Only Real Progress Matters
A friend recently sent me a link to a YouTube video that was debunking the scientific consensus of climate change. This is just one more example of the ongoing war between the promoters of climate change and the deniers. I spent some time reflecting on this and responded to my friend with the following.
In my opinion, the continuing debate in the US about the reality of global climate change is a distraction for both sides. The climate change promoters and the deniers both use this debate as a means to forward their agendas and to create fear while missing a discussion of the real issues surrounding the future of energy supply and demand. In this way our nation will never make any progress while the rest of the world moves on without the leadership that we have long provided and for which we were rewarded through much of our history.
To me it is simply about allowing the free market to work without government subsidies or tax breaks of any type for the energy producers of all types while holding all industries and their leaders fully and criminally (in the case of gross negligence) accountable for all the public costs attributable to their business activities.
If the production of solar cells creates water or air pollution, they should be held fully accountable for all the costs of the mitigation of such pollution and for damages to individual’s lives. Likewise, if coal production results in water or air pollution these industries should be held fully accountable for their costs and damages.
God gave us one planet and told us to take care of it. This is a simple instruction. But the industries on all sides have found ways to avoid God’s instructions. They buy our government and legislators to create laws that distort a free market and simultaneously avoid virtually all accountability. They own our media and use it to promote messages that are intended to obfuscate thinking and promote fear.
This applies not only to the energy industries but to most multinational corporations and most of the world’s governments. There is a war going on between our past and our future, between our fears and our hopes, between opportunity and adversity and between our communities.
I am skeptical of many things but I trust science more than I trust multinational corporations and government.
And even my trust in the free market is not without much skepticism.
In the Showtime series “Billions”, Wendy Rhoades, the staff therapist of AX Capital while debating with one of her aggressive traders said, “It is more than numbers and decimal points, the things that make it matter are relationships, true honesty, real trust. ”
The young trader, Taylor Amber Mason replied, “No, I am pretty sure there is only money and it can buy all those things or at least the same result. That is what your have taught me.”
I think this may be the world we have given ourselves.
As with all human progress, there will be winners and losers. But only if the planet and our children not only survive but flourish will it make a difference. Otherwise we are all losers.
For those who are interested, here is the link;
Roger That! 