I look forward to the day when they urge people to use much less energy, carpool, drive slower, give up cars, take Amtrak, embrace steady state economics, etc.
It's nice to divest but as long as nearly everyone eats food shipped across time zones divestment is unlikely to be much more than a rounding error.
I guess it's also asking too much for these groups to notice the Democrats and Republicans are both pushing for more than a trillion dollars in new and expanded highways. Obama even wants to increase funding for more roads above the level that George W. Bush pushed. PeakTraffic.org has details.
I bought my first solar electric panel in 1990. Solar energy is great but it's not going to replace our current consumption.
I guess the "left" forgot what Mr. Marx wrote about controlling the means of production and they certainly are not interested in the concept of "net energy" / energy return on energy invested. Solar and wind are great but they're not going to fuel cross continental food delivery trucks. How many environmental groups teach their "members" to tear up their lawns and grow food?
Mark Robinowitz
You're right. Of course it's not fossil fuel companies, but their customers, that are causing global warming. Likewise, it was people who used spray cans, not the companies that made CFCs, that almost destroyed the ozone layer and exposed hundreds of millions to cancerous radiation. Yet we phased out and then outlawed the sale of CFCs. We should phase out and then outlaw the sale of fossil fuel.
A government mandated phase out is what has worked for other environmental problems. Nothing else will work for fossil fuels, because it's cheapest without any kind of price to account for its harm--as you argued in your comment. Stop protecting an industry at the expense of civilization and human suffering, as if it were some sort of idol. You are demonizing fossil fuel by fighting for its unnaturally long survival.
are you that blind to what's going on around the world. Look at the niger delta, or the gulf of mexico just to name 2 top examples. Big oil doesn't care about the planet, all about profits. Its also a lie to say Big oil is going green with wind, solar energy programs.
This is all well and great but the author and activists mentioned are totally ignoring economics. The fossil fuel industry doesn't pollute, the population that consumes gasoline and electricity produced by conventional fossil fuel methods pollutes. And guess what? The majority of citizens will continue to buy the cheapest forms of energy possible, Oil companies aren't to blame for the fact that fossil fuels are cheap. The responsibility for pollution falls squarely on those in charge of domestic policy and the choices of the average joe! Stop demonizing an industry that also owns much of the wind and solar being deployed, its non-sensical!
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