What the parent is saying is that as long as there is legal demand for a substance, the supplier is not the only one to be held accountable. Oil and gas conglomerates emerged and flourished because they met the demand of society.
If the demand was irresponsible, then someone has failed to act in addition to the suppliers who are essentially just looking to capitalise on an opportunity in a socio-economic system where to succeed is to capitalise on any legal, available opportunity.
Governing bodies have known for decades that the consumption of fossil fuels was both unsustainable and detrimental to the health of the environment.
And yet no consequential action has been taken, for a number of understandable, yet ultimately wrong reasons.
Governments will argue that the technology wasn't there yet to make a transition away from fossil fuels, but money could have been invested to ensure that it was there.
Skip to today, one may retort that the technology is here now, and when governments are reticent and continue to drag their heels — that is perhaps when shadier motivations behind executive inaction emerge.
I do not speak as an environmentalist by any means, my net contributions to encouraging social change in this regard are practically zero, I've never made the effort.
But over the years I have been alive I have seen this problem growing and the debate becoming increasingly protracted and increasingly unhelpful.
The time for debate, inquiry and questions of accountability is not now, as this process will simply result in the burial of the actual problem facing our species and, realistically, very little punitive action against the most significant culprits.
Indeed, what point is there in trying to point the finger at suppliers meeting demands and governments seeking to remain in government by giving people what they want? It's a problem to which the solution is political suicide that any subsequent regime can likely overturn.
Like financial crises, no one supports change until the proverbial shit hits the fan. This is partially because the general population do not understand the nature or severity of the problem, the timescale, or even believe the problem exists. I would argue that this is not accidental — lots of powerful institutions and people have undoubtedly had a hand in making sure the populace do not understand or take an active interest in problems like environmental and financial crises.
This is because the existence and power of these institutions and people would be threatened by a shift in the status quo.
The time for decisive action was at least a decade ago, but there's no harm in starting now — it just means that the transition to alternative energy sources must be more abrupt and more investment must be allocated to remedial technologies that can work towards undoing at least some portion of the damage we have done to our biosphere.
Let historians and the next generations worry about whose fault it was. It is more important to secure for the next generation a sustainable and habitable future, than it is to look back at past hubris and wonder where it went wrong.
I think you've hit on the heart of the issue here. Framing the issue as if there is some kind of ethical/moral obligation to refrain from utilizing fossil fuels is completely nonsensical. As you said, when you have a legal, available profit opportunity in our economic system, you take it. If you don't, someone else will. Blaming the people who "got there first" is like blaming Samuel Colt for all gun violence. Our system by design operates at the lowest-common-ethical-denominator.
If you want to change it, you need to change the economic incentives of the all the actors involved. This includes straightforward measures that are already exist but need to be tuned up, like forcing them to recognize the negative externalities they introduce through operation more directly (carbon tax).
Of course, to the extent those actors have tried to downplay or mislead the general public as to the extent of those negative externalities, they have full culpability I'm happy to condemn them for that. But let's not pretend they are immoral for simply existing.
If the demand was irresponsible, then someone has failed to act in addition to the suppliers who are essentially just looking to capitalise on an opportunity in a socio-economic system where to succeed is to capitalise on any legal, available opportunity.
Governing bodies have known for decades that the consumption of fossil fuels was both unsustainable and detrimental to the health of the environment.
And yet no consequential action has been taken, for a number of understandable, yet ultimately wrong reasons.
Governments will argue that the technology wasn't there yet to make a transition away from fossil fuels, but money could have been invested to ensure that it was there.
Skip to today, one may retort that the technology is here now, and when governments are reticent and continue to drag their heels — that is perhaps when shadier motivations behind executive inaction emerge.
I do not speak as an environmentalist by any means, my net contributions to encouraging social change in this regard are practically zero, I've never made the effort.
But over the years I have been alive I have seen this problem growing and the debate becoming increasingly protracted and increasingly unhelpful.
The time for debate, inquiry and questions of accountability is not now, as this process will simply result in the burial of the actual problem facing our species and, realistically, very little punitive action against the most significant culprits.
Indeed, what point is there in trying to point the finger at suppliers meeting demands and governments seeking to remain in government by giving people what they want? It's a problem to which the solution is political suicide that any subsequent regime can likely overturn.
Like financial crises, no one supports change until the proverbial shit hits the fan. This is partially because the general population do not understand the nature or severity of the problem, the timescale, or even believe the problem exists. I would argue that this is not accidental — lots of powerful institutions and people have undoubtedly had a hand in making sure the populace do not understand or take an active interest in problems like environmental and financial crises.
This is because the existence and power of these institutions and people would be threatened by a shift in the status quo.
The time for decisive action was at least a decade ago, but there's no harm in starting now — it just means that the transition to alternative energy sources must be more abrupt and more investment must be allocated to remedial technologies that can work towards undoing at least some portion of the damage we have done to our biosphere.
Let historians and the next generations worry about whose fault it was. It is more important to secure for the next generation a sustainable and habitable future, than it is to look back at past hubris and wonder where it went wrong.