry cannot continue. Its condition is terminal. Amid such a grim prognosis, three possible forms of treatment are available: triage, euthanasia, and hospice.We present this assessment to provoke a discussion of a very real dilemma that we face as a society. We are confronted with an existential crisis that requires radical action if we are to respond with adequate scope and scale. The idea of any industry sector bringing about its own demise presents us with some unusual and difficult questions that have relevance for both business management and business education. The magnitude of this specific task compounds the difficulty: There is no more complex and integrated industry sector within which to undertake this exercise than the fossil-fuel sector, and there is no more complex and integrated problem to motivate such an exercise as climate change. If we can address these questions, we can get a better glimpse of the awesome systemic challenge before us.
The Prognosis......The first step in the compassionate treatment of a terminal health condition is helping the patient and loved ones come to terms with the reality that the patient is very sick, is possibly dying, and needs extreme care. Three sets of considerations motivate a terminal prognosis for the fossil-fuel industry.
Acknowledging the full scope of the problem | Climate change is more than an environmental issue. It represents a systemic breakdown with widespread implications for life on this planet. This is not hyperbole—it is the assessment of leading scientists around the world, and this conclusion will forever change the nature of our economies. Human activity is increasing the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, causing a 1°C rise in the average global surface temperature since preindustrial times,1 and we are struggling to contain continued warming to 2°C by mid-century. Such a temperature rise will lead to increased weather and climate instability, including droughts, wildfires, food insecurity, water scarcity, coastal flooding, disease proliferation, and social unrest. Climate change is one of nine planetary boundaries that scientists have identified and warn that we cross at our own peril. These boundaries represent “thresholds below which humanity can safely operate and beyond which the stability of planetary-scale systems cannot be relied upon.” These “key performance indicators” (KPIs) of the planet, as Lancaster University management professor Gail Whiteman calls them, are signaling danger.2 By exceeding the sustainable boundaries for land system use, pollutants (including plastics), nitrogen and phosphorous waste, and novel chemical releases, we are causing reduced rates of agricultural productivity, degraded marine ecosystems, and, most notably, increased rates of species extinction. This last impact, which scientists call the “sixth mass extinction,” could see half of the world’s current species disappear by 2100.3 Much as natural catastrophes extinguished the dinosaurs, viable species today are facing a similar catastrophe through human actions that are altering the planet’s ecosystems.4 In short, through the growth of our population and the economy that supports it, we now influence the biosphere in systemic ways that are unprecedented and that we do not fully understand.
Left unabated, climate change will likely cause global economic damage at an estimated present-discounted value as high as $22.5 trillion by 21005 in lost labor productivity, declining crop yields, food shortages, early deaths, property damage, breakdown of infrastructure networks, water shortages, air pollution, flooding, fires, and more. The Bank for International Settlements, an umbrella organization for the world’s central banks, warned in 2020 that climate change could generate one of the largest economic dislocations in history......Wish everybody would realize this!....read on https://ssir.org/articles/entry/time_to_put_the_fossil_fuel_industry_into_hospice