What We're Really Up Against

I've heard a lot of people who, at the mention of the climate crisis, believe that, when the time is right - just a little longer, any year now - we'll all just throw a few solar panels on the roof and - problem solved.

Sorry, that's not going to happen.  It's wishful thinking of the sort that can lead to truly dangerous delusions.

An article at BBC Future takes a sobering look at the hurdles that stand in our way to a clean energy world. They're daunting. Not insurmountable but damn near. I won't load you up with crushing realities. If you want them, follow the link.

The author suggests that our best intentions won't work unless we're ready to overhaul capitalism as we understand it, this melange of 18th century economics, 19th century industrialism and 20th century geopolitics.  If we're to have a reasonable chance of salvaging our societies we have to ditch globalism, the hell spawn of our fossil fuel contagion and re-localize our economies.

The current blind faith in technology will not save us. For the planet to stand any chance, the global economy must be redesigned. The problem is more fundamental than capitalism or the emphasis on growth: it is money itself, and how money is related to technology. 

Climate change and the other horrors of the Anthropocene don’t just tell us to stop using fossil fuels – they tell us that globalisation itself is unsustainable.