In much of the debate about global warming and alternative energy, the companies that produce much of our energy – the energy that runs the engines that feed and house us – are demonized. They are spoken of in ugly terms, especially when their profits are part of the topic. They should, we’re told, be investing those profits into next generation technology to replace the internal combustion engine.
HMMM. I wonder this: Why is it Exxon’s responsibility to create the new technology that would enable us to cap their oil wells and shut down their refineries? A cynic might even ask, why do its critics think Exxon should give a damn about the earth our great-great-great-great-grand children will inhabit when, at the same time, most of the same people will tell a woman she can kill the child in her womb if that’s more convenient than giving birth and raising it? I guess they’re only worried about those kids who are not yet conceived.
“there might be some sort of justification for the savage societies in which a man had to expect that enemies could murder him at any moment and had to defend himself as best he could. But there can be no justification for a society in which a man is expected to manufacture the weapons for his own murderers.”
Henry Rearden