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Can you live without fossil fuels?

Advocacy group dares people to live without gas, oil products
Kristi Streiffert, center, and her husband, Thomas Streiffert, prepare to mount their bikes during June’s Bike To Work Day celebration in front of The Steaming Bean on Main Avenue. Western Energy Alliance, an oil-and-gas advocacy group, is challenging people to give up fossil fuels for one week, banking that people won’t like it.

Do you think you could live without fossil fuel products for a week?

That’s what one oil-and-gas advocacy group is putting up as a challenge for individuals to see what life would be like without the fossil-fuel industry.

This week, Monday through Friday, the Western Energy Alliance, a stakeholders group representing the oil-and-gas industry in the West, is sponsoring the “Fossil Fuel Free Challenge” in response to what the organization believes is a growing demonization of the industry.

“Our campaign provides us the opportunity to show those who oppose responsible oil and natural-gas development that they would be poorer, sicker, less educated, colder in winter, and hotter in summer while generally leading a dull and deprived life,” president Tom Wigley said in a statement. “But for anyone who thinks life is better without fossil fuels, then we challenge you to go one week without them.”

Aaron Johnson, a spokesman for the Western Energy Alliance, said a couple dozen people have taken the pledge to live fossil-fuel free through the organization’s website.

Erika Brown with the San Juan Citizens Alliance said the challenge creates a false choice.

“They’re claiming that environmentalists who advocate for clean air and stricter regulations don’t recognize fossil fuels are important to our economy,” she said. “No one is claiming we’re not reliant on fossil fuels. We’re advocating a cleaner and more efficient way to produce energy for a cleaner energy future. Energy should be created without a sacrifice to human health and a safe climate.”

And, Brown added, the Western Energy Alliance’s tactic are detrimental and don’t move conservation efforts forward.

“It’s a ludicrous ploy,” she said. “They don’t actually want people to live without fossil fuels because they represent massive companies that make huge amounts of money from fossil fuels. They’re trying to create a false choice.”

Coincidentally, the issued challenge comes just a week after Sweden announced it would boost its 2005 pledge to become the first fossil fuel-free nation, investing $546 million in clean energy in 2016.

Though no specific timetable has been set to completely wean itself off fossil fuels, the country has decreased dependency, now relying on renewable energy for more than half of its primary energy supply.

jromeo@durangoherald.com



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