Richard Morrison of the Competitive Enterprise Institute writes that environmentalists’ net-zero aspirations are not inevitable:
It’s only a matter of time, we are frequently lectured, until the climate campaigners sweep the political field, and heavy judgement will fall on all the reactionaries who were foolish enough to question their enlightened policies. Those of us who are skeptical of abandoning hydrocarbon energy, air conditioning, and the internal combustion engine are in for difficult times, as the future triumvirate of Al Gore, Greta Thunberg, and Klaus Schwab inaugurate a new, green era. Some campaigners have even suggested that climate skeptics should be rounded up and subjected to prosecutions designed, in some grotesque way, to be reminiscent of the Nuremberg trials. Meanwhile, others are working to get “ecocide” treated as a new category of international crime, similar to genocide.
The ostensible inevitability of decarbonization, however, has always been more bluster than substance, allowing the climate-change alarmists to survive levels of unpopularity and dysfunction that would have ended any other activist campaign years ago. Yet its proponents’ ability to hide its failures and costs enabled the activism to thrive, along with its intimidating reputation. Recent events around the world, however, are conspiring to stop the movement in its tracks.
Read the whole thing here.