Last night I was reaching a chapter in JFK's book, Profiles in Courage, about US senators in the 1800s who defied their home states to seek compromises to preserve the Union.  Knowing that Britain abolished slavery decades before the US, I was curious this morning about when exactly slavery was abolished by the British empire, and so I looked it up.  I found it interesting how the British crown actually led the world the campaign to abolish slavery and actually forced an end to the transatlantic slave trade by the European powers and the US.  The first step was the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade by both the US and Britain in 1807.  Slavery itself was then completely abolished by Britain in 1838, the US in 1865, and finally Brazil in 1888.

The thought that popped into my head is that there is a parallel between the campaign to abolish slavery and the campaign to end the carbon economy.  This parallel extends to the decision by Britain to gradually phase out slavery rather than end it all at once, and also to the resistance to ending slavery by slave owners and by others for other reasons.

The injustices of slavery may seem obvious to us in retrospect, but in the same way that the truth about climate change had to be brought to the public attention and to the attention of government first by activists such as Carl Sagan in the 1980s and then everyone who has followed, the true horrors of slavery and the moral imperative to end it were not readily apparent to British public, nor the parliament and crown either.   It took the efforts of activists like Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and others (including no doubt many un-named women), to bring it to the forefront.  

Likewise the resistance to ending the hydrocarbon economy shares a parallel with the resistance to ending an economy based on forced labor and human bondage.  The same attitudes that prevailed in the Southern states of the US in the 1800s in regards to the issue of slavery can be found today regarding the issue of decarbonization and climate change: skepticism, denial, rationalization, cognitive dissonance, and hatred towards those who insist on disrupting a rich and easy-going lifestyle.  

We can only hope that 100 years from now we will hear the same revision of history that we hear from Southern apologists today - that carbon was on its way out anyway.

In Merida, Yucatan, January 5th 2024.   The TV was on in my hotel room.   I was impressed and took a few notes from the sermon:

Llamado vs Propósito

Porqué vs Para Qué

Dios te salvó de algo, y para algo.

Las empresas grandes se sujetan a su visión corporativa.  Nosotros también debemos nombrar nuestros propósitos y sujetarnos de una manera semejante. 

Dios no tiene fronteras y yo estoy en su territorio. 

Professional Experience:

2021 - Present:  Sr. Project Consultant & Sales Manager at Wicks Roofing and Solar; Ventura, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, CA

2007 - Present: Owner at Good Times Surf Shop; San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

2020 - 2022:  Sales Executive at POSM Software; California/South Florida/Latin America

2019 - 2020:  Residential Solar Sales at Auric Energy; Denver, CO

2016 - 2019:  Real Estate Agent at Aurora Beachfront Realty; San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

2005 - 2007:  Account Executive at UPS; San Bruno and Sunnnyvale, CA

Education:

MBA; Quantic School of Business and Technology; 2024

BA, Geography, Communication; Indiana University, Bloomington; 2003