First off, we have some substance -- Will Steffen's Ted Talk about the Anthropocene.
We follow up with a wonderful example of human impact on the planet -- 200 years of dams.
Finally, what ya gonna do? Well, the Coalition for Green Capital, American Council on Renewable Resources, Carbon War Room and a number of others have banded together to put out the following. Don't get fooled by the logos and other paraphernalia that show up around the one minute mark. Watch it all the way through ... it is very clever.
but in either direction, it says that "big government will fail us" and "the free market will lead the way". In fact, both big government AND the free market will both fail us. Neither will "lead the way" to a renewable energy future. Governments, large and small, are mediators,influence brokers between "markets" aka communities, and trans-national corporations. The nation-state has been subsumed by the Corporate State. We are actually governed by trans-national corporations, since the majority of our daily activities are shaped and controlled by them, their products and services, the technologies they produce, and the way those technologies structure our relationships, work and everyday lives.
ReplyDeleteTrans-national corporations have no interest in solving problems of energy or the environment, or doing anything but making a return on investment. Period
"Markets" have failed to produce anything but liminal amounts of renewable energy. We will not solve our "energy problems' because too many people will go hungry or starve before we even get to the "end of oil" or coal or natural gas or renewables or any energy supply.
It all comes down to this: who eats and who starves? Food scarcity and strains on the food system will cause the collapse of civilizations before we even get to "the energy problem", and the collapse of the food systems will be caused by both energy scarcity (price) and massive climate change.