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Slave ownership and fossil fuel usage: a commentary

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A Response to this article was published on 11 December 2013

The Original Article was published on 25 November 2010

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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Acknowledgements

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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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economic History, University of Gothenburg, Box 720, 405 30, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Klas Rönnbäck

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  1. Klas Rönnbäck
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Correspondence to Klas Rönnbäck.

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An author’s reply to this comment is available at doi:10.1007/s10584-013-0999-6

This comment refers to the article available at doi:10.1007/s10584-010-9982-7

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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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