Friday, January 27, 2017

Arnold And Francis

What do a former Republican Governor of California and the Pope have in common?


They're both intensely interested in something Trump says doesn't exist: global warming. They're both promoting alternative energy as energetically as they can.

Of course you can't sell sunshine and wind with big profits the way you can do with petrochemicals. Who cares if it's killing us all, with oil, with Trump, and Putin, there's money to be made!

But -- is there, really? Are the Dakota and Keystone pipelines going to be able to pay for themselves if demand for petrochemicals is drying up, because everybody is switching to solar and wind and tidal and geothermal and biodiesel and vegetable oil and switchgrass and corn ethanol and hydroelectric and nuclear? Not every item on that list is popular with environmentalists, but every one of them isn't petroleum. And with the possible exception of hydroelectric, nuclear and corn ethanol (the only ones on the list which aren't popular with environmentalists), each one is growing fast.

How does this leave us with expanding demand for oil such as that there is any economic reason for Trump's energy policies even if we leave "secondary" considerations such as the health and survival of the human species completely out of the equation?

The oil companies lied to us for so long about the effects of their products. I think they may be lying to us now about the long-term demand for their products. Losers. Sad.

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