To What Degree Do Vested Interests Determine Our Energy Future?

This fellow at CleanTechies replies in our discussion on the power of vested interests in determining our energy future:

Craig, surely there’s no doubt that you are right to a great degree. There are vested interests that stand to lose a lot of money by a transition away from fossil fuels. As Upton Sinclair said some 70 or 80 years ago, “It is extraordinarily difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it!” But are those established interests of the gods? No. I’m sure the makers of gas lamps tried to oppose Edison’s electric light.

Sir:  This is all true. And no one needs to convince me that people of the time, e.g., the Rockefellers, were at least as powerful — and ruthless – as any forces around today. But did they have their tentacles so far into the fabric of Washington? And, perhaps more to the point, had the American people been lulled to sleep by a corporate-owned media empire that deliberately derails them from finding the truth?