McKibben in Stockholm, 2014.
Anyone as famous as you will have some people disagreeing with him. I've long admired your brilliant writing, but I've wished that you would say more about the role played by our economic system. I've often complained online about this omission of yours, but I assumed that you've already heard anything I could tell you. Still, one of my online friends recently said "he responds to email ... I'd be interested in what came of a direct correspondence between the two of you." So here I am.
I first became aware of your economics omission in your 2012 "Global Warming’s Terrifying New Math." You spelled out very clearly why the fossil fuel companies need to write off twenty trillion dollars in assets. But the implication you've left your readers with, in that article and since then, is that the fossil fuel companies are evil for not voluntarily taking that twenty trillion dollar loss.
- "Either activists like McKibben are in denial, unable to see or acknowledge that the problem isn't just a few bad players but the system itself or
- he has convinced himself that he must act strategically, careful not to offend the powers that be who, if he confronted them directly would further marginalize him and reduce whatever leverage he feels he has...
Whichever the case, he is actually doing harm to any attempt to deal with our environmental meltdown, focusing his efforts on the wrong target and misleading those who admire and respect him."
Respectfully,
Eric Schechter
Nashville, TN
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