Energy Policy: Taking a Stand Against Fossil Fuels–Additional Discussion
Re: My piece called Energy Policy: Taking a Stand Against Fossil Fuels, frequent commenter MarcoPolo writes:
Joe Public has grown weary of endless doomsday predictions that just don’t occur.
1977, was the ‘irreversible’ tipping point, were the human population would suffer sustained global famine, and only the immediate reduction of the population could solve the planet. Well, by 1978, the world (especially Europe) was suffering from an enormous surplus of food production, accompanied by a rise in population.
“Peak Oil” has been a similar, authoritative, “consensus peer-reviewed” doomsday scenario, that failed to eventuate.
Joe Public is quite willing to accept scientific evidence that human activity contributes to climate change. What he’s grown skeptical about, is the use of that evidence to justify ill-conceived, poorly thought-out public expenditure on projects, based on an amalgam of ideology and distorted science.
Joe Public, is rightly suspicious of strident, fanatical, political methods employed by climate change extremists……
I hear you. Three quick points:
1) There are so many distinct demographics of “Joe Public” that I’m not sure it’s meaningful to say what he thinks or how he will behave. Yet virtually every half-decently educated person on Earth believes (correctly) that our civilization is in deep dung vis-a-vis the environment and the incessant damage we’re doing to it. Having said that, who can blame people for distrusting government to address this properly? Anyone who is paying attention is scared to death.
2) Rational people (Joe Public or otherwise) do not conclude our scientists’ past predictions are necessarily wrong simply because some past predictions failed to materialize. Science is a long, humbling process, but anyone would admit that it’s been of inestimable good to our civilization.
3) Fortunately for us all, it will be neither Joe Public nor government that saves the day; it will be the plummeting costs of renewable energy and other related solutions: efficiency, storage, etc.—the theme of my most recent book (Bullish on Renewable Energy).
