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The_jackalope

(1,660 posts)
Wed Aug 7, 2019, 09:45 AM Aug 2019

Plan B is impossible, and there is no Plan A.

Reality is often a highly uncomfortable place.

http://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2019/08/03/theres-no-plan-a/

Nick Butler (at the Financial Times) writes about the charity Greenpeace’s apparent failure. But, like all charities that employ people (I know because I ran one for a decade) Greenpeace’s unwritten primary aim is to raise the funds required for Greenpeace to exist.

Extinction Rebellion’s campaigning appears to have fallen for the myth that there is a conspiracy between the fossil fuel companies and various governments around the world to obstruct the switch to an entirely viable alternative energy system. But neither states nor corporations are homogenous in this way. The state is nominally directed by politicians whose primary goal is to get re-elected.

While this may sound cynical, it is the reality of how the world actually works. When I point out that charities’ primary concern is to keep the funds flowing in, I am not suggesting that they do not also seek to fulfil their charitable aims. Rather, they are only pursuing those aims that align with the aims of their funders. In the same way, corporations will make environmental changes – even coal and oil companies use wind and solar to power their operations these days – that align with their need to continue servicing debts; provide returns to shareholders; and pay the salaries of their senior managers.

Plan B, you will remember, is that we relatively rapidly reduce our population, our activity, our production and our consumption to a level that can be supported with renewable energy alone. The last time we did this was some time in the seventeenth century, when there were less than a billion humans on Earth. I leave it to the reader’s imagination as to how quickly we might make such a transition. But I also ask readers to note that while Plan B is extremely unpalatable; Plan A doesn’t actually exist.
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Plan B is impossible, and there is no Plan A. (Original Post) The_jackalope Aug 2019 OP
Plan B will happen sooner or later Boomer Aug 2019 #1

Boomer

(4,159 posts)
1. Plan B will happen sooner or later
Wed Aug 7, 2019, 01:38 PM
Aug 2019

And it will happen pretty quickly, too. On our way down to the next Stone Age.

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