Climate disaster has put a spotlight on the need for human society to evolve beyond dependence on petroleum, but our very capacity to decide on that … - Rachel Maddow

The thing about rights is they're not actually supposed to be voted on. That's why they're called rights.

the divide between haves and have-nots, fear and hatred of immigrants, white supremacist race hate, and antisemitism

Oil extraction is much more capital-intensive than it is labor-intensive — which means it doesn’t produce a lot of lasting jobs. But in the end, it does produce big revenues when it’s sold on the global market. That sets the stage for grand-scale corruption of the political class: people who can maneuver themselves into getting a cut of that sale price of oil will find themselves quickly rich, whether or not they actually expend any effort to pump the stuff out of the ground.