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Jonathan Franzen – What If We Stopped Pretending?

Summary:
The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it. We could have averted the climate disaster, and investors could have made their fortune out of renewables. Green energy was not anti-capitalism, it was a new market for entrepreneurs. Oil companies would have had a lucrative business for many years to come as we needed the oil for fertilisers, plastics, and chemicals.The billionaires who run the fossil companies didn't need anymore wealth, and the wealth tied up in the unextracted oil would have been passed onto to their offspring, maybe for generations.  Scared of being called Alarmists, scientists have not spoken about the worst that can happen, which seems now is likely going to be the outcome.  Also, if it's too late, the

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The climate apocalypse is coming. To prepare for it, we need to admit that we can’t prevent it.


Jonathan Franzen  - What If We Stopped Pretending?


We could have averted the climate disaster, and investors could have made their fortune out of renewables. Green energy was not anti-capitalism, it was a new market for entrepreneurs. Oil companies would have had a lucrative business for many years to come as we needed the oil for fertilisers, plastics, and chemicals.

The billionaires who run the fossil companies didn't need anymore wealth, and the wealth tied up in the unextracted oil would have been passed onto to their offspring, maybe for generations. 


Scared of being called Alarmists, scientists have not spoken about the worst that can happen, which seems now is likely going to be the outcome. 

Also, if it's too late, the deniers will say, 'well, if everyone is going to die anyway, why worry about it, we might as well keep burning the oil until the party's over?'


Today, the scientific evidence verges on irrefutable. If you’re younger than sixty, you have a good chance of witnessing the radical destabilization of life on earth—massive crop failures, apocalyptic fires, imploding economies, epic flooding, hundreds of millions of refugees fleeing regions made uninhabitable by extreme heat or permanent drought. If you’re under thirty, you’re all but guaranteed to witness it.

The New Yorker


Mike Norman
Mike Norman is an economist and veteran trader whose career has spanned over 30 years on Wall Street. He is a former member and trader on the CME, NYMEX, COMEX and NYFE and he managed money for one of the largest hedge funds and ran a prop trading desk for Credit Suisse.

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