Fossil Fuels: The Albatross Around Our Necks

In 1798, Coleridge wrote the now famous poem The Rime of the Ancient Mariner. It told the story of a ship that was being followed by an albatross (considered to be a good omen) until the captain shot it, thus cursing the ship and everyone aboard. As punishment, the crew tied the dead bird around the captain's neck. In the end, they all end up dead.

Once upon a time, fossil fuels were a "good omen", they were the basis for the industrial revolution and much of what we take for granted today.

More than 200 years on (150 in the case of oil), we are still apparently stuck with these dirty, Victorian fuels, like the proverbial albatross around our necks. Cursed by it's greenhouse gases, pollution, and rising prices.

Last week, a study came out that said that some 6.4 million UK households were in fuel poverty (i.e. forced to spend over 10% of total income on keeping the home warm). That's around a quarter of the estimated 26 million homes in the UK! The same study says that there will be over 9 million 2016...... A third of all households? That's just obscene.

This is all because energy prices have been going up inexorably against a background of rising fossil fuel prices. Each time the power companies ratchet up the fuel costs, often by more than inflation, thousands more people go into fuel poverty.

Even those of us who are doing as the government advises and have insulated our houses and even switched to cheaper accounts, have been running just to stand still i.e. Our bills haven't been going down and will inevitably start rising again very soon.

Imagine then, what it's like for the less fortunate in society, like the low paid and pensioners? And, in these uncertain times, most of us are just a redundancy away from joining them.

It's a broken system. A rotting albatross around all our necks.