Electricity vs. Gasoline

Note the use of the word “better” at the bottom of the cartoon here.  A boyhood friend of mine learned in grade school to analyze words like that by asking “Better for whom?  Better for what?”

The answer is more interesting than it may appear.  Although 99+% of the world’s population would live far better lives if our civilization were electrified, there is a vast constituency of stakeholders in the fossil fuel industry for which gasoline is “better.”  This includes those at the very top of the list and they are the key shareholders and industry execs whose enormous wealth enable them to make huge donations to Trump and the Republican party.