The world is divided. On the one side we have people that believe things based on their experiences, their understanding. These are on the left side of the spectrum. To these people what they think needs to make sense, there needs to be logic. They approach the world through the constraints of their beliefs, so they are usually carefull, respect a lot things outside themselves, not only people, but also other things.
Then there are people that don’t think. They know. What they know they learn from others, primarily parents. This knowlegde can cause them to distort what they experience so that their view of the world becomes completely useless in any real sense, but they retain their connection with the hierarchical power structure, peers, parents, other leadership figures. These people need that because they will say whatever it takes to stay where they are. They have to learn what to think, what to do and what to say from others. Logic is not relevant to these people.
It is very hard for the people on the left to imagine the minds of the people on the right. How can you exist with incoherent ideas, without some logic to what you say. Because it is so hard, and because the people on the right can at times pretend to be thinking very convincingly, the left always falls in the same trap : They argue with the people on the right. Just like arguing with economist, arguing with people on the right only teaches them what to say to you so you shut up. This is because on the right we are dealing with only one mind. The conservative mind.
It can be easily demonstrated the right, economic thinking minds are one, not in a physical sense, but in the sense that there is no originality of thought. The thoughts on the right are more like a mantle one puts on, to protect oneself against real considerations, against imagining things that have nothing to do with the life of the person involved. You discover it when you start to argue with one of the non thinking people. If you argue for renewables on the basis of thier ability to bring wealth to more people, as soon as you talk about ‘everyone’ you will trigger the “so you’re a communist” response. If you paint a vision of a future without fossil fuels you are an “idealist”, “dreamer”.
We are dealing with a monlith of minds that are all supported by fossil fuel, even the banks, because banks would not be able to function in their present form without fossil fuel reserves. These reserves allow them to create credit, which will be used to buy fuels and make goods and services. If the fossil fuel reserves did not exist, how could a bank make anything happen by just increasing a number in an account?
We need to view the pro fossil side as a ‘well oiled machine’ because all its members will be rewarded by saying the same things over and over again, by casting doubt over and over again, by protecting and helping fossil fuel to exist, move it forward. Because the producers of the fuels, and the banks that arrange its distribution, can give endless amounts away, they produce it, they valuate it, they can give all of it away if needs be, to protect thier lifes as they are. This is what keeps us from shutting it down.
The left argues, it likes to argue because usually people on the left have a set of beliefs they like to see reflected in others. The people on the right that do think a bit quickly recognize it is a good thing for them to keep the left bickering. Divide and conquer. So they infiltrate and throw wrenches in the cooperation, they make people to stupid things as this thinking left wing mindset is very carefull about cooperation, so when they do they are a bit overzealous doing it. Said bluntly people on the left can be nerds. But they are right.
How does the left win this game? By dumbing down. By being very clear about the objectives, one of it being demanding 100% renewables at the soonest possible date. Another being that banks are forced to invest as much as they can in viable renewable energy. Another being that burning anything is a bad idea, so biomass burning , CCS or a gas transition are bad ideas.
One of the most important things the left has to recognize is that economics can not be used in this transition period. Economic growth is exactly what we don’t want, because economic growth is the expansion of fossil fuel use. The left has to think more clearly about economics and recognize that the key indicators all go up if fossil fuel use go up, so they need to go down. Dropping cashflow does not mean wealth is lost if it is replaced by local renewable sources. There is a difference between the economy and society, and it only becomes visible if the left starts to use different numbers, not the economic numbers.
The monolithic fossil fuel driven right wing parrot system will say “its to expensive” “it is too late” “we don’t like the noise” “how do you know it wont make things worse” etc. etc. All things one can simply repeat from one person to another, never thinking about anything, never using any logic. This is also the strength of the right (apart from the endless bribing and rewarding (and punishment) potential of the oil/banking system). The right is a team, its a machine. The left needs to be the same.
Last week people in Holland voted for or against a treaty between the EU and Ukraine. One dutch party was against it because the treaty would allow dutch banks to invest in intensive chicken farms banned in the EU, exporting these eggs througout Europe. Fossil/banks want this because it saves fossil fuels and concentrates cashflows in their hands, making it easy for them to lobby for expansion as EU ckicken farmers start to feel the competition. One party was clear on this.
Another party, left wing, went for the economics and was for the treaty. The Green left party they where called. Another party, also always pretending to be left of the right, was for D66, a bunch of people with right wing roots working to understand what left wing people say to draw more left wing people to the right. Dutch politics shown to be a total sell out party.
The true left does not have to care about the economy, it just has to design/envision a society where problems are solved on the basis of renewablwes, which is increasingly easy. They have to think in a way that asks “What if we completely eliminated fossil fuels from this service or part of our society, how could we make it work, and maintain its function” and always base policy on that basis. Soon it would find it had more wealth to distribute than it would bite of the limited fossil fuel ration industry primarily lays claim to.
Just like 300.000 ordered Model 3 Tesla cars will mean significant drops in sales of the competition, this approach would hurt the right wing parrot machine, throw it into conflict as it tries to find the new lies and slogans that could divide the left. The left however can be clear : We want max renewables asap, max preservation of life, zero fossil dependence asap, and an economy counted in output, people taken care of instead of debtload per asset class and fossil fuel cashflow.