I think it's less that there are no viable alternatives and the very bleak consequences if food or power get screwed up. There's the saying "Nine meals between mankind and anarchy" that applies here. If you are messing with the food supply, you are playing with fire if things go sideways. People die, people starve, people riot.
So things have a strong incentive towards "if it aint broke don't fix it". You can argue a lot of it is in fact broken on some fundamental levels and the side effects of those two industries are massive but, at the moment, we have power and we have food (speaking for the US, not globally where that isn't the case).
The risk tolerance is very, very low. An unwillingness to accept any potential failure, regardless of impact, is frequently the single greatest problem for any change or reform.
The solution, then, is to build more supply. Energy austerity is never going to work. Clean energy abundance is the only possible way to a good future.
So things have a strong incentive towards "if it aint broke don't fix it". You can argue a lot of it is in fact broken on some fundamental levels and the side effects of those two industries are massive but, at the moment, we have power and we have food (speaking for the US, not globally where that isn't the case).
The risk tolerance is very, very low. An unwillingness to accept any potential failure, regardless of impact, is frequently the single greatest problem for any change or reform.