One of Life’s Surreal Elements — An Energy Policy from Hell

Today happens to be my birthday, and I share it with Franz Kafka (pictured here), best known for his short but surreal and deeply disturbing novels of the early 20th Century, in which he so ably points out the absurdity and pointlessness of human life.  For those who haven’t gotten into Kakfa, I recommend The Trial–but I warn you not to expect a “feel good” reading experience.

To be sure, there are numerous absurd and inescapable elements in our modern life, in particular, that many of our most powerful people who made their money in fossil fuels are so ardent about doubling and redoubling their billions of dollars of net-worth at the expense of the well-being of all life forms here on Earth.  For every one of them, there are millions of people like you and me, but we’re struggling to turn this around before it’s too late.

In particular, we don’t need an “all of the above” energy policy; we need one that leads us sanely and methodically away from fossil fuels and into renewables.  But does it seem likely we’ll get there?

As Kafka put it in The Trial, “Do you know that your case is going badly?”