Super poignant piece that I suddenly recalled reading years ago (2014) this weekend while I was trying to explain the current climate-change-zeitgeist to a friend that's here visiting.

It deals with just how monumental of an uphill battle we have against Big Oil in trying to avert global warming. IMHO, one of the best analogies is used. Excerpt:

In fact, the parallel I want to highlight is between the opponents of slavery and the opponents of fossil fuels. Because the abolitionists were ultimately successful, it’s all too easy to lose sight of just how radical their demand was at the time: that some of the wealthiest people in the country would have to give up their wealth.

That liquidation of private wealth is the only precedent for what today’s climate justice movement is rightly demanding: that trillions of dollars of fossil fuel stay in the ground. It is an audacious demand, and those making it should be clear-eyed about just what they’re asking. They should also recognize that, like the abolitionists of yore, their task may be as much instigation and disruption as it is persuasion.

There is no way around conflict with this much money on the line, no available solution that makes everyone happy. No use trying to persuade people otherwise.

If I’ve done my job so far, you should, right about now, be feeling despair. If, indeed, what we need to save the earth is to forcibly pry trillions of dollars of wealth out of the hands of its owners, and if the only precedent for that is the liberation of the slaves—well, then you wouldn’t be crazy if you concluded that we’re doomed, since that result was achieved only through the most brutal extended war in our nation’s history.

It's rather long, but very, very much worth the read if you really want to get a sense of just how big of a movement and force of change we'd really have to build up to create a revolution.

Really put it all into perspective for me, this huge existential dilemma we're all in, and the lopsided battle we're when it comes to truly ever getting rid of oil in our lives or, as I like to say, getting rid of "the oil curse."