When the first railroads began to roar in the United States, many landowners questioned the feasibility of the novel means of transportation and bet on its failure. Their argument was very simple: the railroads were violating private property and they were not willing to allow it. Some threatened to defend their thing with fire and blood.
Time passed, and these railroad deniers had to capitulate, and the train took over the length and breadth of the country.
History is full of deniers who had to give in. The Church denied the theories of Galileo and Copernicus for a long time. Then she had no choice but to acknowledge her mistake.
The climate change deniers will sooner or later experience the same as all the deniers of the past. It would be best if it were early, and thus save humanity great suffering, even their own families.
Kodak, although it was a different case, was a classic example in the marketing books of the 80s and 90s as the most unbeatable company on the planet. All kinds of conjectures were conjectured about how it could be dethroned, some more out of control than the others, but no one intuited that the yellow boxes had their days numbered, simply because the technological wave would pass over them and make them wreck. It all happened so fast that Kodak didn't have time to react, in part because it thought itself unbeatable.
The oil, gas and coal companies are in a better position than the company created by Eastman, but they are not unbeatable either and they still have their days numbered if they continue to cling to the past. If these companies stopped denying anthropogenic climate change, they could join their competitors who are already in the great race of energy transition, and emerge from the evolutionary tunnel in a stronger position.
As for the United States, it should retract its departure from the Paris Agreement and set itself a reasonable deadline, as it did when it decided to go to the Moon, to abandon its greenhouse gas emissions policy. With clean energies it could also ensure its energy independence, coupled with the advantage that these are inexhaustible, not like oil. If the decision-makers don't see it this way, they would be making a historic mistake.
Returning to the companies, they would have to initiate the abandonment of new exploration and extraction technologies for fossil fuels. Capital should redirect them towards the reengineering processes of their companies, with a vision set on the research and development of increasingly daring technologies to generate clean energy, and thus remain in competition. Apart from receiving the thanks of humanity, they would also receive it from their shareholders.
If they do not take up the challenge, the wave can pass over them too, but this time it will not be metaphorical but a real wave. The bad thing is that we would all be with our noses under the water.
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