Ask “how can we break our addiction to fossil fuels and stop global warming?” and climate, renewable energy, and peak oil advocates reply in unison: it’s going to be hard.
They do couch their warnings in beautifully written and, for the most part, evocative essays on the difficulty and loss involved in weaning ourselves from dinosaur fuel. They express significant melancholy for the (wayward?) ways of wanton energy use and thoughtless environmental destruction we leave behind. But underneath it is always the the hair-shirt: in the creed of those not motivated by greed (lefties), nothing worthwhile could ever be easy.
There are two problems with the “anti-easy” argument:
It’s wrong, and it’s bad political strategy.The modern world is changing radically already, every day. Between computers, biotech, a workplace that promises no one stability, a political regime that wiretaps and disenfranchises us, and oil prices at a record high, Americans are, for better or for worse, always ready for change.
A world that uses 80 percent less fossil fuel offers us:
an economy that is, at worst, ... Read more