how badly you need to fly to see a sick relative
Which pretty much summarizes our problem. Millions of people can't fly to see sick relatives because they can't afford it. But people visiting a sick relative is more important than reducing emissions to prevent global warming. I think the idea that we are going to end global warming painlessly guarantees failure.
Traveling by plane costs so much energy that it might take a bite out of the travel budget of even the rich.
Yes, we can set a carbon tax high enough to shut down the airlines. But before the wealthy stop traveling by plane, every one else will have to stop heating their homes. Or driving to work unless someone wealthy is paying for it. The idea of course is that at some point in the future there will be a cheaper replacement for all our uses of carbon. But the reality is that won't happen using a carbon tax without economically crushing the average person.
So Bill Gates gardener will still get to work, but not the person working at Walmart. Or the people shopping at Walmart will have to pay much higher prices. The problem with a carbon tax is that it won't work, not simply that it is unjust. Because a huge portions of emissions ultimately go to benefit those who aren't that price conscious. When you look at it on a global scale you realize that that means limiting most people to third world lifestyles. Including most Americans.It isn't going to happen.
this is completely tantamount to saying "technology can never be made cheaper because it isn't cheaper now."
Uh,I made no point at all about cost of technology. Its pretty much irrelevant to what I said.
Magic was your word, not mine.
I applied it to your belief in "technology" as magic. All magic requires magicians with people who believe in their magical properties.
The problem is that the barriers to stopping climate change aren't technological. We have the technology. We just aren't willing to make the changes necessary. You believe that some technology will appear that eliminates that barrier. And I see no reason to believe that except technology is strong magic that can do anything.
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So you're arguing lexical semantics
No I am arguing the reality that no cars are being "retired" because a BEV was produced, purchased or used. The use of "retired" and "obsolete" is designed to disguise that reality. Almost no one drives a car to the junk yard, they are towed because they no longer run. And it doesn't matter whether there is another car is available or not.
what is the difference between the two ways of describing the situation?
The cars were going to be junked whether they were replaced with an EV or not. The two things are totally unrelated.
We have had wind, solar and battery storage and emissions are still increasing. There is no evidence those new technologies will ever actually lead to reductions in emissions because that requires people to not use fossil fuels. As of now, renewables are not meeting the increased demand for energy and there is no reason to think they will at some point in the future if we allow demand to freely increase.
If you doubt that, take a look at auto emissions over the past 50 years. There have been huge gains in the efficiency of ICE vehicles, the amount of fuel required to go 100 miles has been cut from as many as 20 gallons to as few as 2. But total emissions have continued to increase.
Your argument "better technology can never be made cheaper, because it isn't cheaper today" has been disproved by experience,
That wasn't my argument or anything close to it. And you apparently do think "technology" is magic since you believe by calling it "technology" it gains magic power to solve a problem. We need real solutions, not simply imagine they will appear.
Perhaps if we were to fund action,instead of reports that tell us what we already know we might stand a better chance, but i dont think thats looking likely.
Exactly right on both counts. Its time to stop studying climate change and start lowering emissions. And these kinds of finger pointing exercises are a complete waste ot time, money and energy.
Yes and no. It's true that "we" are burning all of the oil and gas, and are responsible for the demand. But oil companies themselves emit around 15% of all greenhouse gases in the process of producing, transporting and refining oil, before they sell it to us.
But we don't burn the gas, the vehicle does. If the vehicle makers didn't produce the vehicles there wouldn't be any emissions. The entire finger pointing process id plain silly. We need to reduce emissions.
To do that we ALL will need to change our behavior. Which is not going to happen voluntarily. We are going to need to impose limits on emissions that force everyone to comply. And that appears highly unlikely to happen. So say hello to an increasingly warm planet.
the technology we have now doesn't solve the problem right now
We have immediate solutions, they are just painful for some people.
We also have a lot of people who keep dreaming of future solutions that will allow us to avoid the pain. And they have been imagining those solutions for a couple decades while emissions have increased. So the problem keeps getting worse instead of better while we kick the can down the road.
Reducing fossil fuels without destroying our economy will require implementation of better technologies. Turns out, improving technologies is something engineers are good at.
Everything looks like a nail to a guy with a hammer. What evidence is there that there is some magic technology that will allow us to stop climate change while maintaining our current economy? Emissions keep growing while people keep searching for it.
The inconvenient truth is that we can't meaningfully reduce fossil fuels without incentivizing the change economically.
No. The inconvenient truth is there is no way to "incentivize" the change economically. We need to regulate emissions and make it illegal to create them.
You would have to make stuff so expensive people will change their behavior. Or, rather, people who can't afford to pay the higher price change their behavior. Those who can afford it can just go on with their lives unchanged., Bill Gates is not going to stop flying around in a private jet because you raise the cost of jet fuel. And, while that is an extreme example, it is a general problem.
It is possible, China and several European countries are doing it as we speak by transitioning to BEVs and retiring obsolete ICE vehicles. The only place where eliminating fossil fuels is a physical impossibility is by the laws of physics in whatever parallel Lala universe you are posting from
It is possible, but we aren't doing it. Emissions are increasing.
No one is "retiring obsolete ICE vehicles", they are just junking cars that no longer work. Its not even clear that BEV sales have actually reduced sales of new ICE vehicles. We can hope eventually they will, but is there any real evidence for that? Or are BEV sales just expanding the fleet of vehicles allowing more people to drive more miles?
The problem is that you can blame the companies who pump the oil out of the ground. You can blame the auto manufacturers who build ICE cars. You can blame the private jet companies that build private jets. You can blame the airlines that operate jet aircraft. But in the end the real culprits are those of us who drive car, fly in planes and otherwise use the products that create emissions.
And the barrier to ending climate change is that we aren't willing to make the changes required.And certainly not ready to make changes on the societal scale required.
The explanation requiring the fewest assumptions is the most likely to be correct. -- William of Occam
