The Mirage of Transition: Energy, Appetite, and Colonial Stigma – Part II
Demand as Destiny
Drugs persist not because suppliers are invincible, but because demand is insatiable. Fossil fuels endure for the same reason. Societies crave convenience, speed, and abundance. Blaming suppliers, oil states, deforesting farmers, without confronting appetite, is civic denial.
Mobility reveals the fracture: airplanes as “Ubers in the sky,” while mass transit is neglected. Governments refuse to invest in collective solutions, such as railways, metro systems, and affordable buses, that could diminish dependence on cars and flights. This refusal is not neutral; it is a choice that entrenches private consumption as the only path to mobility. Citizens are left with few alternatives: either maintain an increasingly unaffordable car or surrender mobility altogether.
The paradox deepens: survival precedes sustainability. For billions, the choice is not between electric vehicles and fossil fuels, but between subsistence and exclusion. Public transit could soften this fracture, offering collective access to mobility, but its absence reinforces inequality and fossil dependence.
Destiny is written not in the hands of suppliers, but in the hunger of demand. Until appetite changes, and until governments choose collective over private, the transition remains a slogan.