Oil & Gas discourse in one swift article

The fantastic Emily Atkin over at Heated managed to summarize the whole discourse on climate change between the oil industry and activists in one swift article. Mike Rowe, television host of Dirty Jobs gets sponsored by the API to make a show about history–cynically titled Six Degrees. Shout outs to the oil and gas industry galore. Not only that, but he will gladly defend his connection to the industry on Facebook–writing 6,000 words, free of charge to the API presumably. I believe Emily Atkin hits the nail on the head when she observes that this is not a guy selling out his believes–this is a guy who genuinly beliefs what he is saying. A far more weighty observation. Here is my take on this. He has made a show called Dirty Jobs. The implication is that “it’s a dirty job and somebody has got to do it.” “It ain’t pretty, but we need it.” Do we though? It seems he genuinly beliefs it, and he thinks those who disagree with him are naive. Is it naive to envision an alternative future though? In my opinion its not, it is far more naive and unimaginative to see the reality we live in as inevitable. Alternativlos–without alternatives–as we say in German. Few things are, but a lot of people want to tell us that it is. That’s lazy thinking.