General

global warming causes people to burn gasoline releasing CO2 into the atmosphere? hmmm not sure bout that

You appear to be stuck on this one point so I'm going to offer you 3 suggestions:

1 - look at the data
2 - look at the data
3 - look at the data

If you look at the data, and I mean the data from the last 120 years as opposed to the last 5 years, you will see that it is quite noisy. Temps fluctuate up and down in a seemingly random fashion not just year to year but decade to decade. Despite that noise there is a clear upward trend in temperatures over the past several decades.

Science shows that CO2 is indeed warming the atmosphere, but it is far from the only thing in the world that affects atmospheric temperatures. There are countless other factors that affect atmospheric temperatures, such as solar activity or weather patterns like El Niño. These might account for some of those fluctuations, though an environmental scientist would be able to offer a more fulsome explanation.

It is overly simplistic to assume that CO2 emissions will always result in increased atmospheric temperatures over a given 5 year period. But expand your view to the past 30, 40 or 50 years and the picture becomes clear enough.

Let's shift this from talking tech to talking policy a bit.

This is a pie chart of CO2 emissions by country. Note the following points while looking at it.

CO2 emissions by the US have been going down over the past two decades. The US contribution to CO2 is 15%. about half of China even though the US economy is larger.

China is building hundreds of new coal powered generating plants and although they are getting more efficient their emissions are increasing quickly. Ditto for India.

In a few years, by continuing what is the US is already doing, without any special additional renewable efforts by the US, The US is going to be 5% or less of global emissions.

www.ucsusa.org/resources/each-countrys-share-co2-emissions

In truth, so long as the developing world continues to build fossal fuel plants, and they are because they need cheap energy to develop, global CO2 is going to rise.

This is one of the features of the "Paris Treaty", it essentially exempts China, India and what is called "Rest of the world" on the graph (56% of CO2 emissions today) with the result that those emissions will double over the next 10 years and probably comprise 90% pf emissions.

In short, if you are sincere about the desire to reduce CO2 emissions, focusing on the US is useless.

So what are your proposals for getting China, India, and the "Rest of the world" to reduce emissions, or at least emission growth? The "low hanging fruit" opportunity to slow the growth in emissions might be to develop more natural gas resources in the short run, but I am guess you won't favor that.

As a practical matter, focusing attention on massive revisions to the US economy to reduce CO2 emissions is a inefficient way to proceed.

The 80/20 rule applies in that the big improvements (reductions) are cheaper and easier like switching from coal to gas. Doing that in China and India would do more to reduce emissions than taking the US to zero, and at far lower cost.

Renewables make sense in certain applications, and over time will get better. But today, renewables are not going to make much difference, and especially if you are concentrating on deploying them in the US.

Dismantle global capitalism.

I'm not joking. The changes required are so great and the consequences of inaction are so dire, I don't see any way besides doing away with the growth imperatives that are driving unsustainable greenhouse gas emissions.

A society whose first and primary goal is care of its own citizens is more equipped to tackle climate change than a society that tilts solely towards economic growth.

I realize that China is nominally communist, but in reality it behaves as a capitalist state, albeit an autocratic one.

I also find that China is often put forward as an excuse for inaction at home.

Western-based multinational corporations make up a huge part of China's economy. This is a big reason why China emits so much. It's not because they are somehow bad or uncaring. They are attempting to compete in a capitalist world economy that originated in the west, under the terms that were developed in that system.

In a globalized economy, capital will naturally seek out regions with lower costs. And jurisdictions with more lax environmental regulations will naturally be less expensive to operate under.

GE, Apple, Ford, GM, Caterpillar, and many other companies with extensive operations in China are headquartered in the US. So it's not really fair to say "focusing on the US is useless." It's just that what we've been currently doing is woefully insufficient.

Wow.

You are calling for a civil war my friend. Not a political we disagree deal, but an actual shooting war.

Most of this country will kill you to prevent you destroying their lives.

I sure hope we don't go there.

I call for no such thing. Don't put words in my mouth.

Research democratic socialism and the green new deal if you're curious to learn more:

www.dsausa.org/

Honestly if there were a simpler technological solution like cold fusion I would prefer that. But I don't see anything so far on the technological side that is truly capable of fixing climate change, given the scope of the problem.

Renewables, green energy, electric cars are a big part of the solution but it's just not enough. At some point we also have to start looking at the root cause of what's driving all this climate change...limitless economic growth on a planet with finite resources.

Warming causes life to increase. This releases more CO2. You were not far off.

Cold Fusion was shut down by Professor Steven Jones. Pons and Fleischmann made power in a beaker of water using electrolysis in 1989. Once it was declared fake science there was no investment to take it beyond the beaker of warm water. Anyone trying to do it as a serious funded science research would be marched out of science club.

I believe the research is still going on since you don't need a lot of tech to repeat what Pons and Fleischmann did but it can't even boil water for a cup of tea so there is no money in it. Had it received billions like that hot fusion doughnut thing then we might have solved heating our homes by now.

There is the very strong peer pressure and the prospect of losing your research grant that stops respectable scientists from speaking on this topic.

Science is followed like a religion, people attack you for not 'believing' in science. They will say that makes you stupid. Science is supposed to be a methodology for discovering how the world works. Currently it seems to have lost that ability in many important areas.

newman2455:
I call for no such thing. Don't put words in my mouth.

Research democratic socialism and the green new deal if you're curious to learn more:

]www.dsausa.org/[/quote]

I did not say, nor mean to imply that you wanted a civil war. My intent was to point out you would get one.

I don't need to once again review all the idealistic BS surrounding democratic socialism. We have all seen it tried many times in the real world with the accompanying death and misery it brings.

Yes, we know, it is all going to be DIFFERENT this time because the RIGHT PEOPLE are going to be in charge and everyone is going to get enlightened. Yeah, and unicorn farts are the energy source of the future.

I believe that technology is going to provide what we need, but it will take the free market to do it. When renewables are cost effective (they are now in some applications) they will increasingly become the prominent energy source.

Subsidizing them is a mistake, it just implements immature technology that wastes resources.

The only way we are going to have a Green New Deal is with a River of Blood to go with it.