In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal Bjorn Lomborg summarizes my views pretty accurately:
There is ample evidence that man-made emissions cause changes in climate, and climate economics generally finds that the costs of these effects outweigh the benefits. But the net result is nowhere near catastrophic. The costs of all the extreme policies campaigners push for are much worse. All told, politicians across the world are now spending more than $2 trillion annually—far more than the estimated cost from climate change that these policies prevent each year.
Scare tactics leave everyone—especially young people—distressed and despondent. Fear leads to poor policy choices that further frustrate the public. And the ever-changing narrative of disasters erodes public trust.
Telling half-truths while piously pretending to “follow the science” benefits activists with their fundraising, generates clicks for media outlets, and helps climate-concerned politicians rally their bases. But it leaves all of us poorly informed and worse off.
It’s easier for me to suggest some things we shouldn’t do than to tell you what we should do. We shouldn’t cripple our own economy to fend off a catastrophe that always seems to recede into the future faster than mitigation measures can be implemented. We shouldn’t be buying as many manufactured goods from China or India as we are let alone buying more. We shouldn’t impose a carbon tax. It is regressive—it falls most heavily on those least able to pay.
Probably the cleverest approach to reducing carbon emissions was Elon Musk’s: make an all-electric vehicle chic, stylish, and expensive enough to be a good status symbol. That encouraged the wealthiest to reduce their carbon emissions and they are responsible for a disproportionate amount of emissions.
Again, thermodynamics.
Let me get this straight, we roll back the clock to the pre-industrial era, but we keep our cars and iPhones. Man, that’s a sweet deal.
OK, reality check: OECD countries will offload the dirty and dangerous manufacturing to the poor countries, and the warming hysterics will pat themselves on the back. Meanwhile, thermodynamics.
Also, the bleeding hearts will get to write Wikipedia pages about “First World Problems” while disregarding the third world problems they have created.
Bjorn Lomborg has always been a person I have been willing to listen to. A sane voice. I disagree that there is any real evidence of man made temperature change. But people can disagree. The data is so noisy and corrupted. Rationale alternative explanations exist. Zealots have weak arguments.
That said, even if we stipulate to the assertion, what to do? China and India will absolutely overwhelm our reductions. AI, is going to dwarf any actions we might take. I hear a lot of arrant nonsense, and perpetually false dire predictions, from the left. BUT NO ACTIONABLE SOLUTIONS. Just childish bleating.
Whether the worldview of BL or me is correct is chicken shit. He has influence, I have none. I hope he continues to be a rationale voice. I hope people listen.
If true, it’s a problem to be scientifically managed. Not a political opportunity to extract money.
I think I failed to comment on a positive approach.
I’m an engineer by training. I would love to hear engineering based solutions. The issue is that only bizarre solutions, politically based, appear in public discourse.
I read today that Samsung has announced a fast charging/long lived battery. Great! But….. Rather expensive, and doesn’t deal with charging infrastructure. I wish them well. But let’s get real.
Technological breakthrough is Steve’s masturbating point. It will come. A long time from now. But why are we mandating EV’s in 2030, 2050? Crazy.
I have no issue with an energy efficient enterprise. But the world does not have rational and practical solutions right now. And the downsides to that are trivial, not existential. Dictates that throttle economic expansion are cruel, evil, and ineffective.
We need to stop catering to the cocktail party whims of elites, and think about everyman.
The 2030 goals seem pretty unrealistic. There have been very large gains in solar cells and batteries so that their costs, safety and energy density have improved more than expected. However, the grid is still an issue and charging stations are an issue. The best thing we can do is to keep supporting research as we have been doing and the current admin has been supporting building small nuclear reactors but that needs to speed up. Almost no one in the world is actually building them.
I would have to se the breakdown on that $2trillion. I would bet that is including all spending on renewables. In many parts of the world they are the cheapest form of energy. Note that they are building out very fast in red states.
China and i believe India are building renewables much faster than coal. At current rates it means that we wouldn’t hit our preferred goals but should still below the worst predicted outcomes, especially as the renewables are still essentially a fairly young industry.
” I hear a lot of arrant nonsense, and perpetually false dire predictions, from the left. BUT NO ACTIONABLE SOLUTIONS. Just childish bleating.”
You could try reading source material. MIT, CalTech and number of other engineering schools publish research, including Purdue which has several institutes and researchers devoted to renewables with several of their PhD students winning awards for their research. Just google purdue renewable energy research. Link goes to just one of the several pages covering their research efforts.
https://engineering.purdue.edu/CTRC/energy/research.html
Steve
Drew: Bjorn Lomborg
Lomborg has failed to publish any scientific paper contradicting the mainstream view on anthropogenic global warming that has held up to scrutiny.
Drew: I disagree that there is any real evidence of man made temperature change.
See Arrhenius, On the Influence of Carbonic Acid in the Air upon the Temperature of the Ground, London, Philosophical Magazine and Journal of Science 1896. Global warming is the inevitable consequence of increasing the concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases, as has been known for over a century.
Drew: China and India will absolutely overwhelm our reductions.
Both countries are already starting to move towards green energy. They need to do more, if that is what you mean.
Drew: I’m an engineer by training. I would love to hear engineering based solutions.
Engineering innovation will follow market incentives.
Zach –
I can find any number of paid for studies that support your views. it’s an industry.
Please.
BL is a rare, sane voice. People like you never answer the two main questions: why have the dire consequences you cite perpetually, for at least 50 years now, never happen? Florida is supposed to be 2/3rds underwater right now. That would be news to me. Second, What rational solutions can you think of in the face of growth, China, India and now AI (or more generally, computing power).
It’s all chicken with head cutoff. De-industrialize, at horrific cost to the Average Joe. Tax. Wealth transfer.
Get back to me when you have something actually practical and actionable. Until then, keep mentally masturbating.
Drew: I can find any number of paid for studies that support your views.
We provided theoretical supported based on first principles. For direct observational support see Feldman et al., Observational determination of surface radiative forcing by CO2, Nature 2015. Furthermore, models correctly predict the direction and slope of warming.
Drew: BL is a rare, sane voice.
Sane, but not supported by the evidence.
Drew: Florida is supposed to be 2/3rds underwater right now.
Never said that. Predicted sea level rise, given weak mitigation, is about 0.5-1.0 meters by 2100.
Drew: What rational solutions can you think of in the face of growth, China, India and now AI (or more generally, computing power).
Create market incentives that include the cost of carbon, including imports and exports.
Moderation help, please.
I find that a puzzling remark. Producing more of ≠ moving to unless those countries are producing and using less coal. Each is producing and using MORE coal annually. That is not “moving towards”. It is “producing more energy by whatever means are at hand”.
Here’s a question for you. At China’s present rate of increase in carbon emissions how much would the United States need to reduce its carbon emissions to offset that?
Dave Schuler: Producing more of ? moving to unless those countries are producing and using less coal.
China still has to grow economically, which means fossil fuels in the near term. It’s called bootstrapping.
Clean power already makes up more than a third of China’s electricity mix. Coal is expected to begin to decline this year. Wind and solar are projected to reach 30% share by 2030.
Dave Schuler: At China’s present rate of increase in carbon emissions how much would the United States need to reduce its carbon emissions to offset that?
It doesn’t work that way. Greenhouse warming is dependent on the *accumulated* *global* emissions. China has to reduce its greenhouse emissions.
Exactly. That is not what China is doing and there is little evidence that it is.
The most effective way to get China to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is for Europe and the United States to stop trading with China. Conversely, the more we trade with China the more greenhouse gases they will emit.
Dave Schuler: That is not what China is doing and there is little evidence that it is.
We just provided ways that China is moving towards the green transition.
Dave Schuler: The most effective way to get China to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions is for Europe and the United States to stop trading with China.
That isn’t necessary. Just put a carbon tax in place that applies to production wherever it occurs. That would provide the necessary incentives for businesses to reduce emissions.
No you didn’t. You made a claim and then engaged in special pleading. Here’s evidence.
A carbon tax will not be as effective as you seem to think. It won’t make Jeff Bezos shut down his megayacht. The rich and ultra-rich have disproportionately large carbon footprints and they’ll just pay the tax.
It will impose severe burdens on working people and the poor (who have relatively low carbon emissions).
Once the Earth reaches Net Zero, where does all the excess thermal energy still being produced go. Does it work according to movie science or magic?
Also, do you really believe that 8 billion people can be supported without modern farming and industrial methods? Really? No, really?
Dave Schuler: Here’s evidence.
Posting data about 2023 doesn’t address a claim about 2024 and on.
International Energy Agency: “We forecast that China’s coal consumption will fall in 2024 and plateau through 2026”. They grant significant uncertainty, but point to major structural changes to China’s economy as they continue to develop.
Dave Schuler: A carbon tax will not be as effective as you seem to think.
The rich certainly avoid taxes, more so than the poor because they can afford to pay upfront to save more later. The burden to the poor can be alleviated through the tax code, such as through rebates. The rule of thumb is that if you tax something, you get less of it. That’s certainly less draconian than cutting off all trade to China.
TastyBits: Once the Earth reaches Net Zero, where does all the excess thermal energy still being produced go.
What excess thermal energy?
TastyBits: do you really believe that 8 billion people can be supported without modern farming and industrial methods?
No. But that doesn’t mean that humans can’t reduce their carbon footprint while continuing to economically develop. Indeed, not polluting is essential to continued prosperity.
@Zachriel
Excess thermal energy would be from any man-made source. So, an electric car produces friction in the motor, axle bearings, and tires. An electric stove and heater produce heat. A nuclear plant must be cooled, and that produces heat and water vapor.
Your second paragraph is nonsensical, but it is your world. Yes, you can make plastic from plants, but it is energy intensive. The same goes for a lot of petroleum products, and almost everything you eat or use requires something from petroleum.
If this is such an existential crisis, everything should be done to incentivise the people with solutions. Unfortunately, those people happen to be the wealthiest people, and we cannot let an existential crisis stop us from hating them.
I will be in the ground by the time your generation realizes what you have done, and there will be no quick fix. It will not be some apocalyptic movie or prepper’s nightmare. It will be like Mogadishu, in 1993. There was a power plant, but nobody knew how to run it. It was a shithole, but most people were civil.
I apologize for the brevity, but I am not going to change your mind.
Got another comment in moderation. It didn’t show moderation during the edit period.
TastyBits: So, an electric car produces friction in the motor, axle bearings, and tires.
None of those sources of heat are significant in terms of global warming (Earth’s mean surface temperature).
TastyBits: Yes, you can make plastic from plants, but it is energy intensive. The same goes for a lot of petroleum products, and almost everything you eat or use requires something from petroleum.
True, but it isn’t necessarily so.
Dave- What you continue to support is the unmitigated addition of CO2, as bad as the true climate zealots. As noted above, countries want to continue economic growth. We haven’t really yet solved he problem of intermittency in an economic way. Besides, we dont yet have the capacity to make enough renewable energy. China and India will catch up enough economically, plus they will face pollution issues like we did, that renewables will far outweigh coal.
That means we fall short of ideal goals but first, it will be easier to adapt to more moderate changes. Second, it likely means we need some geoengineering but again that will be easier if there is left to do.
The amount of energy people produce is fairly trivial compared to the amount produced by the sun’s energy hitting the planet. Regardless, that energy is actually being radiated back out away from the planet. The reason we stay warm is that we have an atmosphere which retains a portion of the heat being radiated. That atmosphere is now absorbing, incoming and outgoing, and retaining more of that heat. Also, as we warm the planet’s albedo decreases so more energy is being initially absorbed.
https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/how-climate-works/energy-budget#:~:text=Earth's%20planetary%20albedo%20is%20about,lower%20than%20that%20of%20Earth.
Steve
Baloney. For more than fifty years I have argued for getting more of our electricity from nuclear energy. I live in a place that gets most of its electricity from nuclear power. I have suggested hybrids as niche vehicles, best suited for urban commuting. Unlike purported climate zealots I recognize that one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases is cement production. Consequently, I think we should be doing less major construction not more. BTW China produces several orders of magnitude more cement than the U. S. does.
BTW I think that geoengineering is pretty darned risky. Beware of unintended consequences.
Those with resources to do so should lead the way by burrowing their homes underground at high altitudes.
It’s survival.
Don’t expect a federal program to pay for this, it’s your theory and your money. Just do it.
Don’t tax or preach, times up, burrow.
Dave Schuler: I have suggested hybrids as niche vehicles, best suited for urban commuting.
Assuming they are plugin hybrids (PHEVs), then they would substantially reduce emissions. Nonetheless, absent effective carbon capture, they would just be a transitional solution. Still, they would allow for a much faster reduction in emissions than trying to go directly to total electric vehicles (EVs).
Dave Schuler: I recognize that one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases is cement production.
About 5% of emissions. Cement emissions are likely to be addressable in the near term with technological solutions. (China uses more because they are still industrializing. The U.S. has already contributed most of its “share”.)
You support nuclear but yet I dont recall you mentioning the ADVANCE Act. We were traveling so maybe i missed it. Anyway, climate change is the kind of thing many people cant see or feel. It’s mostly just numbers and mostly in the future. The issue wont be addressed if it calls for massive changes in lifestyle or only by specific people. It requires large scale changes, which are largely in the works but have a way to go. Nuclear should be part of it, but unlike you I think nuclear should just be a part. Regardless, the ADVANCE Act passed with an 88-2 vote. Pretty broad support for nuclear. Guess it took a senile POTUS.
Steve
@Zachriel
I am going to address you, but it will be in broad brush strokes. It covers a lot of subject matter, and if you want to learn more, you will need to do the work. Also, I am not interested in being accused of the “No True Scotsman Fallacy”.
What I meant was that at “Net Zero” we have returned to a pre-industrial CO2 balanced system, and therefore, the only temperature increase should be natural.
Now, I cannot provide all the unnatural ways 8 billion humans will add “heat” to the planet, but it will not be trivial. Adding to that are the concrete, steel, and asphalt heat sinks, and they are not trivial.
I probably should not do this, and I am not interested in a debate. Your generation has more at stake than me, but the people screaming the loudest know a lot less than me. Also, I am not interested in debating data sets. You can save that for your crazy uncle.
In hard science terms, most of what is being debated is gobbledygook. “Earth’s mean surface temperature” is a meaningless phrase. Temperature is measuring kinetic energy, but the volume must be fixed, uniform, and closed. Statistics may work in the soft sciences, but not physics.
Energy stored in the Earth’s surface is seperate from energy stored in the atmosphere and oceans. Since all mediums do not behave the same, the storage medium is important. Air and earth are poor conductors of thermal energy. Water is a very good conductor, and in the other two, it makes them much better conductors.
(I suspect that dew points have risen over the decades or centuries.)
Mostly, energy is energy. Meaning, one type can be transformed into another type(s), and because of energy conservation, none is lost. Basically, a gallon of gasoline is some solar energy and millions of years of gravitational energy. It is stored as potential energy in petroleum, and when used in a vehicle, it is converted into kinetic energy and thermal energy.
Then, there is electromagnetic waves – another form of energy. If thermal energy radiating (electromagnetic waves) back into space encounters water vapor (clouds), there will be an energy transfer, and some of the thermal energy will be retained in the atmosphere. No CO2 needed.
I have gotten tired of trying to explain to programmers why 9 + 1 = 10 is a meaningless concept. Some understand that f + 1 = 10. That is better, but few can grasp that all a cpu is doing is adding 1’s really fast. I am sure that Truth Tables have gotten more elaborate since I was in my first Circuits course, but that is all they are.
(I am not interested in a programming debate, either.)
I would suggest that you determine “who is the mark”, and if you cannot, it is you.
TastyBits: Now, I cannot provide all the unnatural ways 8 billion humans will add “heat” to the planet, but it will not be trivia.
Humans produce and consume about 19.6 TW of energy, most of which is not heat added to the planet, but is used to bring about chemical and mechanical transformations. The Earth’s energy imbalance due to anthropogenic greenhouse gases is about 460 TW. In other words, anthropogenic waste energy is not a significant contributor to global warming.
@Zachriel
It is your generation’s problem. If you believe that technology and billionaires will save you, great. They get richer, and you feel better. Win-win.
@Zachriel
I apologize for being flippant. I was playing a game, and while I stand by the comment, you are not an ER Doctor. Like him, you lack the required subject matter knowledge, but it is obvious you are trying. Unfortunately, thermodynamics is not easy. Without the equations, it might be manageable, but it will still take some time.
I should try to falsify my beliefs about AGW, again, but I hate thermodynamics. (Hopefully, you have falsified yours. If not, they are not complete.) Mine could be wrong, but at most, I do not think more than 10% or maybe 20%. Again, I could be wrong.
I will accept your numbers for the discussion, but I do not know if it is per day, week, year, etc. Once “Net Zero” is reached, balance should have been restored – natural thermal input => natural thermal output. (The Earth is still in the waning millennia of the last ice age, and it will continue to naturally warm. Actually, this is not quite right because the Earth is not uniform and it is ever-changing – plate tectonics.)
(I place Net Zero in quotes because I believe it is a fantasy. Scare quotes should be called magic thinking quotes because that is what the concept within them is. Unfortunately, the person using magic thinking quotes would need to understand the concept, and this is less and less likely.)
With the exception of the damage caused, the AGW problem should now be solved. Except, there is that pesky energy conservation. Potential energy is not much of a problem, but most kinetic energy will eventually become thermal energy. This thermal energy may be stored in various heat sinks.
In and of themselves, heat sinks do not matter, but when thermal energy leaves them, it affects the surrounding area. (It works the opposite way, as well. The thermal energy that melts ice is trapped in the water, and it cannot increase the air temperature. Water can store a lot more thermal energy than it takes to melt ice, and this gets complicated, fast. Did I mention I hate thermodynamics.)
The restored CO2 force-field prevents any excess thermal radiation from leaving Earth, but since energy must be conserved, this energy cannot just disappear. The energy balance sheet must balance at all times. A complete balance sheet would require all sources of internal and external energy, but we are just concentrating on man-made. (Matter to energy and energy to matter is possible, but I will leave those aside, as well.)
Most of the energy humans produce is transformed into thermal energy at some point – either directly or indirectly. It may be briefly, unintentional, and unwanted. In some cases, it is a blessing-and-a-curse. A frictionless world would make axles spin more efficiently, but the tires could not grip the road.
I did not get into water vapor. This is probably the biggest problem. It stores heat in the atmosphere, and in addition to the Earth’s rotation, heat drives the atmosphere. Over millennia, tectonic plate movement create mountains, and these disrupt the atmosphere.
A word on data. Scientifically, data is not just a bunch of numbers. Your result is subject to the precision of your least precise instrument. If your least precise thermometer is to a whole degree, your result cannot be 0.023. In statistics, this may work, but statistics is not science.
Also, your medium must be uniform. Surface air, surface earth, surface water, and sub-surface water are not a uniform medium. A high school physics lab displays more rigor in their measurements, and even there, they include the range of accuracy.
I may have forgotten a few things, and between medications and age, my brain needs duct tape. I rarely google anything, and if so, it is usually to make sure I am using terms correctly. It seems that the Kelvin scale has changed, but I did not dig into it. I think that some things may have changed with greater knowledge of sub-atomic particles.
I like science. I like when science gets things wrong. That means there are new and exciting things to learn. Unfortunately, much of what I see is garbage. Some of it is simply mathematical constructs. This is kinda similar to the significant digit issue, above.
I am constantly told that technology will save us, usually by people who “believe in science”. For these people, “science” is a religion, and “scientists” are the shamans and high priests.
Robotics and AI are a joke. The adherents will all claim to have faith in evolution, but they have no idea of what that means. It took around 3.5 billion years to produce a human, but in less than 100 years, humans will be able to produce a fully or almost fully functional humanoid.
After industrial robots, some type of insectoid or other lower life-form would be next. There is a reason life began in water, moved from multiple legs, and finally to two legs. Honestly, a cow is smarter than the smartest AI. A cow would be safer than a self-driving car, any day.
Speaking of cows, the reason we eat crappy food and have factory farming is because there is not enough arable land for 8 billion people. Free-range chickens and cows require enormous amounts of land, and for non-antibiotic, many more segregated animals will be required – more land.
Increasing crop production is the result of various chemicals distilled from petroleum and recombined to make fertilizer, bug spray, and who know what else.
As to economic incentives making things cheaper, this is more magical thinking. When China and India are ready to join the “Net Zero” world, they will face the same problem as the other OECD countries. Nothing is free. So, they will need to offshore the dirty and dangerous manufacturing to the next in line – sub-Saharan Africa (possibly S. America as well).
Except, Africa will not be allowed to contribute to CO2 increases, but they will be required to produce all the shit the rest of the world wants. Rather than dirty coal plants, they will have to do things the old-fashioned way – by hand. It will not be pretty, but out of sight, out of mind.
Another issue with the “economic incentives” is the way the WorldWide Modern Monetary System (WWMMS) works. Basically, it is similar to the US’s MMS, but every country’s balance sheet is connected. The balance sheets are actually much larger than any country’s banking system.
NOTE: I am not getting into a debate about this with anybody.
The entire system is based upon leveraged assets, sometimes multiple times. The system is also based upon growth, but it will contract at times. It is assumed that more debt will be created, and this requires a larger population. Nothing nefarious. It is just how it works.
Now, asset inflation is a feature not a bug, and those with more assets will benefit more. Financial assets usually benefit most, but not all financial assets are easy to identify. So, inflation benefits the wealthy, but GDP growth benefits the wealthy, also. Nothing nefarious. It is just how it works.
Here is where things get dicey. Population decrease would not be bad, but in the short term, it might be unpleasant, very unpleasant. The WWMMS will begin to collapse, maybe a little or maybe a lot. The wealthiest will do whatever it takes to retain their wealth. Think inflation.
This got way too long, and even then, I cannot provide the proper detail required.
TastyBits: I will accept your numbers for the discussion, but I do not know if it is per day, week, year, etc.
Watts and terawatts are measures of the rate of energy flow, not the accumulated flow over time.
TastyBits: The energy balance sheet must balance at all times.
As the Earth warms, it emits more energy per the Stefan–Boltzmann law. This is the primary negative feedback in the climate system. Stop accumulating atmospheric greenhouse gases, and, caeteris paribus, the Earth’s climate system will reach equilibrium, albeit at a higher temperature.
TastyBits: Most of the energy humans produce is transformed into thermal energy at some point – either directly or indirectly.
As already noted, a significant portion of the energy produced and consumed by humans is used to bring about chemical and mechanical transformations. Some is inevitably lost as waste energy. However, even if all of it were lost as heat energy, it is very small quantity compared to Earth’s energy imbalance caused by anthropogenic greenhouses emissions.
TastyBits: If your least precise thermometer is to a whole degree, your result cannot be 0.023.
That is incorrect. Given random error, the standard error is given by dividing the measurement deviation by the square root of the sample size. In other words, given the random error inherent in the measurement process, multiple measurements increase precision.
To increase accuracy, on the other hand, scientists look for multiple independent measures. With regards to global warming, satellite observations and surface station data show the same warming trend.
@Zachriel
Watts x seconds = Joules. I thought the numbers looked a little strange. Joules are what make your thermometer change, but I guess you meant electric output not work output. (I have always wondered why the discussion was about degrees not joules, and to a lesser extent, why not use Kelvin.)
If I recall correctly, the Stefan–Boltzmann law is about backbox behaviour, but it has been quite a while. I could be wrong, but I suspect it is not being applied correctly,
From the first steam engine or campfire, all the energy imbalance caused by anthropogenic greenhouses emissions must accounted for. Before the CO2 force-field became strong enough, most would have radiated out at night, and it would be on the universe’s balance sheet.
Again, the accounting quickly gets complicated, and you would need to seperate natural from man-made. In any case, “Net Zero” will still produce non-natural, non-trivial, man-made joules that will be measured by thermometers, and these are additive.
The joules that do not leave the Earth as radiation or are transformed into another form of energy will not reset each day or year. Eventually, you or the next generations will have the same problem, and rather than declare you saviours, you will be declared monsters.
Precision is different from accuracy. Unless something has changed, precision falls under the significant digit (figure) rule. (It may just be a physics thing.)
Physics is (or was) a precise science, and statistics does not belong. There are a few places where it comes in, but in my opinion, it is because we do not understand the mechanics.
The Earth is warming, as it should. It should not be warming uniformly, and due to tectonic plate movements, it should not be warming the same as the previous period.
The Earth has been around for a long time and endured many calamities, but it has many feedback loops to self-correct. Life has almost been wiped out three times (I think), and life survived. The vast majority of species have gone extinct, and at some point, man will as well. By that time, we may or may not have evolved.
Without some catastrophic event, the Earth will fix whatever problems there are. If too much CO2 is the problem, the Earth will fix it, without you. Regardless of what JD Vance believes, the Earth may decide a population reduction is in order, and with a nice large die-off, CO2 production will be solved.
I worry about the Earth’s magnetic field. It is close to being an actual force-field.
In any case, I am not trying to change your mind. You might want to consider that the people shouting the loudest have the most to gain. If “Net Zero” could be reached tomorrow but every AGW believer had to give up everything, how many new deniers would there be tomorrow?