That’s an interesting comparison. It has me wondering about today’s equivalent to the Abraham Lincoln brigade, for climate change. People who care more about doing the right thing than what other people think of them.
I’ve concluded that most of the fossil fuels that are within reach of our present mining technology will get used up, and there is no way national or international policy is going to stop this. Shorting out the long-term carbon cycle of the Earth surface and upper crustal layer is the prime cause of anthropogenic global climate change. At this point we’re at the damage control and survival stage. The time to prevent it has passed.
I’d go even further than tat, and say that there never really was an opportunity to prevent it. Humans like to cultivate the illusion that we might consciously modulate our impact on the planet, but we’ve never had more control of this than, say, an algae bloom. Unfortunately there’s still a large voting bloc who believes this illusion it a prerequisite for action.
Like the Apollo One fire, it’s essentially a failure of imagination. We can’t really wrap our heads around how badly things could mess up, so reality has to demonstrate for us, the whole cause-and-effect nightmare before we can treat it as a real thing.
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This reminds me of the “prius repellent” mentioned in the podcast. If we find ourselves identifying too much with the villian of the story, then either embrace the role or change sides!
The best part of these techniques for the D’s and the S’s, is that it’s not just climate scientists who crave this kind of toolbox. Social Justice Warriors of all stripes have been facing these problems for decades.
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