I think it’s important to always start with a reminder of the underlying context. As I argued in my book The Great Disruption, dramatic economic change is not a choice we get to make it, but an inevitable result of physical science. This is because business as usual, with results like ever increasing resource constraint or a global temperature increase of 4 degrees or more, would trigger economic and social collapse. So the only realistic outcomes are such a collapse or an economic transformation that prevents it, with timing the only big unknown.

I believe that is an accurate analysis. As to whether or not the fossil fuel industry has already passed a tipping point is I think still up in the air. That should not be confused with passed peak oil - I believe the only explanation for the exploitation of tar sands is the high price of crude dictated by dwindling reserves.

I do believe the tipping point is and must be near, and when it is realized we will see changes take place quite rapidly all across the social strata.

Consider the tobacco industry. Before their tipping point was realized they were able to quash a 60 Minutes report on the industry and here.

The following is from: Tobacco Timeline: The Twentieth Century 1950 - 1999--The Battle is Joined

- 1992: LITIGATION: Supreme Court rules that the 1965 warning label law does not shield tobacco companies from suits accusing them of deceiving the public about the health effects of smoking.

- 1994-03-24: Wall St. Journal publishes, "Smoke & Mirrors: EPA Wages War on Cigarettes," by Jacob Sullum. The article takes issue with the EPA's 1993 report on secondhand smoke, quoting industry-paid scientists--Alvan Feinstein, James Enstrom and Gary Huber.

- 1994-05-31: World No-Tobacco Day. Slogan: The media and tobacco: Getting the health message across

- 1995-07-12: AMA excoriates tobacco industry over "secret" B&W papers. AMA devotes entire July 19, 1995 issue of JAMA to a study of the papers, finds The evidence is unequivocal -- the US public has been duped by the tobacco industry. No right-thinking individual can ignore the evidence. We should all be outraged, and we should force the removal of this scourge from our nation . . .

- 1995-08-31: LITIGATION: $1.9 million awarded plaintiff Milton Horowitz in Kent Micronite filter case; only the 2nd time an award has been given in a liability case against a tobacco company. However, the suit concerned asbestos, not tobacco

- 1996-07-19: LITIGATION: Massachusetts becomes the 10th state to sue tobacco companies..

- 1996-08-09: LITIGATION: FL: Brown & Williamson is ordered to pay the Grady Carters $750,000 in only the second financial judgement ever in a strictly-tobacco-oriented liability lawsuit. The eventual payment of $1.1 million on March 8, 2001, will be the first time an individual collects payment from the tobacco industry for a tobacco-related illness. Carter Atty: Norwood S. Wilner

I think this tends to show that the tide of public opinion turned long before the influence of the tobacco industry on the political establishment began to seriously diminish. And it is only in the last few weeks that political figures have attempted to get big stores to stop carrying cigarettes.

Point being: the fossil fuel industry is a long long way away from actually seeing their political allies turn away, much less witness a decline in revenue, both clear barometers of the health of the industry overall.