Think about this. Say you are the CEO of a major fossil-fuel company. Your job is to promote your product and maximize investor return.
What can you do? Let's think. You really have nothing to offer the public but death and destruction. Hmm. Well, there is that liberal-vs-conservative circus going on in the main-stream media. That is a nice distraction. That helps. But then there are those pesky environmentalists. They keep doing things that might turn the public against sprawl. If they were to expose the sprawl subsidies or show people how much energy is wasted in sprawl, that could be disastrous. People might decide to fix up the cities and give the suburbs back to the farmers. It could be the end of unlimited growth.
What can be done to divert all those energetic idealists from endangering profits? Wouldn't it be great if there was something they could pursue that allows them to be radical and militant, but is really just a dead end?
Hmmm...what could work? Oh yeah, what about supply-side? Yes. Supply-side thinking is something that has a proven track record in the mis-direction department. Wouldn't it be great if the environmentalists attacked the suppliers of energy? What if they demanded that you stop drilling and mining? How would that look to the hard-working people who are just trying to heat their homes, fill their gas tank, and move to the suburbs? You are just trying to satisfy demand. If you don't do it someone else will. As long as the taxpayer keeps paying for highways, energy wars, and storm cleanup, there will always be energy-sucking suburbs, and you will always be the hero who makes the light-switch work.
Brilliant. Let's hope they fall for it.
