History rarely offers such a clear convergence of ethics and self-interest. In a letter to James Madison, written in 1789, Thomas Jefferson argued that no generation had the right to impose debt on its descendants, lest the dead rule the future. A similar principle applies to our use of fossil fuels. That principle is likely to fall on deaf ears in Congress and most corporate boardrooms, where short-term thinking predominates. At the top of my list are those who educate the young.
Education is most powerful when done by example.
The alternative is to violate Jefferson's principle, and to enslave the future. Opposition to such a proposal will, predictably, follow three lines. Some people will argue that we do not know enough yet to act. Presumably, those same people would not wait until they smelled smoke in the house at 2 a.m. to purchase fire insurance. A second group will object that educational institutions cannot afford to act.