Abstract
In a recent, thought-provoking article, Jean-François Mouhot argues that there are many similarities between historical slave ownership and present-day fossil fuel usage. For that reason, Mouhot believes, members of modern fossil-fuel-dependent civilization should not feel morally superior to slave owners. While it is easy to sympathize with Mouhot’s intentions of furthering a transition to sustainable energy use, some arguments made in the article are in need of refinement.
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The author would like to thank Stefan Öberg, John Lapidus and three anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on previous drafts of this paper.
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Rönnbäck, K. Slave ownership and fossil fuel usage: a commentary. Climatic Change 122, 1–9 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0998-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-013-0998-7