No, I wasn't directing my point at you -- rather, I was using your point to amplify mine, that capitalism is pretty much a given and we have to work within it rather than, as some people -- not you, obviously -- seem to want to do, and wait for a revolution that's not coming any time soon.
Capitalism is what will save us. For example, as of this April, California had 79 GW of utility power of all types. But there is currently
245 GW of renewables and storage in the "connection queue" of CAISO, the operator of the state's grid. Why so much? The profit motive, like most everything in a capitalist system.
A power plant or battery farm is not much use if you can't deliver the power to customers. So the first thing you do when you are even thinking about building them is get on the list of people wanting to connect to the grid. That's what the connection queue is, people requesting a place in line to hook up to the power lines. This informs the grid operator when they will need to upgrade, and where. The other side of this is local utilities and how much they are pulling off the grid to serve their customers.
So not all the projects in the queue will get built. Some will duplicate other projects that will get built first, others won't secure financing, etc. The point is that there is three times as much in the queue as the existing total, and that total is already 40% renewable. The queue is 5.5 times as large as everything that isn't already renewable. So even if only a fraction is built, the state will eliminate carbon emissions for electric power.
This is happening because solar and batteries are now the cheapest source of power, at least in sunny California. As goes California, so will the rest of the world, over time. Places that are not so sunny will take longer, or use wind instead. That's why I don't think civilization will collapse. Capitalists will keep doing what they do, and now that renewables are cheap, they will try to profit off them.
