Bill McKibben is a very smart man, but he is also completely misguided in his attacks on "Big Oil."
Everyone needs to stop blaming corporations for their actions. Shell, BP, and ExxonMobil, or whoever, aren't responsible for society's addiction to oil. They are certainly not responsible for Bill McKibben's lavish, jetsetting lifestyle, in which he personally is responsible for burning countless tons of fossil fuels into the upper atmosphere, where it does the most damage of all, while getting paid to talk to gullible people about his nonsensical divestment crusade.
The solution to the climate crisis is clear, but almost no one really wants to take the actions that are necessary, and so almost no one will. The solution is simple: Stop burning fossil fuels. That's it. It's really that simple.
Of course, the reason why almost no one wants to do this is because it will completely and systematically destroy society as we know it, and the only way we can do it without creating mass chaos has to involve radical changes to our land tenure and taxation policies.
I have over 25 years of professional experience working with computer systems and communications networks. I founded the first 100-percent-broadband-end-user internet service provider in the nation in 1994. I've been on the internet since 1986. I got my first computer in 1982. I've been using computers since 1978. I...
With Town Meeting Day approaching, I am contemplating how Vermont's direct democracy tradition tends to moderate political opinions expressed publicly and how a shared cultural experience means everyone is starting from the same set of assumptions about the nature of reality and knowledge. In a world in which first...
As I have written often, Vermont has the 51st largest economy of the 50 states plus Washington, D.C. Our state lags the nation by significant margins in growth of the gross domestic product, both gross and per capita. We pride ourselves on our ecological consciousness, yet we lead the nation in miles driven per capita. And our population is slowly but surely eroding. What to do? Many people believe they have the answers - some say lower taxes and businesses...