Loving all the attention paid to climate tech

But wondering why it’s all we’re talking about.

I’m an unabashed environmentalist. My house runs on geothermal heat, I drive a Prius V and am about to replace that with my first electric car, a Ford Mustang Mach-E. We compost, recycle, only eat organic, and I’m converting my entire lawn to wildflowers and native grasses. Any trimming I do is with an electric trimmer. I don’t use a leaf blower, and grow my own apples and vegetables in my front yard. You get the idea.

So you think I would be happy to see so much attention being paid to new climate mitigation technologies and the zero-carbon pledges of COP26 and net-zero mandates from the current administration.

But strangely, I’m not.

In fact, I think it’s an overplayed hand to allocate capital into investments that will siphon rewards, tax, and investment credits from the coming multi-trillion energy transition into the hands of a tragic few. I think it’s more privatization of public goods. I think that when it comes to the energy transition, it’s possible that we’re all just being played.

That’s not to say that I doubt the origins of anthropomorphic climate change or its deleterious impact on humanity. I have no doubt that climate change is man-made, and I am 100% in favor of everything stated above.

But by some estimates, the energy transition will cost $834B to $1.3T per year, every year, through the year 2050. If that much investment and government capital are available for the energy transition, how is it that we can’t solve homelessness, or better protect victims of domestic violence, or eliminate food insecurity, or recidivism, or even pay reparations to enslaved persons after 300 years of bondage?

Why is it that the crises I just mentioned are not being tackled with the same urgency and investor fervor? Why do we favor capital formation over the improvement of the individual human condition?

Imagine what all that capital - or “dry powder” as the private equity dinks like to call it - could do for problems we face here and elsewhere every single day?