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destroyed is close to an institutional imperative.” 28 Explain.
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    It is an institutional imperative. By imperative, I don’t mean it’s a law of nature. You can change it. But given the way institutions now function, their core goal is to maximize short-term profit and power. That is a critical element for the core of decision makers in the economy and the society—and, therefore, in the political system. And that leads almost directly to destruction of the environment. In fact, we can see it right in front of us. The threat is quite serious. The major agencies that monitor global emissions have released very ominous predictions. The International Energy Association (IEA) released data which their own chief economists concluded give us maybe five more years before we reach a turning point that will be irreversible. 29
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    Fatih Birol, chief IEA economist, has said, “The door is closing…. I am very worried—if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.” 30
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    The IEA is a pretty conservative agency. This is not a bunch of radicals. In fact, it was formed through the initiative of Henry Kissinger. I haven’t seen much reporting about it, but one of the few news articles quoted John Reilly, the codirector of MIT’s Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, who also said that the IPCC estimates were too low. 31 “The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing,” he warned, and if we don’t do something very quickly about fossil fuels we’re going to be over the edge. “Increasing reliance on coal is imperiling the world,” he added. Again, this is not coming from far-out radicals but from major institutions, leading scientists.
    It’s interesting to watch the way climate change is discussed in the media. It’s usually presented as a he-says-she-says issue. On the one hand, you have the IPCC. On the other hand, you have a handful of scientists and a couple of senators who say, “We don’t believe any of it.” That’s the choice. Actually, there is a third set of scientists, who almost never make it into print, and it’s much larger than the fringe of denialists: people who say that the consensus is much too conservative, that the risks are much higher. People like the ones who run the MIT program I mentioned or the chief economist of  the International Energy Association. But they are ignored, and we almost never hear their views. And the public is left with a choice between two positions, which they’re in no position to make a judgment about.
    On top of that, you have a huge propaganda offensive from the business sector, saying, “Don’t believe any of it. None of it is real.” A little to my surprise, this has even affected the more serious and responsible parts of the business press, like the Financial Times, maybe the best newspaper in the world. Just at the time that these emissions reports were coming out, the Financial Times euphorically suggested that the United States was entering a new age of plenty and might have a century of energy independence, even global hegemony, ahead of it thanks to the new techniques of extracting fossil fuels from shale rock and tar sands. 32 Leaving aside the debates about whether these predictions are right or wrong, celebrating this prospect is like saying, “Fine, let’s commit suicide.” I’m sure the people who write such articles have read the same climate change reports I have and take them seriously. But their institutional role makes such positions a social or cultural necessity. They could make different decisions, but that would require real rethinking of the nature of our institutions.
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    The propaganda barrage has been effective. As Naomi Klein writes in the Nation,