Life : Powered

This organization, Life: Powered, and its parent org, the Texas Public Policy Foundation are the kind of fossil fuel shills I write about in my novel, Oblivion's Cross (now available on Amazon) In the book I call it F.R.E.E , the Foundation for Research on Energy and the Economy. The idea is, the industry rounds up a bunch of psuedo- intellectual ghouls willing to whore themselves for a cushy job, which is not hard to do. They write position papers and lobby legislatures and write op eds to support the industry which "supports" them financially. Your basic propaganda machine. Much of the novel is centered around James Beam, a founder of FREE, and big-wig ceo hell-bent on accumulating profit and prestige. As I developed this character I was interested in the degree of cynicism vs authentic belief he wrestled with, that is, what is the true nature and role of ideology. Wish I could get as glowing a review in the NY Times as Vauhini Vara got for her debut novel The Immortal King Rao. Good to see anti-capitalist climate fiction making its way into the mainstream. Kim Stanley Robinson has been leading the charge and his novel Ministry For the Future does a good job of making a political point while keeping the reader ( mostly) engaged. There are some places where it lags.