Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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xvi preface
grounded, sober, and authentic hope. Our best chance of surviving
through the long emergency ahead lies in our capacity to face
diffi cult facts squarely, think clearly about our possibilities, and get
down to work.
The faith placed in better technology is tied to the faith in
unfettered markets and commerce, the reputation of which had
been much improved due to the efforts of Milton Friedman and
his free-market disciples until the economic collapse of 2008. The
appeal to economic self-interest as the engine of human progress
has its origins in the writings of Adam Smith, and there is much
to be said on its behalf. Forgotten in the euphoria, however, are
Smith’s own misgivings about the results of unalloyed self-interest,
evident in both The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Until the great fi nancial implosion of 2008, amnesia also
veiled the spotty and often shabby record of corporations and
fi nancial institutions operating without the countervailing power
of alert governments and an engaged and sometimes enraged citizenry.
Economists, nonetheless, are inclined to attribute all societal
shortcomings to a failure of markets, and sometimes, in some ways,
they are. But the belief that climate destabilization represents “the
largest market failure in history” is misleading because it overlooks
a prior and larger failure of political leaders to acknowledge
the problem before it grew into a crisis. Even with ample and
increasingly urgent warnings, they failed to restructure the rules
and regulations that govern the use of fossil fuels when it would
have been relatively easy and cheap to minimize or avoid much of
the crisis altogether.
I write, accordingly, as an advocate for better leadership, an
improved democracy in the United States, and more creative and
competent management of the public business. Climate destabilization
is obviously a global crisis, but I’ve chosen to narrow my
focus to the United States because we are the largest economy on
Earth and the largest source of heat-trapping gases in the industrial
era, and we have greater leverage on the issue than any other