I think the biggest question I have - whether it pertains to climate change or for that matter religion - is why there are so few (relative to the total number of 'committed participants') who are more invested in the profit-potential or political capital side than the actual problem/benefit.
As someone from a very (I mean
very) religious upbringing, that was always the biggest question I always had for whatever evangelist, church, etc. my parents were rabidly funding: "If it's the only way of saving the world, and it was freely given in the first place - then why does it seem like everyone is always demanding money to have access to it?"
Although I never had a chance to pose the same question to Al Gore... it definitely came to mind as a rather "inconvenient truth" when hearing him speak in the past.
Of course, there are exceptions - people who have personally sacrificed a great number of conveniences in order to do their part in reducing waste, pollution, non-renewable energy dependence, etc... but there are many notable and very public faces of our environmental crisis that fly from place to place, maintaining multiple homes and vehicles... all to tell middle and lower class people what they need to stop doing or buy in order to fix things.
Just like there are Christians who are going out to the streets and giving food and comfort to homeless people or visiting dying old people in care facilities... much of the time just listening to them without preaching or condemning. It's just that no one actually sees those people, because they don't care about acknowledgement - instead what we see are a bunch of scammers on TV taking the last dollars of the poorest and least intellectually capable citizens in exchange for empty promises of healing or financial windfalls.
It's human nature so not likely to change... but regardless of the subject - we could all do with a lot more "living the example" and a lot less "preaching from the pulpit". Of course, I'm guilty of the same in many cases - although I don't
charge anyone for my horseshit advice or opinions... so there's that.
That biggest question portion was simply your sanity kicking in and your nose for smelling horseshit about to present itself.
As for the whole "why are so few invested in earning potential" (That's simple, there's just almost no money to be had in solving of problems of this kind compared to the creation of problems you've already invested in creating solutions for). The only reason there are any attempts at solving the global warming issue, is because there are people genuinely convinced (people in government or the people that voted them in) that foster some level of growth in this sector with tax breaks because they truly believe there are real existential threats awaiting us in a few generations. With the current globalized libertarian economic model that basically functions in the majority of nations, when something doesn't generate profit, it simply does not get done from a business sense. There simply is no economic headroom for multiple solar panel companies, or wind turbine companies and such. The math simply doesn't add up. Especially with the sort of consolidation possible under legal frameworks for multinational conglomerates to exist, this sort of archaic idea that competition will be spurring some massive innovations is ludicrous. At the level of these Too Big To Fail companies are now, you basically can look at the example of Intel. Hibernates on any real progress because they own the majority of the market, and basically use the legal system to hopefully starve out competition.. not actually foster competition.. (Anyone that believe contrary is crazy. Why would any company welcome competition if they have the ability to starve it? I can keep listing companies that act this way, all the way since the Railroad companies and their legendary monopoly, to Amazon etc..).
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As for the whole Al Gore bit, I was a bit confused. Were you wondering why seemingly rich folk talk about telling what everyone else should do (like going green and living more humbly or something to that effect?). If that's the case, then it's simple. He's not going to throw away his riches, nor can he be expected to live a lifestyle he's never lived, and do it over night. In the same way you and I can agree on global warming, we're not exactly going to sell our phones and live an agrarian lifestyle in the middle of some woods, and practice "zero waste" methods.
Now Al Gore's problem is literally physics (instead of philosophical, unless his whole goal was just to spread awareness, and not iron clad facts on how to proceed), he advocates for things that will barely matter (all forms of "green energy" pale in complete comparison to the net return on energy for a basic economy). Nothing comes remotely close to they caloric density of fossil fuels. In America, in a study I last seen a while back when they calculated the sort of energy sector economy that would be required to sustain "green" energy, it was basically something to the tune of half the American population. In our current economic paradigm, it's simply not feasible for any country to have something like half of it's population workforce so heavily employed within the Energy Industry. The only replacement to current energy demands (unless you want to genocide a sizable portion of the population), is nuclear energy(actually much greater than even fossil fuels). It's basically folly to expect we can "go green" and still have any semblance of the current society we have today, we've seemingly missed the boat on avoiding a bad situation either way you look. All we're doing now is making a decision on just how bad we're going to allow things to get. All energy ventures have already come to these conclusions with mathematically verified reality. You might be tempted to ask "well if nuclear is so good, why don't companies chase that". Because privatized nuclear has many-fold problems that instantly come to mind when thinking about "Nuclear" and "Privately-owned".
1) With current standards, the timeframe to get a nuclear plant operational and merged onto the grid from scratch, is a decade give or take depending on pre-discovery efforts and surveying of suitable locations. (And then awaits you all the regulatory things that need to be tested for extensively, and maintained.
2) MASSIVE long term investment sink that could go belly-up at any moment with most political terms being 4 years that can throw things into haywire where you then have a black hole for funds.
3) Horrible PR. Simply almost impossible in the climate post-Fukushima to sell anyone on the idea of nuclear, especially anyone that isn't combing through studies about how those sorts of catastrophe's wouldn't be possible today.
4) Energy surplus that destroys the rest of the economic energy sector. Basically, energy ceases to be much of a problem, and if headway into viable fusion efforts ever come to fruition, we're basically set for a while for our energy needs. And if the plant is nationalized or government made and owned, there is no room to sell energy to anyone anymore with artificial scarcity (like limiting the barrels of oil production rate and other such annoying and society damaging tactics of the financial markets).
It's like digital audio in the present day. In terms of audibility, we're finished in terms of DACs for example. And is why the only viable way to compete is either insanely low prices, or insanely high value with secondary features. Except in nuclear, there is no "secondary features" to sell to anyone, no means of manipulation (conman will prove me wrong on this one of course), no source to exploit (like a country being "blessed" with natural supplies of oil by chance).
Or like the industrial revolution, where for the first time in history we have the capability of serving the needs of every person on the planet (if honestly applied). Not only that, but we have surplus for the first time, so much so, that economic activity would come to a standstill. When this was realized, that's when conceptualization of things like intrinsic and planned obsolescence started(intrinsic, by using inherently flawed and inadequate materials - planned, but giving a targeted life span to products that are made to fail on purpose after the elapsed time). This is what I mean't about "more profit in the creation of problems, rather than solving them". Most people aren't aware that world hunger is an absolutely artifical, and completely solvable issue with respect to resources. The only problem is: that present day libertarian economic model that has ravaged like a wildfire anywhere it reaches.
