Right now the energy companies are winning, and winning easily. Because they're the most profitable business the world has ever seen, they have enormous influence. And because all they need to do is delay, so far they've barely even been bothered by environmentalists.The author grossly underestimates the problem. It is not just the energy companies that are the problem. It is the capitalist system which is built upon the use of fossil fuels that is the problem. This system requires ever increasing production and consumption in order to generate profits for the ruling classes. Fossil fuels have provided that; to end their use would destroy it. The power and the enormous wealth that private owners of the the world economy enjoy depend on the continuation of the system.
The major problem is the widespread disinformation campaigns that the ruling classes have used, and continue to use, to hide the truth from working people. (Read Merchants of Doubt by Oreskes and Conway) As a result I fear that by the time most working people realize that it is the capitalist system that is preventing any real sustainable solutions, it will be too late.
Thus, it is very disappointing that major environmentalists like McKibben don't get it. Too many educated members of the middle class depend upon the ruling class for their careers, and are thus inhibited from going beyond surface causes such as energy companies to the real problem--the capitalist system itself.
What we have is a ruling class that is so addicted to wealth and power and who, like many other drug addicted people, are willing to do anything and sacrifice everything including human existence, to satisfy their addictions.
