Crossing the Energy Divide: Moving from Fossil Fuel Dependence to a Clean-Energy Future

10. Policy Priorities

Policy discussions in America are too often a turnoff, except when they’re driven by religious or political ideology or “not-in-my-backyard” conflicts—in which cases they result in hugely distorted views of what really matters to the survival and well-being of our civilization. With few exceptions, the truly large issues, such as human population growth, climate change, or accelerating biodiversity loss, are earnestly discussed in academic forums and journals, but barely touched in mainstream media.¹ Perhaps the best mainstream (or nearly mainstream) public-policy conversation in recent years has been that of public TV moderator Bill Moyers, whose guests have explored such issues as the power of pharmaceutical corporations ...