Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
everything will be fine. Climate change and resource depletion are peripheral problems that can be
dealt with through pricing mechanisms or regulations.
Fossil fuel companies may understand the importance of energy, but they have a powerful in-
centive to avoid acceptance of the message that “renewables are the future.” If humanity is headed
toward an all-renewable energy economy, then their business has no future. The industry's strategy
for diverting the general public's buy-in to Conclusion 2 is to claim that there is plenty of oil, gas,
and coal available to fuel society for decades to come.
Some policy wonks buy “it's all about energy” but are jittery about “renewables are the future”
and won't go anywhere near “growth is over.” A few of these folks like to think of themselves as
environmentalists (sometimes calling themselves “bright green”)—including the Breakthrough In-
stitute and writers like Stewart Brand and Mark Lynas. A majority of government officials are ef-
fectively in the same camp, viewing nuclear power, natural gas, carbon capture and storage (“clean
coal”), and further technological innovation as pathways to solving the climate crisis without any
need to curtail economic growth.
Other environment-friendly folks buy “it's all about energy” and “renewables are the future” but
still remain allergic to the notion that “growth is over.” They say we can transition to 100 percent
renewable power with no sacrifice in terms of economic growth, comfort, or convenience. Stan-
chorus. Theirs is a reassuring message, but if it doesn't happen to be factually true (and there are
many energy experts who argue persuasively that it isn't), then it's of limited helpfulness because it
fails to recommend the kinds or degrees of change in energy usage that are essential to a successful
transition.
The general public tends to listen to one or another of these groups, all of which agree that the
climate and energy challenge of the 21st century can be met without sacrificing economic growth.
This widespread aversion to the “growth is over” conclusion is entirely understandable: during the
last century, the economies of industrial nations were engineered to require continual growth in or-
der to produce jobs, returns on investments, and increasing tax revenues to fund government ser-
vices. Conclusion 3, which questions whether growth can continue, is therefore deeply subversive.
Nearly everyone has an incentive to ignore or avoid it. It's not only objectionable to economic con-
servatives; it is also abhorrent to many progressives who believe economies must continue to grow
so that the working class can get a larger piece of the proverbial pie, and the “underdeveloped”
world can improve standards of living.
But ignoring uncomfortable facts seldom makes them go away. Often it just makes matters
worse. Back in the 1970s, when environmental limits were first becoming apparent, catastrophe
could have been averted with only a relatively small course correction—a gradual tapering of
growth and a slow decline in fossil fuel reliance. Now, only a “cold turkey” approach will suffice.
If a critical majority of people couldn't be persuaded
then
of the need for a gentle course correction,
can they
now
be talked into undertaking deliberate change on a scale and at a speed that might be
nearly as traumatic as the climate collision we're trying to avoid?
To be sure, there are those who do accept the message that “growth is over”: most are hard-core
environmentalists or energy experts. But this is a tiny and poorly organized demographic. If pub-
lic relations consists of the management of information flowing from an organization to the public,
then it surely helps to start with an organization wealthy enough to be able to afford to mount a
serious public relations campaign.
