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> Allowing the development of a popular consensus that global warming is "bad enough to spray stuff into the sky to cool the earth down" would be absolutely cat

> Allowing the development of a popular consensus that global warming is "bad enough to spray stuff into the sky to cool the earth down" would be absolutely catastrophic, since it would also reduce the window they have to exploit those resources. Would it? The entire global economy runs on those resources. I think you're overestimating how willing governments and publics worldwide would be to accept "spray stuff into the sky to cool the earth down" over "change literally everything about how everyone lives everywhere," especially when the second one has a cost in lives much more easily measured (and propagandized!) than the first.

matthewdgreen 3y ago
We’re already in the process of making that change. Wind and solar and storage are going to wipe out most fossil fuel usage within a few decades, and it’s pretty obvious that fossil fuel interests realize this — you can see it in the way firms are shifting investments from new resource development into profit-maximization. This will happen even if governments don’t put their thumb on the scale, but they certainly are doing that: the political pressure to transition is only going to get more intense as we see more severe weather events. The question isn’t “can we keep using (substantial amounts of) fossil fuels long term”, that’s decided. What’s up for debate is how quickly we’ll reach the tipping point where it becomes obvious to investors that existing reserves are stranded. This will be a long time before we stop using lots of fossil fuels! The battle that (smart) fossil fuel companies are fighting is to push that date a decade or two into the future. I hope and wish for a future where there is a reasonable accommodation and fossil fuel interests support action on global warming, even if it’s only SRM. In the real world I think these companies are fighting a vicious rear-guard action to get every scrap of profit out of the industry before it folds up and dies. It’s going to be messy and destructive and the strategy right now is to promote denial and sabotage anything that could result in further political consensus for rapid decarbonization.

matthewdgreen 3y ago

We’re already in the process of making that change. Wind and solar and storage are going to wipe out most fossil fuel usage within a few decades, and it’s pretty obvious that fossil fuel interests realize this — you can see it in the way firms are shifting investments from new resource development into profit-maximization. This will happen even if governments don’t put their thumb on the scale, but they certainly are doing that: the political pressure to transition is only going to get more intense as we see more severe weather events. The question isn’t “can we keep using (substantial amounts of) fossil fuels long term”, that’s decided. What’s up for debate is how quickly we’ll reach the tipping point where it becomes obvious to investors that existing reserves are stranded. This will be a long time before we stop using lots of fossil fuels! The battle that (smart) fossil fuel companies are fighting is to push that date a decade or two into the future. I hope and wish for a future where there is a reasonable accommodation and fossil fuel interests support action on global warming, even if it’s only SRM. In the real world I think these companies are fighting a vicious rear-guard action to get every scrap of profit out of the industry before it folds up and dies. It’s going to be messy and destructive and the strategy right now is to promote denial and sabotage anything that could result in further political consensus for rapid decarbonization.