As a dad with a daughter living in Italy, I completely sympathized with Liam Neeson‘s dad character in the movie “Taken”. He had a very special set of skills and a host of resources that he was willing to deploy to rescue his daughter from sex trafficking and death. He was willing to crush anyone and everyone who stood between him and his goal.

I thought about Liam Neeson yesterday as I listened to an activist shareholder flesh out his entire argument about immediately eliminating fossil fuels from the global energy equation in order to avoid the extinction of mankind in a generation or two. He was willing to spend every resource and sacrifice the advancement of the Third World for the higher cause of preventing extinction.

With the birth of our daughter 23 years ago, I made the easy decision that I would expend all of my current and future revenues, including my life, to save hers. That is what dads do. But I never considered it right that I would force all of my community and the resources of the world to save her life. What is the moral case for that?

And what logic would lead me to spend all my resources and all my community’s resources today to protect her from a kidnapping and death that has a .01% chance of happening at some undetermined date in the future, rendering me destitute, weak and non-resilient when she suffers the far more likely calamity of a stolen passport or ruptured appendix?

The climate activist shareholder yesterday was unwavering on his position and insistence that we spend and sacrifice everything today for, lo, the end of the world is at hand, leaving us destitute, weak and non-resilient if the end of the world does not happen.

As we raise our kids, we set in place some good rules to keep them safe. We don't lock them in a room. If we did, sure, they'd never get kidnapped, but they'd also never get smarter, make things, love people, or contribute to society.

Maybe we need some more good rules. But I don't think we should turn off the light completely.