Articles in El Tiempo call for more investment in petroleum production. |
However, oil has brought big environmental costs, and produced relatively few jobs.
Now that petroleum's price dive has demonstrated the danger of relying on commodity exports, Colombia's response is simple: Double down on oil.
EcoPetrol's headquarters building in Bogotá. The company's mascot is an iguana. |
Nor is the newspaper or the government bothered by the contradiction between their dire warnings about the effects of oil-driven climate change and promises that Colombia will do its part, and the nation's oily ambitions.
I read recently that Colombia has only 7 years of petroleum reserves at the rate that it's pumping them out. Undoubtedly, they can extend those with more prospecting, but in the end it's probably a losing race.
There's also a vicious cycle (another type of tragedy of the commons) involved in the race to pump
An electric tax. Bogotá has exactly 43 of them on the streets, according to El Tiempo. (Photo: Ministry of the Environment) |
Colombia should instead direct subsidies toward manufacturing, which employs lots of people and is more sustainable in the long run. (And would produce employment for ex-guerrillas who may not want to become poor farmers.) It should also make real efforts to shift toward more efficient and oil-free energy in transportation and industry.
By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours
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