Right up front: the planet is getting warmer, CO2 levels are historically high (almost certainly from anthropogenic sources), and there is doubtless some substantial link between the two, meaning that human activity is helping to warm the globe. These are hard to deny, and make a person seem like a scientific dunce if he does. However, where the real argument comes in is “what do we do about it?” There are *good* answers to that question, including things like “let’s replace the coal burning powerplants with bigass breeder reactors” and “let’s get to work on synthetic petroleum alternatives such as thermal depolymerization that can turn weeds, sewage and garbage into carbon neutral fuels we can pour directly into the tanks of existing vehicles.” And then there are *bad* solutions, such as “lets just assume that weather-power coupled with handwavy improvements in battery tech will make the place into a green utopia” and “all solutions begin with gutting the US economy.”
The problem with basing all your hopes on the US taking care of it is that the US is a *minor* player in CO2 emissions:
Compared to most of nations *individually,* the US is a major source of CO2. But compare to the world as a whole, the US is small, and getting rapidly smaller. The US, Japan and western Europe are more or less static, but China, India and the less developed countries are burning whatever they can to power their industries. Soon, the US could simply stop burning stuff entirely and the world wouldn’t notice the difference.
Still, one might argue, the US should still make a major, economy-crushing and horizon-compressing effort to do whatever it can; when the world sees the US neuter itself, surely they wil all be inspired to do the same, yes?
Ahhh…. about that:
When I was a kid, “O Noes, hairspray is going to destroy the ozone layer!” was all the rage. And then… we fixed it. The world got together and figured out what chemicals – in particular CFCs – were bad for the ozone, and the world agreed to curtail the use of such things in aerosol cans and air conditioners and fridges and the like. We’d actually won. There were safer, better options available, no need to use the dangers stuff. And yet… here we are, China’s cranking out trichlorofluoromethane in order to make foam insulation. Not because they *need* to, but because it’s cheaper. Well, what makes anyone sane and non-stupid think that things would be any different with CO2? China is in it for China. If global warming wipes out the American agricultural heartland, they’re hardly going to be too upset about that; nor will the Chinese Communists shed too many tears over the loss of the Everglades or small Polynesian islands.
If you really want to do something abut CO2, you have to take care of the biggest issues, not just focus on the small players. And this means that you will need to either:
- Force China to play along. I shudder to imagine what kind of military operation would be required to invade and conquer China just to get them to shut off the coal plants and go back to a lower-tech, lower-standard of living. With a population of ~two billion, how many hundreds of millions would have to die in the war, and how many more hundreds of millions in the low-tech aftermath?
- Provide a cheaper “green” alternative to what they’re currently doing. Solar and wind are fine, but the Gobi desert may not have enough land area to pave over with PV arrays to provide for Chinas current and more importantly future energy needs.
Once again we’re back to nukes, the only foreseeable system that could potentially provide the *vast*amount of power the world needs without the CO2 emissions, and without the vast consumption of land area needed for low power density weather power systems.
Clearly, the US should go ahead and nuclearize anyway; never mind global warming, it’s otherwise still the right thing to do economically, ecologically and technologically. Just don’t expect the global climate to improve until the likes of China and India get on board.
