The Case Against Billionaires

[Sirveri]

7. But the ways to quickly and cheaply implement those would also spike our carbon footprint

At the end of the day our transportation networks are based on the car and fossil fuel consumption, not around walking or bicycle. So if we were to expand our production of solar cells and wind generators enough to have an impact on unemployment this would spike domestic fuel oil consumption (powerplants, manufacturing lubrication, transit), pollution due to raw materials mining, pollution due to freight/personnel shipping shipping to install sites. Then we run into the upper bound of peak oil (which we hit in 2008), which causes a massive oil price spike (not helped by the Koch brothers buying up oil futures and parking them in freighters off shore), which then crashes the economy again and would likely lead to a reactionary takeover which would proceed to undo all of the work that was just done.

Or too long; didn't read, we're screwed.