Clarice Feldman – Energy issues are boring to many people, full of the sort of things the current wizards of academia and the press consider “white privilege” and “patriarchal” thinking — you know, the kind of thing in which correct answers matter more than subjective feelings. Significant numbers of people escape into fantasy worlds rather than consider reality, which is not only boring, but often harsh enough that it requires us to make hard choices. Escapism seems preferable.

On the one hand, we have those hucksters who profit off our ignorance by providing dire forecasts, the daily frisson of horrific scenarios which appeal to the growing number of neurotics who need it as much as their morning coffee to jumpstart their sluggish mental systems, along with politicians who feather the nests of their buddies with expensive, nonfunctioning projects like Solyndra.  If you’ve forgotten them here are 50  of them, everything from famine to death by “blue steam,” and from a return to  ice ages to drowning by ice melts caused by climate warming. Continue reading →