At last night's Democratic debate in Los Angeles, presidential aspirant Elizabeth Warren lambasted co-aspirant Pete Buttigieg for attending a fundraiser in a fancy-dancy wine cave in Napa Valley. (You can't make this stuff up.) They went back and forth like Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots and who won is grist for the pundit mill; Mother Jones nicely captures the gestalt of their exchange. The Lizzie-Pete Dust-Up in the Desert (L.A. used to be a desert and may soon return to its natural state) got me thinking about rich folks and, of course, climate change...and wine caves.
What the heck is a wine cave? Is it a cave sculpted by the drip, drip, drip of all the wine spilled, splashed and spit into the Napa Valley dirt? Has the Gallo Refinery sprung a leak? And if you licked the tip of a stalactite hanging from a wine cave's ceiling, would it present earthy notes of blackberry, leather, licorice, chamomile and Marion's lemon-meringue pie? Actually, an enormous chandelier with 1,500 Swarovski crystals hangs in the wine cave frequented by Humble Mayor Pete. But don't lick those! Swarovski crystals are very expensive shards of man-made lead glass.
What the heck is a wine cave? Is it a cave sculpted by the drip, drip, drip of all the wine spilled, splashed and spit into the Napa Valley dirt? Has the Gallo Refinery sprung a leak? And if you licked the tip of a stalactite hanging from a wine cave's ceiling, would it present earthy notes of blackberry, leather, licorice, chamomile and Marion's lemon-meringue pie? Actually, an enormous chandelier with 1,500 Swarovski crystals hangs in the wine cave frequented by Humble Mayor Pete. But don't lick those! Swarovski crystals are very expensive shards of man-made lead glass.
Questions, so many question. If (when?) the climate change-induced Apocalypse occurs, will the billionaires and their multi-millionaire lackeys retreat to the wine caves? If so, how will the One Percent of the One Percent power said caves? Perhaps with geothermal energy sequestered from the ravening bands of commoners roaming the surface world? Too grim? Then let's ask a more pertinent question: how can we at least motivate wealthy people to power their present day wine caves (and second homes and yachts and sports cars and robot butlers and pied-a-terres, gotta have a pied-a terre) with renewable energy sources?
It's not cost, of course. Slapping solar panels on the roof is a trivial expense for the rich. But other than adding a Tesla or two to their vehicle fleet, most "people of means" just can't be bothered. Well, there's always the moral approach, the appeal to intergenerational responsibility...all right, come on, stop laughing. What about this? Maybe the secret to changing the dirty, fossil-fuel burning ways of the ultra-rich is to inconvenience them. Man, they hate that! Waiting in lines, being put on hold. Not being sufficiently sucked up to. Having to walk to the wine cave, then arriving late and missing the kale-encrusted sea bass sliders washed down with a $900 bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse. That's life for most of us; it's agony for the extremely well-heeled.
This dynamic played out during the recent outbreak of wildfires in California. To prevent blazes caused by sparking from powerlines, PG&E instituted precautionary power outages to various communities irrespective of their income levels. Hence, people in some of the richest enclaves found themselves without electricity, and without a say in the matter! Within days -- as outraged Masters and Mistresses of the Universe sat in the dark, as the most delicate vintages suffered without the coddling of their wine fridges -- orders for solar panels and battery units shot up in WealthyTown.
Simply put, we must inconvenience them into doing the right thing. A future blog will further explore how to go green by goosing the rich.
It's not cost, of course. Slapping solar panels on the roof is a trivial expense for the rich. But other than adding a Tesla or two to their vehicle fleet, most "people of means" just can't be bothered. Well, there's always the moral approach, the appeal to intergenerational responsibility...all right, come on, stop laughing. What about this? Maybe the secret to changing the dirty, fossil-fuel burning ways of the ultra-rich is to inconvenience them. Man, they hate that! Waiting in lines, being put on hold. Not being sufficiently sucked up to. Having to walk to the wine cave, then arriving late and missing the kale-encrusted sea bass sliders washed down with a $900 bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse. That's life for most of us; it's agony for the extremely well-heeled.
This dynamic played out during the recent outbreak of wildfires in California. To prevent blazes caused by sparking from powerlines, PG&E instituted precautionary power outages to various communities irrespective of their income levels. Hence, people in some of the richest enclaves found themselves without electricity, and without a say in the matter! Within days -- as outraged Masters and Mistresses of the Universe sat in the dark, as the most delicate vintages suffered without the coddling of their wine fridges -- orders for solar panels and battery units shot up in WealthyTown.
Simply put, we must inconvenience them into doing the right thing. A future blog will further explore how to go green by goosing the rich.
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