We all want to find a bogeyman to pin climate change on. Especially if that bogeyman is someone we already like hating. Popular targets of hate which might be c

We all want to find a bogeyman to pin climate change on. Especially if that bogeyman is someone we already like hating. Popular targets of hate which might be compatible include: capitalism, corporations, oil companies, our government, someone else's government, and someone else's generation. But, if you choose to frame it in terms of guilt, the truth is we are all "guilty". We all benefited from it. Some definitely share more guilt than others, but honestly we let many of them get away with it on purpose so we could get the benefits. Internal combustion engines (and before that external combustion engines) are how industrialization happened. It's how we got to our current level of development. We, the human race, used energy to lift ourselves out of what we'd now consider poverty, and we created that energy by burning whatever we could get our hands on that would burn. And I really think there was no other way at the time. If you are able to read this message through the magic of the internet, or if you have access to a reliable source of food and some choice of what to eat, or if you're wearing clothes you didn't sew yourself, or if you received modern healthcare, or if you lived in a society that was prosperous enough that it could give you an education, all that was to a large degree made possible by the industrial revolution and fossil fuels. What's more, if you have a solar panel on your roof, or if you are able to buy electricity that comes from wind energy, or if you drive an electric car, all of that was also made possible by fossil fuels. Clean technology didn't invent itself. We had to get to the point where we could invent it, and that is the result of humanity having the resources available for centuries to invest in developing science, math, engineering, and manufacturing. Now, of course, we've put ourselves in a situation which is unsustainable, and we have to move on to the next phase and basically discard half the world's infrastructure and start over. It absolutely has to be done, but it's going to be crazy expensive and disruptive, and that's a tough pill to swallow. But making it about guilt and blame doesn't actually help get it done. The only thing it does is help you feel better if you believe the guilt rests on someone else. You can tell yourself, "We're screwed, but it's not my fault." Even if it's true, the value of that consolation prize isn't much.