A lot of folks are #abundance posting, so now is as good a time as any to share an anecdote that revealed to me one of the big flaws in the "Abundance" worldview. Full disclosure, I'm 1/3 of the way through the actual book.
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The "abundance" agenda seems to be a center-leftish outgrowth of the permitting reform discourse. I've been plugged into that for a while. At least since the proposed Manchin "Grand Bargain" legislation. From the get go this approach included obvious concessions to fossil fuel/extractive industries.
That's ironic, because one of the accusations lobbed from the Abundance camp at traditional greens has been that greens who block transmission lines, low-carbon energy, etc. are, wittingly or not, doing the bidding of these companies by preventing low-carbon build out that would cut into FF profits.
I went to a panel on permitting reform at Yale's NDEL conference earlier this year. One panelist was from Center For Biological Diversity - he represented the traditional greens. There were a couple other moderate advocates of permitting reform, and one...strident proponent, formerly at Biden's OMB.
The permitting reform folks sharply criticized Sierra Club NY for opposing transmission lines that would have supplied NYC with electricity from Canadian hydro projects. The cancellation of this project forced NYC to buy power from US fracked gas plants. Greens were doing the bidding of FF industry.
That's a fair criticism, but it gives me heartburn that permitting reform advocates can't see the same problem when THEY make common cause with FF lobbyists in Congress to pass permitting reform. When I asked about that, none of the permitting reform folks really seemed to understand the question.
Their response was essentially "well, the fossil fuel and extraction lobby is so powerful in Congress, you can't get anything done without them." Okay, fair enough. I'm not on the Hill, so I'm not in a position to dispute that. But if you're using FF interests to assist what you do...
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