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Everyone knows Uncle Joakim’s crown, which he keeps in solemn forms on a small glass holder made especially for that purpose. The coin was the first thing he earned as a shoemaker in Glasgow, but contrary to popular belief, the crown itself is not a magical good luck charm; rather, it serves as an incentive for the richest duck in the world to make (even) more money. One of those who has become obsessed with the mysterious properties of the coin is the magic package Magica de Hex, whose main goal in life is to steal it and become a modern Midas king, who can turn everything he touches into gold.
The same kind of hot weather surrounds the Colts industrial family’s so-called “coal piece of happiness” on last year’s Christmas calendar at SVT, “Mirakel.” It is also kept on a velvet bed, as it is appreciated as the basis of the family’s status as rich fossil barons. When the lump of coal disappears, its priceless cargo creates a conflict with potential consequences not only for the energy supply of the future, but for the existence of the entire world.
The implicit critique of fossils in the 2020 Christmas calendar it is not an isolated phenomenon. On the contrary, it hits the economy of the time with almost symbolic precision. At the same time that the Colt brothers were fighting over their fossilized family heirloom, The Economist magazine published a cover with an illustration of a nearly identical piece of coal, also the one under a glass lid. The headline on the front page of the newspaper could not be misinterpreted: “Making history out of coal.”
https://twitter.com/TheEconomist/status/1334505199264821250?s=20
The Economist review showed with a series of examples how carbon, the world’s largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, is becoming a thing of the past. In the United States and Europe, coal consumption has fallen 34 percent since 2009. As coal faces cleaner competitors and more regulations and bans, banks and investors are moving away from the dirty type of energy. “The days of coal are numbered,” says the magazine’s editor. “The sooner it is transmitted to museums and history books, the better.”
However, this is not all the truth. In Asia, the use of coal energy is increasing rather than decreasing. Asian countries today account for 77 percent of the world’s coal use, with China being by far the largest producer and emitter, followed by India. Coal power is also a key component of China’s infrastructure offensive along the “new Silk Road.” The slowdown in coal expansion in Asia is a global matter of fate.
Asia’s slowdown in coal expansion is a global fate problem
It will not be easy; Like all other aspects of climate change, it is also closely linked to the issue of justice and equality. The 270,000 people who work at Coal India, India’s coal giant, will not leave their jobs with joy. Lessons learned from devastated coal mining towns from South Wales to West Virginia show the consequent loss of jobs in terms of mounting political tensions.
The connection between coal, culture, politics and economic growth is a constant in the modern history of humanity, about which, among other Swedish researchers such as Andreas Malm and Per Högselius, they have written. Coal became crucial for Europe in the mid-19th century; During “la belle époque” it was the coal that turned the wheels of the factory and the gas lanterns spread their dreamy light through the streets of Paris, while writers like Émile Zola drew attention to the hellish life in the coal districts and the coal mines. Mining strikes became an integral part of the history of the industrial age and there are historians who defend the controversial thesis that coal is the seed of the democratic political system of our time: carbon democracy.
Today, fossil fuels can rather be seen as the seed of the opposite, the death of democracy. At least the second great source of power in modern times, oil, is one of the factors that seems to hinder its birth.
There are a number of studies showing that authoritarian states are more likely to remain authoritarian if they have access to large amounts of oil. A report in the online daily Vox showed a few years ago how “black gold” contributes to undemocratic rule, corruption and violent civil wars, as oil gives dictators and despots the money they need to silence the demands. citizens of democracy. Venezuela, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are examples of countries whose oil deposits are as large as their democratic deficits.
Venezuela, Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are examples of countries whose oil deposits are as large as their democratic deficits.
Today, the list can be expanded with countries that use the revenues from the fossil fuel industry as well to finance their path. since democracy. In Poland, the country’s right-wing populist government is on track to seize control of most of the country’s regional newspaper market with the help of the state oil company Orlen. The agreement includes 20 newspapers, 150 newspapers published once a week and 500 sites. The oil company, whose CEO is close to the right-wing nationalist “strongman” Jaroslaw Kaczynski, previously bought a company that distributes newspapers and magazines throughout Poland.
What will happen to newspapers that are eaten up in this way by the oil industry that acts as a bulwark of the authoritarian regime is well known to the Polish public service media. The “opatriotic” elements will be purged, independent journalism will be replaced by tributes to the ruling party and condemnations of political enemies, sexual minorities and the EU.
The toxic combination from the fossil fuel industry, the state and the media is nothing new. Twenty years ago Vladimir Putin silenced his critics in Russia with the help of the takeover of the media by the state gas company Gazprom. Today, China’s expansion of coal in Asia fills the coffers of the dictatorship in Beijing.
For democracy, black gold is not a stroke of luck. It is a curse.
Read more chronicles of Björn Wiman. Also subscribe to the newsletter Culture Week with Björn Wiman that arrives in your mailbox every Thursday.
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