We all live in two worlds: a physical one and a social one. The new report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is ostensibly about the physical world. The most interesting question about the report is its effect on the social world. It’s clearly designed to goose us into action. It has been met with coördinated calls for urgent action. But those reactions are not the only voices. [The fossil-fuel industry seeks delay which is] victory for the oil industry. Eventually, sun and wind power, being cheap, will topple fossil fuels—but every year the industry can hold that shift off is a win for it.
By Bill McKibben. New Yorker. August 11, 2021.
