I care about global climate change as much as you do. I distrust the fossil fuel industry as much as you do. I'm with 350.org and Bill McKibben as much as you are. And I'm as angry as you are that Barack Obama doesn't seem to be willing to act on the planetary emergency.
I have to tell you all that because what I'm about to propose is somewhere between painful and absurd to people like us. What if the solution to global warming is to empower the very companies that have the greatest economic interest in pumping the global supply of carbon out of the ground and into the atmosphere?
How would it happen?
First, there would have to be private meetings between the corporate heads of the global fossil fuels industry in a suitable location, far removed from the hoi poloi. Imagine them meeting, somewhere in Aspen, brandy and cigars in hand, and saying to each other:
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"Gentleman, if we win this game of energy production, we are ultimately going to kill the markets that are buying our product - energy! Now, you and I will be dead, but I'm hoping that my sons, Oil Executive Junior, and Coal Executive Bob, will also run energy companies like I do, and I know you'd like the same thing for your children. So we just can't sell all the 2,795 gigatons of carbon that we are now planning to sell. Reliable studies show that if we pump just 500 gigatons into the atmosphere we are endangering life on earth!
"And, we all know that wind, solar, ocean and nuclear options can't compete right now because if any one of our companies tries to sell energy produced by those mechanisms, the rest of us will just pump out cheaper carbon energy products. We're competitors!
"But our product is destroying our future markets, which are actually embedded in the planet itself!
'We need a cartel. Sure, it's illegal, but that doesn't usually stop us, and this is a virtuous and noble cartel. A cartel that will save future energy markets for us to dominate.
"Let us agree among ourselves to a carbon tax, administered by people WE control in Congress. Let us use that tax to each fund subsidiaries in solar, wind and nuclear power.... subsidies to US. Let us make sure that we remain in control of the world's energy supply regardless of what percent is fossil fuel, and what percent comes from renewables.
"Let us do this not because we love the planet, but because we need the markets to survive!
"Instead of letting those tree huggers define renewable energy as an alternative to our companies, let's be the alternative. Let's use our fully owned Senators and Representatives to pass a carbon tax that will subsidize OUR alternative energy operations. Let's REINFORCE our existing domination of the market, and PROLONG it by ensuring that there will be functioning economies into which we can sell energy in the future.
'In short, let's be the alternative, and ensure not only our continuing domination of the world's economy, but the continuing existence of a world worth dominating."
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Around the room fat white men chomping cigars and holding brandy snifters applaud as they gaze out a huge picture window at the mountains of Aspen. As they retire to dinner, they chat jovially among themselves knowing they have charted a future for their companies and the world.
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What is wrong with this picture? Everything!
But what if it is an actual solution to Global Climate Change?
I'd rather fight corporate domination of the planet after we solve this problem than use my hatred of anti-democratic corporations to fight what may prove to be a war that cannot be won in time to save the planet.
I am not convinced that the fossil fuel industry's grip on our political process can be loosened. But could they act in their own interest, if they were able to guarantee themselves that they would not be disadvantaged? Is it possible that people smart enough to run oil companies are NOT smart enough to read the science, and understand that the end of the planet means the end of THEIR markets?
What do you think?