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The task is to face how hard this is while looking for actions that can make a significant difference. These both require imagination,
Start with imagining the possibilities for a CEO of a major oil company. She sends out an order to shut down all drilling.
The process of sending such an order is obscure to those of us who are not insiders.
I think of some recent interviews with military generals on whether could Trump have launched nuclear weapons. No. The general staff restraints come to into play The order does not get implemented until procedures are in place to prevent damage to equipment and safety measures are in place. An orderly process needs to be invented.
Since stopping the flow means less crude to the refineries, the refiners must sign off on the shutdown order after making sure the equipment is safe and people and communities are safe. But meanwhile, the refinery operators are looking for alternative sources. As we know, or will soon learn, the big oil companies have been selling off small refiners and drillers in order to “protect” them. If drilling by the main company stops, lots of small drillers are ready to fill the gap.
The process might end when the board fires the CEO who tried to issue the order. Bureaucracies act a little like self-repairing innertubes, filling any gap with enough goo to maintain the system’s “integrity”.
Next idea? Wait. Let’s see what we have learned and can apply. Perhaps the executive team to see that the way things are currently run means that nature is being forced to “leak” its wealth and we should look at the safety of the current energy regime. And that drilling is actually like a hole in the innertube we need to plug up.
So, instead of issuing a cease-drilling order, she starts an executive team discussion about the encasing reality of the company’s operations.
That is, society and nature.
Given the way such things work, she probably knows who on the board would support this inquiry ad they might be invited to the staff conversation (uh oh, regulations on what a board member can do and who they can talk to will come into play).
This kind of imagination just starts what has to be a detailed process.