A few hundred years ago, leather was a critical commodity. Hides were processed in local tanneries, requiring noxious chemicals. Always dumped in local ponds and stinking to high heaven. Over time, the industrial processes were moved away from towns, isolated, and eventually even cleared up to the extent of not dumping untreated refuse into streams and rivers.
The point is that it was a lot easier to eventually clean up the effluents from a few concentrated plants than it would have been to restrict millions of local businesses. That is the true impetus behind electrification of such things as cars and houses, for a few power plants can be cleaned up or replaced a lot more easily than billions of distributed customer pollution sources.
Tanneries were so nasty they were an easy target. The effects of fossil fuel are more subtle: stronger more frequent storms, rising seas, heat waves, and drought. Until crop failures become widespread many will continue to believe there is no crisis at all.
I’ve lived through too many apocalyptic projections to believe the worst about this one. But I am annoyed at industry apologists who think there is no problem at all. And at my neighbors who in the old days would have claimed that there is always cleaner water on the other side of the hill, and a lungful of stinking fumes helps clear the sinuses.
Although the modern fairy tales spun by fossil fuel apologists can be morbidly entertaining.
HuntingtonHarborThoughts 