In the final part of the Alex in Grist interview saga, Alex Steffen and Dave Roberts talk about how the environmental movement needs to change, how to make the case for sustainability compelling, and how to defeat the Emperor by tossing him down a convenient bottomless pit.
Alex: ...once you have better ways of doing things -- better both in that they're cleaner and safer but also in that they make money for shareholders -- then you're able to cast the old-school chemical companies, the fossil fuel companies, as what they are: old, bloated, heavily subsidized industries with a lock on politicians who benefit from a quid pro quo arrangement. You can finally cast them as the enemy in such a way that you're not against industry, you're against old, dirty, last-century industry, which is standing in the way. Why won't they get out of our way? Why won't they let us do things in a healthier way? Why are they making money off poisoning us when we could make more money doing it cleaner?