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Oct 30, 2022Liked by Andy @Revkin

This was an extremely valuable discussion in which various different approaches to motivating societal change were at least briefly discussed. The issue of to directly physically confront or not directly physically confront has been around for a long time. As a photojournalist during the turbulent 1960s I both documented and at times participated in dozens of direct physical confrontation actions that ranged from working relatively non combatively alongside Caesar Chavez & Corky Gonzales in the grape and lettuce boycotts to the far more physical nationwide student strikes prompted by Nixon's invasion of Cambodia and the People's Park riots in Berkeley. In my experience creative results seldom occur once things ramp up to physical confrontation. That said while the nonprofit granting approach to solving environmental issues has certainly become an increasingly appealing way of making a living in my limited experience anyway it tends to consist of a lot of talk and posturing and very little action. Multiple millions of dollars are raised and spent, multitudes of best and brightest upper middle class college grads gain remunerative careers, and a patina of "Solving the problems" calms previously turbulent waters. But very little gets done when "raising funds" forms a poor substitute for grabbing a shovel and digging! Since neither of these radically different approaches has a very impressive track record what is called for is a new technique of tackling the pressing problems of global warming, income inequality, and the dozens of other critically important issues upon which the future of mankind hangs. Discussions like this may not "solve the problems" but as a professional boat captain I can attest that navigating calmer waters beats crashing through waves nine times out of ten so the ratcheting down of tempers should most definitely help.

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The continuing self-inflicted wound hamstringing climate action is the belief that nation-state governments can wave their respective magic wands and legislate away the physical laws of thermodynamics that link energy extraction from hydrocarbons to diminishing habitats on earth that will be inhabitable by humans.

The solution we need to diminishing habitats is a rapid redesign and restructuring of our global energy economy, Commissioning new earth interactive energy capture and conversion technology deployments to enable the Decommissioning of existing energy extraction from hydrocarbons for energy parity and habitat longevity.

This is a replace-to-retire strategy that has to executed all-at-once on a global scale.

Which government agency is going to organize and underwrite that strategy?

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