{"id":19691,"date":"2016-04-08T11:47:50","date_gmt":"2016-04-08T16:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19691"},"modified":"2016-04-08T11:47:50","modified_gmt":"2016-04-08T16:47:50","slug":"changing-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=19691","title":{"rendered":"Changing Everything"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/changing-everything\/\" target=\"_blank\">Changing Everything<\/a><\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-meta\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-16676 alignleft     lazyloaded\" src=\"http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wind_2768875b.jpg\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px\" srcset=\"http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wind_2768875b-300x187.jpg 300x, http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wind_2768875b.jpg 620x\" alt=\"wind_2768875b\" width=\"333\" height=\"208\" data-lazy-src=\"http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wind_2768875b.jpg\" data-lazy-srcset=\"http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wind_2768875b-300x187.jpg 300w, http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/wind_2768875b.jpg 620w\" \/><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>Among climate change activists, solutions usually center on a transition to renewable energy. There may be differences over whether this would be best accomplished by a carbon tax, bigger subsidies for wind and solar power, divestment from fossil fuel companies, massive demonstrations, legislative fiat or some other strategy, but the goal is generally the same: replace dirty fossil fuels with clean renewable energy. Such a transition is often given a significance that goes well beyond its immediate impact on greenhouse gas emissions: it would somehow make our exploitative relationship to Nature more environmentally sound, our relationship to each other more socially equitable. In part this is because the fossil fuel corporations \u2013 symbolized by the villainous Koch brothers \u2013 will be a relic of the past, replaced by \u2018green\u2019 corporations and entrepreneurs that display none of their predecessors\u2019 ruthlessness and greed.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe, but I have my doubts. Here in Vermont, for example, a renewable energy conference last year was titled, \u201cCreating Prosperity and Opportunity Confronting Climate Change\u201d. The event attracted venture capitalists, asset management companies, lawyers that represent renewable energy developers, and even a \u201cbrandthropologist\u201d offering advice on \u201chow to evolve Brand Vermont\u201d in light of the climate crisis. The keynote speaker was Jigar Shah, author of\u00a0<em>Creating Climate Wealth<\/em>, who pumped up the assembled crowd by telling them that switching to renewables \u201crepresents the largest wealth creation opportunity of our generation.\u201d He added that government has a role in making that opportunity real: \u201cpolicies that incentivize resource efficiency can mean scalable profits for businesses.\u201d<a href=\"http:\/\/www.localfutures.org\/changing-everything\/#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref\">[1]<\/a>\u00a0If Shah is correct, the profit motive \u00ad\u2013 in less polite company it might be called \u2018greed\u2019 \u2013 will still be around in a renewable energy future.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Changing Everything Among climate change activists, solutions usually center on a transition to renewable energy. There may be differences over whether this would be best accomplished by a carbon tax, bigger subsidies for wind and solar power, divestment from fossil fuel companies, massive demonstrations, legislative fiat or some other strategy, but the goal is generally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[1017,4609,141,5930,328,386,674,13365],"class_list":["post-19691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-carbon-tax","tag-change","tag-climate-change","tag-energy-transition","tag-fossil-fuels","tag-greenhouse-gases","tag-renewable-energy","tag-steven-gorelick"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19691"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19691\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19692,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19691\/revisions\/19692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}