Elon Musk is no stranger to making headlines with his comments. Tesla CEO Elon Musk gave an impassioned speech arguing against the further use of fossil fuels.
In an appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Musk called the ongoing use of fossil fuels “an insane experiment” and called for humanity to speed up the adoption of sustainable energy sources to replace them.
During the conversation, he gave an important explanation of why he’s concentrated on electric cars, solar energy, and battery technology instead of other things, such as electric planes.
“The electric airplane isn’t necessary right now,” Musk said. “Electric cars are important. Solar energy is important. Stationary storage of energy is important. These things are much more important than creating electric supersonic [airplanes]. It’s important that we accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.”
Burning fossil fuels is an “insane experiment”
“The bizarre thing is that obviously we’re going to run out of oil in the long-term. There’s only so much oil we can mine and burn,” Musk said. “It’s tautological.
We must have a sustainable energy transport and infrastructure in the long term, so why run this crazy experiment where we take trillions of tons of carbon from underground and put it in the atmosphere and the oceans? This is an insane experiment. It’s the dumbest experiment in human history.”
It’s clear from Musk’s emotional response to the issue of human energy consumption that he takes the threat of carbon-induced climate change personally.