Let's assume you don't grasp global warming. Let's say you don't agree with any of the environmental or ecological implications of fossil fuel burning. Just for the sake of argument, let's just act like none of those factors matter at all. I know, but bear with me.

From a national security point of view, renewable energy is the best way to dry up funding to a lot of very, very bad guys. Sure, Texas won't enjoy transitioning from oil to wind, but it will do okay on wind and the economy is a lot more diversified than it was 50 years ago. And it will probably count as a humanitarian disaster in Venezuela, if we're honest. But it will kill the economy of Russia and Iran, just to name two. A lot of that oil money in the gulf generally goes to some really unpleasant causes and this will stop it. Between state and non-state actors, a staggering amount of petroleum money does genuinely bad things and this will end all of that and make a better world for our children. How is that fact alone not enough to convince people uninterested in the ecology?

Unless, of course, they actually like Russia meddling in the world stage...

...which has the potential to destroy that region of the globe, politically, culturally and physically.

Dubai's not going to love it, either, and a few others spring to mind.

But OTOH, an awful lot of time, money, and effort currently tied up in dealing with Russian shenanigans would be freed for humanitarian efforts. And the Balkans would really benefit from not being bent over every time the Russians feel like using gas prices as a club to get what they want.

...Energy Independence is a National Security necessity.

Going away from fossil fuels for environmental reasons is going to do as much economic damage to those countries as doing it for national security reasons would have, but we've got to do it. At least some of them have seen the fracking revolution and recognized that oil prices are never going to return to their glory days. And if they're not taking all the steps necessary to survive in a post-oil world, it must be admitted that we're not taking all the steps to create it.

...the net effect will be the same.

On a side note, I thought I read or recently heard that the Saudi's have gotten the message and are making plans to transition to solar given all the available uninhabited space (deserts) and the amount and quality of available sunlight within their borders.

I may be miss-remembering which ME country is preparing for the transition.

On a side, side note: the other thing that "burns" me is that we burn petroleum for fuel. This material can be a feed stock for so many exquisite materials, and what do we do? We Burn it. Ugh.

If future generation don't condemn us for our CO2 emissions, they will condemn us for wasting this valuable resource.

Even without doing anything exotic with, it's one heck of a lubricant. Never mind all the more complicated things we can make. And we set fire to it.

I'm reminded that Native Americans (particularly the Sioux) are widely regarded as some of the finest light cavalry the world has ever seen. Their ancestors hunted the horse to extinction in the Americas, though. One has to wonder what might have been if they had treasured a resource instead of consuming it.

A renewable energy economy, even an entirely nuclear powered economy, would look nothing like the fossil fueled economy so many of us now enjoy.

Too many advocates of the renewable energy industry become witless shills of the "natural" gas industry.

If your utopia requires gas, even as a so-called transition fuel, you're not doing it right.

Have a nice day.

...the show must go on I suppose.