re: #70 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

My take: I agree that fatalism is counterproductive to making wise choices.

Yet I hold my fellow humans in lower regard than Mann does.

We collectively have already bought a fossil fuel infrastructure for the next 3 decades, at least.

And while Mann praises Biden, I will here again remind everyone that Biden is bragging about the US record “oil” (really, liquid fuel) production.

Global carbon emissions are still going up.

One does not spend billions of dollars on a highway and not use it.

One does not spend tens of billions of dollars on a liquid NG global trading scheme and not use it.

One does not keep building sprawl and not expect to occupy those houses for the next 50 years.

We have already bought, as in paid for, several more decades of high greenhouse gas output.

We are in a hole and we keep digging.

And we are going to keep digging until it kills us.

So while I respect Dr. Mann, I think he is being way too politic in his public stances.

He (rightly) points out that the threat to democracy that Trump and the GOP deep pockets is necessary to counter.

So he has decided to project a message of hope to the American masses. He does not want to push anyone away.

That is a reasonable thing to do.

But it will not stop our continued activity that is driving climate change.

I will say that I actually have a better view of humanity. I side more with Mann but they are both right.

Anthropogenic Global carbon emissions are not going up. They have been relatively the same since before the COVID pandemic. About 35 billion tonnes.

And per capita global emmissions have been stable, with the US rapidly heading in that same direction - to about 5-7 tons. European size levels.

So there are some good things amongst the problems. But these levels are still not really enough yet to stop the increase in carbon in the atmosphere. As even the middle scenario shows. The one we seem to be on now will still see atmospheric CO2 continue to rise.

So humanity is actually doing a much better jiob than many think of getting emissions level. But as Hanson knows, that is not enough to fix things.

CO2 continues to rise even if we complete reduce CO2 emissions down close to zero. from 400 ppm to 600 ppm. Another 50% even with all the good works we do.

This likely continues to happen because the carbon dioxide equilibrium with the oceans is getting saturated and more remains in the atmosphere (as well as carbon sinks like methane clathrates get released).

What we need to do to stop the continuing increase is by actively removing carbon faster than equilibrium processes do. That is the thing models cannot measure because there is no real effort now, although lots of research.

So Mann gets it right that we are moving. Hanson gets it right that may not be enough. Which is why I have actually invested in small startups looking at cheap ways to remove CO2 from the atmosphere. We might do it but we need a lot of cheap, clean energy, which I think only space-based solar power has the potential to provide.

Humanity seems to always move forward by the skin of their teeth. Maybe we will again. I htink this is the big transition that every intelligent species in the universe eventually gwets to - overcoming living in its own watse products.