16 April, 2016

Climate change conversation has been colonized by corporations

Steven Gorelick from the
Stanford School of
Earth, Energy and
 Environmental Sciences.
 
Among climate change activists, solutions usually center on a transition to renewable energy.

There may be differences over whether this would be best accomplished by a carbon tax, bigger subsidies for wind and solar power, divestment from fossil fuel companies, massive demonstrations, legislative fiat or some other strategy, but the goal is generally the same: replace dirty fossil fuels with clean renewable energy. Such a transition is often given a significance that goes well beyond its immediate impact on greenhouse gas emissions: it would somehow make our exploitative relationship to Nature more environmentally sound, our relationship to each other more socially equitable. In part this is because the fossil fuel corporations – symbolized by the villainous Koch brothers – will be a relic of the past, replaced by ‘green’ corporations and entrepreneurs that display none of their predecessors’ ruthlessness and greed.

Read Steven Gorelick’s comment piece on Local Futures – Economics of Happiness – “Changing Everything.”

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