> the consumer demand for the goods those companies provide is unlikely to go away. There wouldn't be consumer demand if the companies in question hadn't cover

> the consumer demand for the goods those companies provide is unlikely to go away. There wouldn't be consumer demand if the companies in question hadn't covered up the damage that they do. You can hide behind 'consumer demand' but that really is just a meaningless term, practically speaking, through what is almost a total control of the major press outlets (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch), and rabid advertising, the consumer can be manipulated to like or dislike anything. Especially if you suppress certain details like "buying oil is killing the planet". It isn't like the companies in question didn't have 40 years to diversify into sustainable energy sources. You argue against the state having control, but at least if that were the case the state could have enforced a gradual tapering off and eventual stoppage of these types of energy. Unfortunately we no longer have the time to do that. In fact, you are using exactly the same arguments that the oil industry used, to cover up climate change. See: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/sep/19/shell-and-exxons-secret-1980s-climate-change-warnings https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97... Privately, these companies did not dispute the links between their products, global warming, and ecological calamity. On the contrary, their research confirmed the connections. and Nor did the companies ever take responsibility for their products. In Shell’s study, the firm argued that the “main burden” of addressing climate change rests not with the energy industry, but with governments and consumers. That argument might have made sense if oil executives, including those from Exxon and Shell, had not later lied about climate change and actively prevented governments from enacting clean-energy policies. > People consume energy and it's unlikely that we'll be able to reduce our usage meaningfully in the near future. The only reason people consume unsustainable energy is because the alternative is expensive, and people are not paid properly enough to be able to afford such luxuries as a clean conscience. See: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/80-percent-of-us-adults-face-near-poverty-unemployment-survey-finds/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/80-percent-of-us-adults-face-ne... The gauge defines "economic insecurity" as a year or more of periodic joblessness, reliance on government aid such as food stamps or income below 150 percent of the poverty line. Measured across all races, the risk of economic insecurity rises to 79 percent. and It's time that America comes to understand that many of the nation's biggest disparities, from education and life expectancy to poverty, are increasingly due to economic class position," said William Julius Wilson, a Harvard professor who specializes in race and poverty.