Oil isn't the future once you've met peak oil--when tar sands or dilbit or whatever you want to call it means more effort and money is put into extracting more polluting fuels. It isn't even the future when you realize burning it is harming the atmosphere. Coal isn't the future when mountaintop removal dumps arsenic into groundwater, and high-sulfur coal produces sickening levels of particulate pollution. Fracking isn't the answer when groundwater is polluted and local farms and residences experience sickness.
The climate science deniers hedge their bets with the refuge that doing something about climate change will cost a lot anyway, so why be out of pocket just for the sake of trees and polar bears and poor people? The answer is that not addressing climate change will cost plenty in the long run. Denialists are basically screwing themselves. It's possible that addressing climate change could very well be beneficial to growth--if we get serious, creative, and on point.
I don't think we have time to waste--I'm enough of a cynic to believe that tipping points are real, and that we could reach a point of no return--but this can not mean that we don't try.
So I have very little time for people who want to blame climate scientists for "being in it for the money". Seriously? I mean, seriously? Then you can't say addressing climate change is also communism. Sorry. The future might have to be local action, clean energy, water protection, and sustainable food systems. In other words, getting a better quality of life by not supporting pollution and destructive business practices.
And surprisingly, the only ones really hurt by that would be the people disproportionately benefitting from the current tilted and earth-damaging system.
Something has to give.
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The interesting thing is, as we watch our American form of liberal democracy evolve into a corporatist authoritarian oligarchy, the only realistic answer to any any fundamental change is revolution. The electoral system is massively corrupt - declaring an institutionalized system of political bribery to be legal doesn't make it less corrupt - the system of governance is obsolete, dysfunctional and easily compromised and the operation of the deep state behind impenetrable government secrecy is beyond anyone's control.
Pile the unprecedented wealth inequality, institutional racism and and a ridiculously powerful military system that extends to intelligence and law enforcement institutions on that, and you end up with something you simply KNOW is unsustainable and will result in revolution...
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