I have completely lost contact with any resemblance to reality. So I ask, am I writing about what everybody knows and has taken into consideration and has moved on? Or is any of this or its connections news here? I really have lost it. Not kidding. The whole discussion of global warming seems so out of sync with what I know, that I don't actually understand the discussions here. What are we thinking? Have we already bought into this crap?
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Time is the debate's dividing factor.
Specifically, the question of how much time we have to address the problem before it achieves runaway.
Some believe we lack the luxury of time to pursue a thorough purge which sweeps the relevant federal agencies and research centers clean of industry mouthpieces, the kind of wankers who, as you pointed out, start a white paper by id'ing the energy sector as a major source of emissions only to conclude the real answer is for you to open the fridge door less.
We don't have the time, this argument insists, to create a robust, politically progressive, top to bottom techno-sphere remediation program. From this point of view, the apparently real concern high-ranking members of the bourgeoisie are now showing is important since it might quickly lead to desperately needed emission reductions.
But you're saying the opposite - or, if not the opposite exactly you're making a layered counter-argument: the bourgeoisie, pleasant statements notwithstanding, is incapable of honestly carrying its weight - the cost to their ways of doing business (in every sense of the word) is too high. There'll be cheats and shortcuts, half assed efforts and obstacles. These obstacles are hidden in plain sight; we can see them in the examples you cited. They won't be removed, you assert, without performing the kind of purge you're being told we don't have time to perform.
Scylla, I'd like you to meet Caribdis.
.d.