Bill Must Go

I should just call this blog : "What's Wrong With Mc Kibben" I spend so much time griping about his work, but here's the thing; somehow he got appointed leader/spokesperson of the most prominent climate change organization in the US of A and he is not cutting it. Now, I have no idea if he is given free reign to write whatever he wants or if the 350 board discusses and votes on it...but his/their incoherent theoretical underpinnings means the movement is spinning its wheels. Or worse, actually drifting backwards.

Now I have shown sympathy for "poor Bill" in the past but I am starting to think he may be a clever fossil fuel industry plant, the perfect tool with his goofy looks and mild demeanor. If not, he is simply a danger to us all. With his devotion to reformist policy, market solutions and the Great Promise of Green Capitalism, he is actually more effectively obstructionist than the worst Oklahoma oil whore, climate denier politician, including Trump. Because Bill is just..so...sincere.

In his latest piece calling for 100% renewables he shouts: "No more half measures." But in the paragraph preceding this radical demand, he says : "what the fight for $15 is to the battle against inequality, 100% renewables is to the struggle for the planets future." Exactly. A fucking half-measure at best! His next demand is even more militantly radical: let capitalism solve the problem in its own time and using its own impeccable logic. He writes:

"In the last few years, engineers have brought the price of renewables so low that, according to many experts, it would make economic sense to switch over even if fossil fuels weren’t wrecking the Earth. That’s why the appeal of 100% Renewable goes beyond the Left."

Cool.No struggle, no ideological antagonism, no right or left issue, just technocratic managers and engineers fixing the problem in the nick of time. Except of course they aren't. While we waited for the "price" of survival to make "economic sense" we have destroyed many lives, many more futures, and foreclosed many possibilities for any kind of real "just transition" for much of the developing world. But Bill is stoked the "price" is finally coming down, however slowly, through whatever magical mechanism. "According to many experts",that is.

So the fossil fuel companies will just realize they have been out-competed in the Sacred Market and concede gracefully, giving up their reserves and profits and power. Sure Bill. How long have you been spouting this line? Decades?

Next we learn that the falling price was because production of solar panels was out-sourced to Chinese sweatshops. "...and the price of panels began to plummet, a freefall that continues to this day." The miracle of the Market, almost in time to save the wealthiest parts of the world. Thank you Chinese labor.