Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to We need to study the notivation of those who opposed this.

We know who is behind it

It's big oil and big coal. The profit motive is strong for those providing energy to an energy hungry world. The world heavily demands electric power and the supply produces ungodly profits. And as free market economics shows, that profit motive produces results that immensely benefit the world in powering cities, water purification, sanitation, large scale farming, hospitals, ships, planes, trucks, trains, cars, computers, TVs, washing machines, etc etc etc. All vastly improving the human condition. And as free market economics also teaches, the profit motive doe not protect the environment. There is no mechanism in unregulated S&D to address negative externalities like carbon emmissions into the atmosphere. Thus the need for regulation to force Oil and Coal companies to pay the costs of the damage they do as a consequence of producing all that energy. It's been entirely inadequate obviously. But the free market also offers hope if market forces are steered toward a solution. Creating regulations that offer incentives to produce clean energy has always been the key, and thankfully we are now doing that on a larger scale. The tipping point will come when clean energy is cheaper than oil. It is already cheaper than coal, it's just not upscaled enough at this point to replace coal on a global scale.

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