[cmrdporcupine]

Sure, but it begs the question what happens when fossil fuel exploitation inevitably is curtailed drastically; either early by necessity because of reasonable legislation, or a bit later because of a stronger ecological collapse or depletion.

Solar, wind, or whatever Future Tech is unlikely to have the same direct mine->refine->commodity->sell->use cycle on which a lot of this edifice is built.

This could be quite relevant for current generations before they retire, but even more so for my children's generation.

You can already see the political fallout with various ugly regimes in various petro-states starting to panic. Wait until people's 401Ks start to explode.

[ant6n]

> Solar, wind, or whatever Future Tech is unlikely to have the same direct mine->refine->commodity->sell->use cycle on which a lot of this edifice is built

What’s that mean? Solar is providing energy at similar costs.

[cmrdporcupine]

It's providing energy with fewer intermediaries soaking up profits along the way, and can be done "anywhere" the sun shines instead of where resource deposits are concentrated. Entire political classes will be (and are) mobilized to push against this. There is a lot to lose for a lot of people.

That and a huge % of the stock market's value right now is built up of energy companies. Especially here in Canada.

[ant6n]

So we’ll spread out energy production to more smaller actors, and it will be more interesting how energy is used. That could rejuvenate markets, let old fossil giants die.

Trudeau should rejoin the Paris Accords and move to the secondary and tertiary sectors (or as Mulcair put, get rid of Dutch Disease), or Canada (and everybody else) will be fucked.

[cmrdporcupine]

Perhaps you're misreading me as thinking the collapse of fossil fuel energy sector would be a bad thing? It wouldn't be, in the bigger picture.

But there's still boatloads of people over-invested in it who are going to be in for a rude awakening if humanity actually gets its shit together.

[eatsyourtacos]

>Wait until people's 401Ks start to explode

Maybe we shouldn't have moved to such a completely moronic system them which shifts all the risk to the individual and just "hope" they magically make money on something they have no control over.

It all works until it doesn't.

[astrange]

We didn't, we have Social Security. You don't have to contribute to a 401k. And you can keep it all in a money market fund if you want; it'll still be tax advantaged.

[cmrdporcupine]

Sure, I completely agree with you. No argument there.