Making Tough Choices Re: Fossil Fuels

Frequent commenter MarcoPolo took some level of umbrage with my post in which I mentioned that the largest public university in the U.S. had divested itself from fossil fuels.  His main point: damaging the oil companies’ profits would send the economy into a tailspin. 

No one disputes that the fossil fuel industry is an extremely important aspect of the U.S. and world economy. But, similarly, almost no one believes that we’ll still have a civilization here in 75 years if we don’t recast our approach to energy on this planet.

Based on what I’ve read, I believe that the only way forward is to encourage what many authors referred to as the “Third Industrial Revolution,” which we’ve discussed several times here. This means internalizing the externalities of fossil fuel consumption, and using that as the basis for a world economy built around cleantech, that is, energy efficiency, renewables, electric transportation, smart-grid, energy storage, sustainable agriculture, etc.

I’m aware that some say this is unrealistic, but to them I can only point out the sheer folly of hoping that a status quo approach to energy on this planet will miraculously not result in catastrophe.

We don’t have any other choices.