There are groups out there dedicated to stopping every energy source you can imagine. Antinuclear organizations have convinced their supporters that nuclear power is evil incarnate. They can't change their policies now if they wanted to because they actually have created a monster. Acknowledging the truth about nuclear energy at this point would likely bankrupt many environmental organizations.
David's article: As coal companies sink into bankruptcy, who will pay to clean up their old mines? reflects what I have called his good versus evil world view. I have, on rare occasion, made mention of this propensity in the Grist comment field.
As a philosophy major, Roberts might enjoy this 2008 article by Steven Pinker, author of The Better Angels of Our Nature titled The Moral Instinct:
At the very least, the science tells
us that even when our adversaries’ agenda is most baffling, they may not be
amoral psychopaths but in the throes of a moral mind-set that appears to them
to be every bit as mandatory and universal as ours does to us. Of course, some
adversaries really are psychopaths, and others are so poisoned by a punitive
moralization that they are beyond the pale of reason. (The actor Will Smith had
many historians on his side when he recently speculated to the press that
Hitler thought he was acting morally.) But
in any conflict in which a meeting of the minds is not completely hopeless, a
recognition that the other guy is acting from moral rather than venal reasons
can be a first patch of common ground. One side can acknowledge the other’s
concern for community or stability or fairness or dignity, even while arguing
that some other value should trump it in that instance. With affirmative
action, for example, the opponents can be seen as arguing from a sense of
fairness, not racism, and the defenders can be seen as acting from a concern
with community, not bureaucratic power. Liberals can ratify conservatives’
concern with families while noting that gay marriage is perfectly consistent
with that concern.
In short, it would help to stop pouring gas on the fire. He
seems to have a really hard time empathizing with his opponents,
be they conservative Republicans or fossil fuel companies. Now, you may be
tempted at this point to stereotype me as a shill apologist for big coal and
also take this opportunity to show readers in the comment field that you have
heard of the Godwin's Law
meme. My environmental credentials likely put yours to shame, nobody is paying
me anything to write, and we have all heard of Godwin's law. Coal took the
pressure off of our forests just as oil did for whales, but it's time for coal
to go just as a time came to stop using wood for energy, whales for oil.
