[KirinDave]

Imperialism is timeless.

The weirdest part of it all is how these folks are now on the sharp end of capitalism. They're rapidly being dismantled at a more local level by on-site generation, which simply needs less global infrastructure to meet demand.

So now we have these folks with massive empires largely based on the promise of future capital, with heavily leveraged current holdings. They have incentive to act against efficiency and the market to preserve the investments they made. In any other scenario folks would probably say that they "deserve to lose".

[teslabox]

> The weirdest part of it all is how these folks are now on the sharp end of capitalism. They're rapidly being dismantled at a more local level by on-site generation, which simply needs less global infrastructure to meet demand.

I wish the climate change alarmists could realize that 90% of what they're freaking out about is a non-problem. It'd just take a small amount of focused investment (cogeneration and AC time-shifting tech, etc) to make the energy industry obsolete.

[KirinDave]

I think it's a very big problem for my descendants. This is something I am sensitive to as my parents and grandparents have left America in such a terrible state for me to inherit, and now resist any attempts to yield power.

The energy industry is fighting against both economics and ecology to maintain dominance. It does so for lots of reasons. It has no right to exist.

[ZenoArrow]

The one glimmer of hope I have in all this is that emerging markets like China and India seem keen to push for green tech. I don't think capitalists of the type we're referring to will understand anything more clearly than losing money.

We can't wait for them to accept the science, we should be pushing for the economic incentives to do the right thing to get better.