Political Will

We hear time and again in the climate discourse that what we need to solve the problem is "political will."

Well, maybe... but combating climate change through reducing our CO2 emissions is not something that can be done by passing a law or signing new regulations.

This is not a Manhattan Project, the Apollo Program or the Great Society of LBJ. It is probably the three of them combined and multiplied by ten, and even then...

We will not be free of fossil fuels by issuing an Emancipation Proclamation. If only it were that simple...

First, let's mention what we don't need respecting the transition to a low carbon economy:

1. To be told it will be easy. Because it won't.
2. To be told it will be cheap. Because it won't.
3. To be told it can be done fast. Because it won't.

Now, the first thing we need to understand is the MAGNITUDE of the energy we should transition from high carbon sources to lower carbon ones. And, by the way, the sooner we bury the "zero emissions" label, the better. No energy source is zero emissions. *

As we may see from the graph above, fossil fuels not only overwhelmingly dominate the energy market, but in absolute terms are the ones that are growing the fastest.**

Even though the OECD countries ARE taming their energy hunger, the non-OECD are increasing it as if they had an appointment. ***

And let's make no mistake: the overwhelming consideration for increasing energy consumption in these Non-OECD countries will be cost and ease of scalability.

The first thing we need to confront the climate challenge is to start telling the truth and this starts with Al Gore, Greenpeace, Paul Krugman and others. Here are some inconvenient truths:

a. Moving to a low carbon economy will be expensive. Very expensive. Thus the cost of energy for the final consumer will be higher, maybe even much higher.
b. If the cost of energy goes up, then the cost of almost everything else will also go up, including food.
c. After many trillions of euros of investment we will end up with less than we began with (lower carbon but more expensive energy). For the final user there would be little to see (except maybe much less pollution from coal burning).

All the people participating in a Climate March should go ahead and do it but be perfectly conscious that if they are FINALLY listened to by governments, THEIR cost of energy and everything else will go up. Is this a sacrifice they are willing to assume? Hopefully yes, but fully understanding what they are actually asking for and how it will affect them individually.

Now we are going to have to call names. It would be great just to leave this at the philosophical level but emissions won't drop just because we wish them to. No, we need MASSIVE deployments of low carbon energy. And here we have to face other truths (valid at least through the rest of this century):

1. Hydro was, is, and will continue to be the premier renewable energy.
2. Yes, wind and solar will conquer part of the energy pie but will almost certainly stay in single digits share of our global energy consumption. Why? Because they are intermittent, unreliable, diffuse and expensive.
3. (This is to some the worst of all the inconvenient truths), nuclear will have to perform the heavy low carbon lifting for our civilization. Sorry, but there is NO way around this. Make the math, it would be impossible in a financial / environmental sense to supply most of our global energy with renewables.

So, once it is boiled down to the essentials, this is the definition of political will respecting global warming:

Political will: paving the way for a massive, accelerated implementation of nuclear power.

All the rest is just talk, just platitudes, just expressing feel good words that change absolutely nothing.

Look around you! Is a massive nuclear power plant buildup currently happening in your country?

If yes, you are moving forward.

If no, it is business as usual and you are not going anywhere (except maybe to an overly hot planet).

Feel free to add to the conversation at Twitter: @luisbaram

Note: some people declare that renewable energy (solar or wind) is cheap but this is only because they piggy-back on the conventional energy grid (that ends up absorbing the costs of their intermittency). However, when all costs are considered, RE is expensive, intermittent and unreliable.

References:

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life-cycle_greenhouse-gas_emissions_of_energy_sources

** bp.com/statisticalreview

*** www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/pdf/0484(2013).pdf

Types of People in the AGW Discourse: Revisited

Dear friends and colleagues: this is an updated version of the April 7, 2014 post. The reason we are updating it is that through your comments, we understood important additional categories needed to be added. So, here they are.

The Anthropogenic Global Warming discourse is supposed to be happening between the Deniers and the Believers but this is an oversimplification that does not fit well into the actual reality, so we are presenting below a more useful classification.



1. The Deniers: they don't believe AGW is happening and no evidence will make them change their mind.

2. The Believers: they believe AGW is happening but they have their feet on the ground.

3. The Naivers: they believe Renewable Energy (RE) will replace fossil fuels (FF) and save the day.

4. The Black Swanners: they believe in AGW but at the same time understand that humans will not voluntarily reduce their standards of living. Thus humanity will NOT reduce their FF consumption for many decades to come. The way out? A serious black swan event that will solve the emissions problem "through the back door." Examples:
     a. A gigantic volcanic eruption in Indonesia.
     b. An ebola like virus that drastically decimates human population.
     c. What have you.

5. Gamblers: they do believe AGW is happening but decide to wait and see. There might even be some unintended positive consequences of climate change. If nothing else, their investments in Greenland may become more valuable.

6. Opportunistic: the ones that make loads of money by selling the RE to the Naivers (above).

7. Liars / Lobbyists: what they believe in their heart is irrelevant. They follow the money and fully support their sponsors no matter how much they have to bend themselves backward to seem reasonable.

8. Divesters: believe that once institutional investors divest from fossil fuel stocks the carbon concentration in the atmosphere will return to normal.

9. Defeaters: they believe everything is lost and thus have decided not to do anything and wait quietly for the end to come.

10. Alice in wonderlanders: have confidence that the last freak energy experiment in an obscure laboratory will be massively scaled in a matter of years and come to our rescue.

11. Extreme libertarians: the free market, like magic, will take care of EVERYTHING.

12. Religious zealots: God won't allow humanity to destroy the Earth.

Framing people is never good, but it is certainly better to frame them in TWELVE camps rather than limit them to only two.

We hope the above classification adds something positive to the energy discourse.

Let's Lobby!

In the energy discourse it is almost impossible to obtain "fair and balanced" information. It seems everybody out there is lobbying for something, consequently "their" energy is perfect, emits zero pollutants, and creates loads of jobs while the "other" energy is the devil. As easy as that. However, real life, as always, is not black or white, we really don't have out there a picture-perfect solution for a nonexistent binary world.

Can we begin to talk, listen and respect each other instead of just pointing fingers (and even hurling insults)?

Lobbyists are PAID to blindly defend a position and thus they should probably not even be invited to the conversation because as Upton Sinclair stated:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it."

On the other hand, the REST of us should employ very healthy doses of skepticism when listening to them. Let's label them as what they really are: paid advertisers.

So, let's stop flying and make a soft landing. Here are some basic things we all need to understand:

• No energy is clean. Period. End of story. Elvis has left the (pick one): solar panel / wind turbine / nuclear reactor / dam. 
• Thus, no energy is zero emissions (once you consider the lifetime emissions of the respective technology). 
• The most we can say is that something is cleaner or lower carbon than something else. 
• When discussing subsidies, let's not say x receives so many dollars and y receives only this other amount. Things have to be stated in subsidies per energy produced to have a reference point.

Now, let's briefly scan the main energy sources and focus only on their most important characteristics. Let's not be distracted with side issues (like if wind turbines kill more birds than skyscrapers or not). 

Fossil Fuels:

• They are high carbon.
• In particular coal, causes a substantial number of casualties during its extraction.
• In addition to carbon, they liberate other important pollutants to the environment.
• Not considering externalities, they are the cheapest energy sources we have on a global scale.
• Our current infrastructure is built around them.
• They are convenient, reliable, flexible, high density energy sources. 
• Entire countries depend on the revenue they produce not to mention many millions of jobs all over the world.
• Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) has not been widely deployed. 
• According to the EIA, IEA, they will continue to dominate the energy market for decades to come. 

Now, let's take a look at the low carbon energy sources.

Sun and Wind:

• They are intermittent and unreliable and no amount of spin can change this. The low costs quoted for these technologies consider them piggy-backing on the conventional grid. If they were required to pay for the full effects of their intermittency / unreliability their costs would skyrocket.
• As an individual component, they seem to be low carbon, but once the system is considered (RE + FF backup), the emissions go up enough to even question if they are truly low carbon solutions.
• Storage or other means to compensate for the above have not been widely deployed.

Nuclear: 

• It is reliable, dense, safe, scaleable and produces little (although dangerous) waste.
• Is currently fighting an uphill battle against irrational fears planted by lobbyists (see above).
• Globally, it currently holds the highest market penetration in the production of low carbon electricity.

Hydro:

• It has served us well for many, many decades.
• As a percentage of our total energy consumption, it probably has reached its peak. 

Conclusion: the move away from fossil fuels will be gradual, will take many decades and they will not be replaced by the perfect energy source (which doesn't exist). We need to make hard sensible decisions minimizing the effects of the "paid advertisers."

Feel free to add to the conversation on Twitter.

Thank you.

Fossil Fuels and Our Civilization

I don't want to be tarred and feathered but we have to state some truths out in the open...

Our current civilization was build on top of fossil fuels. Without them we would probably now be living very similar lives to the ones in which our ancestors struggled to survive in 1850.

Almost certainly, today we wouldn't have massive access to cars and air travel (if at all). The world wouldn't be nearly as globalized and thus things would be much more expensive and the choices likewise limited.

Electricity would almost certainly still be a lab curiosity, and thus we wouldn't enjoy air conditioning, elevators, powerful illumination, etc. 

The rest of the technological advances would probably had been delayed for centuries and thus today we would not have computers, the Internet, cell phones, TV, radio, Twitter, you name it.

Below, we can see the global energy use since 1850.

Without fossil fuels we would almost certainly had destroyed our forests just to use their wood as fuel and whales would have been eradicated from the planet. Food production (without mechanization, some fertilizers, etc.) would also be much lower. 

So the way to go back to a world with as low emissions as we had in 1850 is to essentially renounce to all the convienences of our modern civilization and starve six billion persons.

This won't happen. Period. Consequently, our fossil fuel use in the next few decades will, far from decreasing, increase at a consistent pace. In the short / medium term, no disruption of the climate could be worse for humanity than returning to an energy poor society.

Sure, the day of reckoning will come but when people are given the choice between killing their children (through energy scarcity) or killing their eventual great-grandchildren (through an overheated planet) most will certainly select the latter. 

Can we replace fossil fuels with low carbon energies? In the short term the answer is no and this is due to the MAGNITUDE of the energy we have to replace. Even with aggressive growth, the EIA estimates that solar PV will be less than 1% of our global total primary energy supply by 2040; wind could be close to 3%. However, the absolute growth in fossil fuels use during this same period would completely overshadow the increases in low carbon energy.

In the long term (50 to 100 years) we could replace fossil fuels with a bit of hydro, a little sun & wind and lots of nuclear (either fission alone or combined with fusion).

So bar a very disruptive black swan, the RESPONSIBLE thing to do is to plan for a "business as usual" consumption of fossil fuels for the next few decades. 

Bringing our atmosphere back to 350 ppm of CO2 this century is completely unrealistic. Our plans should probably consider concentrations of 600 ppm by the year 2100. 

Now, after planning for the worst it doesn't mean we should sit down with our arms crossed, no. We should act, and our top three priorities should probably be:

1. Reduce our per capita energy consumption.

2. Stop population growth.

3. Start moving as fast as feasible to lower carbon sources.

Jack Welch said that effective management consists of looking reality in the eye and acting accordingly.

Humanity cannot afford more wishful thinking, we should follow Jack's advice.

International Energy Outlook 2013

At the bottom of this page is a link to the full International Energy Outlook 2013 report (300+ pages) from the EIA (U.S. Energy Information Administration).




All highlights below from this report refer to the period from 2010 to 2040 for the world.

• Energy use will increase 56%.
• It will grow from 524 to 820 quadrillion BTUs.
• The OECD countries will increase their consumption by only 17%.
• The non-OECD countries will increase it by 90%.
• Fossil Fuels will continue to comprise close to 80% of our total consumption.
• These are the projected growths for each fuel type:
• Natural gas: 63.8%
• Coal: 48.9%
• Liquids: 32.1%
• In absolute terms, fossil fuel use will grow faster than all other energies combined. 
• Carbon dioxide emissions, thus will also continue to increase from 31 to 45 billion metric tons. An increase of 45%.
• By 2040 these will be the market shares of the following low carbon energy sources in the production of electricity:
• Hydro: 16.0%
• Nuclear: 14.1%
• Wind: 4.7%
• Solar: 1.2%
• Overall, electricity generation increases by 93%.

In graph form, this is how the most important indicators look:

Conclusion: the struggle against climatic change is much more difficult than most people realize. Far from advancing, we are really losing ground. More efforts at every level would be required to change the above projections into something less dangerous for humanity.

Link to the full EIA Report:
http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/?src=home-b2

Beating a Dead Horse

A substantial, if not most, of what we hear today about global climatic disruption concerns people trying to prove that it is actually occurring.

Well... we do not have to continue beating a dead horse. Climatic change caused by our civilization's excessive carbon dioxide emissions is a fact. Period. Let's move on.

Almost immediately after stating the obvious, two other things come into the picture of the environmentalists:

a) The "climate change deniers" (a label always mentioned with scorn).

b) The lack of political will from governments.

Climate change deniers are not dumb, they are only suspicious of what they may be committing to if they accept that anthropomorphic emissions are driving harmful change. Consciously or at the gut level, they know that combating climate change would entail less personal choices and a significant reduction in their standard of living.

Now, with respect to "lack of political will", governments cannot get too far ahead of their constituents. If they do, they seriously risk being removed from office at the drop of a hat. 

The fact is that moving to a low carbon economy would entail, in the short and medium term, very significant increases in the prices of energy and transportation that would cascade through the economy and create serious inflation, job losses and a general reduction of our standard of living (exactly what the climate deniers fear). 

In theory, governments could act very fast with measures that would significantly reduce carbon emissions in the short term, for example by applying heavy carbon taxes.  However, most of the population on Earth is not ready, or willing to accept these drastic measures. 

Some environmentalists keep preaching that the transition to a low carbon economy (through "renewable energy") can be fast and painless. They are performing a disservice to humanity because what they are saying is plain false. Solar PV and wind heavily depend on subsidies and the moment they are removed (e.g. see what is happening in Spain) they come tumbling down. Besides, their intermittency produces hidden costs that are masked by the conventional power grid but, if their penetration continues to increase these costs will be impossible to hide any longer. If the conventional grid is decommissioned, then vast and expensive storage would be required (storage that, by the way, wouldn't be too environmentally friendly). From a purely financial point of view it makes no sense because we will need to:
1. Duplicate the current fossil fuel installed capacity (including all the transportation equipment).
2. Replace it with "renewable" capacity.
3. Build the "renewable" storage capacity.

The reason today most of the energy of civilization comes from fossil fuels is not because of a perverse twist in human psyches; rather it is because they are, by far, the cheapest type of energy we have access to (at least as we now cost them which is to say WITHOUT considering the cost of extrenalities). Yes, hydro competes with fossil fuels but currently supplies less than 3% of our total primary energy supply and cannot easily be scaled much above that market penetration. 

Bottom line: we all have to begin telling the truth about the consequences of a low carbon economy. That means asking the population to volunteer for serious sacrifices and significant changes in how we live. 

In the short term, a low carbon economy would seem much worse than mitigating climate change effects, in the long run, it might be the only alternative we have. 

Fracking: the New Villain

There now seems to be a new villain in the energy scene and it is fracking (hydraulic fracturing) which is mainly used for extracting shale gas (natural gas) that was previously inaccessible.

If there was ever an energy extraction technique that was born to a concerted effort against it from all quarters it is precisely fracking. Hey! There is even a Matt Damon movie out there denouncing the process and the whole industry!

Is fracking that bad? Does it really have so many issues? The short answer is yes, fracking has all sorts of negative consequences: loads of water are required in the process, chemicals are injected into the ground, there has been some drinking water contamination, etc., etc. However, before unanimously condemning fracking we have to ask ourselves what the natural gas produced with this technique is replacing. Once we make this question, and particularly when we answer it, things begin to look better.

So, here is the question: what is the natural gas produced by fracking replacing (mostly)?

Answer: coal.

Coal is the worst fossil fuel in almost any facet we wish to consider:

     Extracting it is not only dangerous for the miners, but often highly destructive for the environment (e.g. "mountaintop removal" in the USA).

     Per unit of energy produced, coal emits more carbon dioxide than any of the other main fossil fuels.

     Coal emits other important pollutants such as mercury, sulfur and even radioactivity (believe it or not, a coal power plant emits more radioactivity to the environment during operation than an equivalent nuclear one).

     Atmospheric visibility can be greatly affected with the soot produced by burning coal.  China is often in the news lately due to its extreme air pollution.

     Loads of ash are left behind after the combustion process and these have to be disposed of (sometimes with catastrophic consequences when a depot bursts into a river).

Through the replacement of coal by shale gas, the USA is actually reducing its carbon emissions faster than almost any other major nation in the world.

So, we SHOULD NOT compare fracking with the "perfect energy source" (which by the way, doesn't exist) and condemn it off the bat.  No, fracking is mostly replacing the dirtiest and most dangerous energy source: coal.

Thus, fracking is cleaner, safer, and consequently better than the alternative.

Conclusion: we should embrace fracking, at least in the short and medium term while we develop an even better and viable energy source.

Carbon Emissions 101

This is a fictitious interview with an energy expert that is not afraid of saying things as they really are, rather than as many wish they were.  

For the purpose of this exercise, let's say the energy expert is Mr. EE and Global News and World Report is interviewing him.

GNWR: what would be required to drastically reduce humanity's carbon emissions, in other words, what we need to do to prevent a global climate catastrophe?

EE: drastically reduce our fossil fuel use.

GNWR: but, what would be required to drastically reduce our fossil fuel use.

EE: a drastic increase in the prices of fossil fuels. And I want to stress here the word "drastic". Even though there is in general an upward trend in the cost of fossil fuels, if we leave it to "the market" the price increases won't be big enough or arrive soon enough to stop a runaway climate crisis.

GNWR: but, won't people understand the importance of reducing our carbon emissions and modify their behavior accordingly?

EE: maybe one percent or so of the Earth's population will voluntarily take this path but most people won't substantially modify their behavior until overriding economic factors force them to do so.  And the words I want to stress here are "force them." 

GNWR: can´t we just support wider use of renewables?

EE: Once you factor all the direct and indirect costs, renewables are not only more expensive than fossil fuels, they are vastly more expensive.

GNWR: so, please stop beating around the bush and tell us what exactly needs to be done.

EE: I would like to offer a much more imaginative, innovative, and interesting answer but as we stand today the only viable solution to our carbon problem are carbon taxes.  And again, we are not talking about "timid" taxes, but ones that would increase the price of fossil fuels by say, three, four or even five times their current level. This should obviously go hand in hand with the elimination of all subsidies both to fossil fuels and to renewables. Believe it or not, globally we are currently subsidizing fossil fuel consumption to the pitch of more than 500 billion dollars per year!

GNWR: if those carbon taxes were fully implemented, what would be the immediate result?

EE: first, our carbon emissions will truly drop dramatically.  This would obviously be a very welcomed result.  On the other hand the world economy will tank.  This would be a serious side effect, to say the least.

GNWR: why is that so?

EE: today the world economy almost single-handedly depends on cheap fossil fuels.  Some analysts even state that the 2008 world recession was REALLY caused (or at least triggered) by $150 dollar oil.  The carbon taxes we are envisioning would bring this price to, say, $450.  It would be a completely different ball game.

GNWR: but then, isn't the medicine worse than the sickness?

EE: THAT is the crux of the matter.  In other words, how do we reduce our emissions fast enough to avert a climate catastrophe while at the same time prevent the destruction of the world's economy in the process.

GNWR: could this conceivably be done?

EE: From a technical point of view, absolutely. The number one source of our carbon emissions is electricity production. In theory, all electricity can be generated with nuclear plants and nuclear produces almost no carbon dioxide during operation.  France already produces close to 80% of its electricity with nuclear plants.

GNWR: and renewables?

EE: aside from hydro, renewables have just been a costly diversion.  However, if they can survive by themselves without subsidies, then they would stay, but they will always be just a small part of our total energy mix.  Even hydro will face problems.  Climate change is already impacting countries where hydro is big, such as Brazil which may have to begin rationing electricity as early as this year. Venezuela and Colombia may not be far behind. So let me stress this even if Greenpeace doesn't want to listen: the future will be nuclear. Even Japan is already re-starting its nuclear plants.  Germany doesn't have any choice either so sooner or later they will continue investing in nuclear.

GNWR: what else needs to be done?

EE: another big contributor to our carbon emissions is transportation.  Here we need much more efficient cars, which at this moment means hybrids, and at the same time much less cars.  We have to  make public transportation attractive to many people that currently mostly use their car.  Also, we need to be more "bicycle friendly".

GNWR: anything more?

EE: yes, efficiency, efficiency, efficiency that will allow us to reduce our consumption of raw materials, energy, land, etc., while at the same time not overly affect our well-being.

GNWR: so then, there is hope!

EE: as mentioned, technically it is completely feasible but the real issues are political and here we can kill ourselves without really trying. 

GNWR: Thank you very much, Mr. EE.

EE: you are most certainly welcomed!

Low Carbon Economy

Let's make no mistake: every alternative to fossil fuels is considerably more expensive.  The reason we have not moved to a "low carbon" economy is not a philosophical one, it is an economical one. 

However, just as a mind experiment, let's imagine how the world would change if the fundamental means to reduce humanity's carbon emissions was implemented: behavior modifying (in other words, painful) carbon taxes.

Sure, the only way for governments to proceed with this measure is if their citizens, in general, supported these taxes, if not, the governments could be brought down overnight.

But again, this is a mind experiment and thus let's assume that most of the seven billion plus persons on Earth support these taxes.

In order for these taxes to be "behavior modifying" they would have to increase the price of natural gas by, say, 300%, oil 400% and coal by 500%.  The differences in taxing obey to the relative "carbon intensity" of each energy source.

Not to tax all economies to death, these taxes will go hand in hand with the total elimination of all energy subsidies (both to renewables as well as to fossil fuels).  Let's say (and since we are in a planetary emergency) that in five years the full burden of these taxes goes into effect.  On the other hand, these carbon taxes could be "revenue neutral" for governments.

This is what we anticipate will happen:

• SUVs will completely be a thing of the past.
• Car sales will plummet but hybrids will dominate the (much reduced) market.  The smaller the car, the better.  Even then, full electrics will barely dent the market. 
•  Public transportation will flourish as well as "alternate" means of transportation: bicycles, electric scooters, Segways, etc.
• Buildings all over the place will be carefully insulated.
• Public lightning will be upgraded with LED technology and presence sensors: only when a person is near them will the lamps turn on.  These same technologies will be used at home and business: no longer will illumination be left on all night for decorative or safety purposes.
• Air travel will become extremely expensive and consequently its use will plummet.
• There would be an uptick on solar and wind power, but the lion's share of low carbon energy will be supplied by nuclear power.  Massive investments in new nuclear generating capacity will happen all over the world.
• Standards of efficiency will go up on all types of devices: air conditioners, fridges, TVs, computers, etc., but at the same time people will turn them off as soon as they are done using them.
• World trade will decline since fossil fuel vessels transport almost all merchandise.
• Almost everything will go up in price so people and companies will drastically curtail their consumption. 
• Zoning laws will change all over so that tight-nit communities can again be the norm: school, shopping, work, will tend to be walking distance away. 
• Innovation to replace fossil fuels will blossom.  However, no amount of innovation will stop the outrageous increase in energy prices. 
• In spite of efficiency improvements A/C will be so expensive that weather related migrations will be common place. 
• People will NOT necessarily be less happy, because consumption above a certain point doesn't add to happiness. 
• Carbon emissions WILL go down very significantly.

Now, what would happen at the global stage?

• Nations that depend on oil for most of their revenue will fall into a profound depression.  The price of oil (aside from the carbon taxes) will sink almost overnight and its consumption will be severely curtailed. Revolutions will bring down governments on these countries, but the new governments will not be able to cope either with the sudden and catastrophic reductions in revenue.  
• Car companies, airlines, trucking companies will fold left and right.  The wave of bankruptcies won't stop there as almost every other sector of the economy will be profoundly affected.
• China will be among the most affected countries since most of its manufacturing energy comes from coal and additionally transportation costs for its products will rise exponentially. 
• European countries and the USA would be relatively less affected, but the standards of living of their populations will also suffer greatly.
• Highways will be eerily empty and eventually many will be reclaimed for other uses. 
• Although the 21st Century will still be firmly in place (we'll still have our smart phones and other sophisticated technology), energy-wise we will return to the early 1900s.  Energy will be an expensive luxury and only rich people will be able to consume as much as they want.  Anything combustible, including our forests, will be under siege. 
• Food prices will skyrocket. 
• Serious social upheavals will happen all over the world.  The human population will drop considerably. At the same time the climate crisis will seem to be getting even worse due to the inertia of the Earth's systems.

Conclusion: no wonder humanity resists with all its might any reduction in carbon emissions.  In the very short term the medicine certainly seems worse than the sickness, but in the medium and long term not starting to fix the sickness today will almost certainly mean even worse consequences.

Let's all stay tuned...