If fossil fuels keep burning at present rates, we are headed for apocalyptic civilisational collapse. Perhaps even more strangely, there is no longer much serious disagreement about this claim.
If fossil fuels keep burning at present rates, we are headed for apocalyptic civilisational collapse. Perhaps even more strangely, there is no longer much serious disagreement about this claim.
Things will change the exact second that existing petro-wealth figures out how to make more off of green power in the next quarter than by continuing to destroy the earth. I wonder if, ironically, that day will be highly delayed because they missed the opportunity to buy in at the bottom.
Everyone could see that greentech would be a trillion dollar industry. If nothing else, nobody after 1950 ever pictured oil derricks in their sci-fi worlds. So you’d expect the firms that already knew energy-- the oil companies and utilities-- to take a speculative punt on every new tech just as they’d buy into new oil-fields.
But I guess a dollar reinvested in the goo industry in 1980 was the sure thing-- worth more than the chance to own a chunk of the new economy in 2040. Will ExxonMobil or Shell be willing to pivot into solar/hydrogen/battery/etc tech at today’s prices, or will they just use their political leverage to maximize the extraction and damage thry can do with their assets until they become complete write-offs?