Climate Change

[old_newguy]

My wife finally woke up to this issue this year with the heat in the PNW. (Which is totally emblematic of the issue. No one wants to change until it impacts them and then it is too late.)

I’ve been wanting to buy more fuel efficient vehicles, buy less shit, save energy, etc and she is finally on board. EV car in our future, talking about what locations are more climate change resilient than our current location, etc.

I’d say that on the existential dread front you can do one of two things:

Say fuck it like Core Shot, “live your life” and not give a single fuck about house size, car size, energy consumption, etc

Or, you can make small incremental changes in your life that are basically not painful. EV cars, energy efficiency, reduce consumption, etc. Those small incremental changes make bigger differences when aggregated with others doing the same and may help avoid the worst case scenarios.

Look at the plans and goals of various agreements and implement those in your life.

I’m concerned about the ramifications for my kids of doing nothing, so I can’t just have this laid back “it will all shake itself out” attitude.

[Sirshredalot]

It's always easier to blame some bogeyman.
The fact remains that what you promise--technological solutions that will let people in the wealthy countries go on living their lives like before--is a pipe dream. Even if all the technology can be scaled up enough to replace carbon fuels without causing even more environmental damage in the process, which I think unlikely, doing so will consume all of people's disposable income and time; lives will have to revolve around coping with and stabilizing global warming to the exclusion of all else. Think of the scene in Black Mirror where most people spend their days pedaling stationary bikes to generate electricity.

Things were going along swimmingly for a few hundred thousand years (maybe not so swimmingly if the eruption of a supervolcano reduced the population of Homo sapiens to 1000 couples or so about 70,000 years ago) until someone got the bright idea to start planting seeds and it's been downhill ever since. Population exploded but instead of the natural mechanism that keep populations in check working, ever increasing technology has staved off disaster--temporarily. The technology has allowed the elites of the planet to live increasingly rich and comfortable lives while the great majority of people have lived in ever increasing misery. And all of that has happened in a blink of an eye in the time-span of life on the planet.

This is just not true. Right now, under existing policies and with current technologies, it is cheaper to build utility-scale wind and solar than it is to build coal or natural gas power plants. Electric cars and trucks that run off this cleaner power grid are rapidly taking over the industry. We have already decoupled GDP growth from emissions growth in this country. This isn't speculative: this is right now. And the technology is only getting cheaper.

You're vastly underestimating how wealthy our society is and how good our corporate sector is at technological refinement and finding efficiency. Simultaneously, I think you're underestimating the degree to which the pollution impoverishes us. Tearing the fruit trees out in California's central valley because there is no water is wildly expensive and wasteful. So is treating people in the hospital for heat stroke, hardening levees against floods, accommodating refugees from near the equator, etc. Obviously, we have crossed the threshold where we are already paying for some of these costs. We will pay for more of them going forward if we don't continue to make changes - and rapidly.

Certainly, our artificially cheap oil and gas subsidizes all the cheap crap at WalMart and on Amazon. Making the producers of these goods pay a stiff fee for the emissions they produce will make things more expensive for consumers. That's why the serious proposals to do so refund the money to consumers via a rebate.

But this isn't a Black Mirror episode we are discussing - we are talking about paying somewhat more for consumer goods and then getting a check from the IRS to make us whole, at least for a while. Yes, international airfares would go up in the near-term, but that's simply not a dystopian sci-fi nightmare. In the medium to long term, we obviously end up much better off.

To be clear, I am not pointing the finger at a bogeyman. Our fucked up politics are our fault and we need to fix them.

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[WMD]

It's always easier to blame some bogeyman.
The fact remains that what you promise--technological solutions that will let people in the wealthy countries go on living their lives like before--is a pipe dream. Even if all the technology can be scaled up enough to replace carbon fuels without causing even more environmental damage in the process, which I think unlikely, doing so will consume all of people's disposable income and time; lives will have to revolve around coping with and stabilizing global warming to the exclusion of all else. Think of the scene in Black Mirror where most people spend their days pedaling stationary bikes to generate electricity.

Things were going along swimmingly for a few hundred thousand years (maybe not so swimmingly if the eruption of a supervolcano reduced the population of Homo sapiens to 1000 couples or so about 70,000 years ago) until someone got the bright idea to start planting seeds and it's been downhill ever since. Population exploded but instead of the natural mechanism that keep populations in check working, ever increasing technology has staved off disaster--temporarily. The technology has allowed the elites of the planet to live increasingly rich and comfortable lives while the great majority of people have lived in ever increasing misery. And all of that has happened in a blink of an eye in the time-span of life on the planet.

Saul Griffith is one of the foremost experts on US energy use in the world. He disagrees with you:

[WMD]

The IPCC also thinks we can address climate change without having major impacts on people's lives. That is why in all scenarios int their modeling for the recently released AR6, emissions increase for at least the next 3 decades. Cutting emissions faster than that is possible and would stop warming sooner, and the report states very clearly that whenever net zero is reached, temperatures will stop increasing. But cutting emissions faster would require sacrifices, and the IPCC economists and social scientists don't think people are willing to sacrifice anything to avoid increasing climate disasters.

Over the past few years, an international team of climate scientists, economists and energy systems modellers have built a range of new “pathways” that examine how global society, demographics and economics might change over the next century. They are collectively known as the “Shared Socioeconomic Pathways” (SSPs).
The SSPs are based on five narratives describing broad socioeconomic trends that could shape future society. These are intended to span the range of plausible futures.
They include: a world of sustainability-focused growth and equality (SSP1); a “middle of the road” world where trends broadly follow their historical patterns (SSP2); a fragmented world of “resurgent nationalism” (SSP3); a world of ever-increasing inequality (SSP4); and a world of rapid and unconstrained growth in economic output and energy use (SSP5).
The narrative for each is described in detail below:
SSP narratives

SSP1	Sustainability – Taking the Green Road (Low challenges to mitigation and adaptation) The world shifts gradually, but pervasively, toward a more sustainable path, emphasizing more inclusive development that respects perceived environmental boundaries. Management of the global commons slowly improves, educational and health investments accelerate the demographic transition, and the emphasis on economic growth shifts toward a broader emphasis on human well-being. Driven by an increasing commitment to achieving development goals, inequality is reduced both across and within countries. Consumption is oriented toward low material growth and lower resource and energy intensity.
SSP2	Middle of the Road (Medium challenges to mitigation and adaptation) The world follows a path in which social, economic, and technological trends do not shift markedly from historical patterns. Development and income growth proceeds unevenly, with some countries making relatively good progress while others fall short of expectations. Global and national institutions work toward but make slow progress in achieving sustainable development goals. Environmental systems experience degradation, although there are some improvements and overall the intensity of resource and energy use declines. Global population growth is moderate and levels off in the second half of the century. Income inequality persists or improves only slowly and challenges to reducing vulnerability to societal and environmental changes remain.
SSP3	Regional Rivalry – A Rocky Road (High challenges to mitigation and adaptation) A resurgent nationalism, concerns about competitiveness and security, and regional conflicts push countries to increasingly focus on domestic or, at most, regional issues. Policies shift over time to become increasingly oriented toward national and regional security issues. Countries focus on achieving energy and food security goals within their own regions at the expense of broader-based development. Investments in education and technological development decline. Economic development is slow, consumption is material-intensive, and inequalities persist or worsen over time. Population growth is low in industrialized and high in developing countries. A low international priority for addressing environmental concerns leads to strong environmental degradation in some regions.
SSP4	Inequality – A Road Divided (Low challenges to mitigation, high challenges to adaptation) Highly unequal investments in human capital, combined with increasing disparities in economic opportunity and political power, lead to increasing inequalities and stratification both across and within countries. Over time, a gap widens between an internationally-connected society that contributes to knowledge- and capital-intensive sectors of the global economy, and a fragmented collection of lower-income, poorly educated societies that work in a labor intensive, low-tech economy. Social cohesion degrades and conflict and unrest become increasingly common. Technology development is high in the high-tech economy and sectors. The globally connected energy sector diversifies, with investments in both carbon-intensive fuels like coal and unconventional oil, but also low-carbon energy sources. Environmental policies focus on local issues around middle and high income areas.
SSP5	Fossil-fueled Development – Taking the Highway (High challenges to mitigation, low challenges to adaptation) This world places increasing faith in competitive markets, innovation and participatory societies to produce rapid technological progress and development of human capital as the path to sustainable development. Global markets are increasingly integrated. There are also strong investments in health, education, and institutions to enhance human and social capital. At the same time, the push for economic and social development is coupled with the exploitation of abundant fossil fuel resources and the adoption of resource and energy intensive lifestyles around the world. All these factors lead to rapid growth of the global economy, while global population peaks and declines in the 21st century. Local environmental problems like air pollution are successfully managed. There is faith in the ability to effectively manage social and ecological systems, including by geo-engineering if necessary.

Narratives for each Shared Socioeconomic Pathway, from Riahi et al 2017.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/explaine...climate-change

[shaft]

If you care about climate change, make your home all-electric. It saves just as much carbon as electrifying your vehicle...more in the high country...and is cheaper (especially if you have AC.)

• If you're replacing or adding an air conditioner, make it a heat pump. Keep the furnace as backup if you're scared.
• If you're replacing your furnace, make it a heat pump and enjoy some air conditioning on smoke days
• If you're replacing your water heater, go with a heat pump water heater
• If you're replacing your cooktop, go induction
• If you're replacing your dryer, go with a low amp combo unit; or an electric dryer. Add a booster fan on the vent if you're scared.

On the vehicle side, I know you don't want to hear it, consider a unibody and enjoy the extra 10 mpg.

[WMD]

^^This. Except I would say get an EV. We have to stop burning things for heat and power, and what is awesome is there has been a ton of innovation to make that possible and cost effective.

We should all do whatever we can personally, but ultimately, what we do individually is just a drop in the ocean and won't make a difference until everyone does it. We need systemic change to get there.

The plan that makes the most sense is electrify everything that can be electric - vehicles, building heat and hot water, light manufacturing, etc., stop deforestation, and reduce emissions in how we farm by better crop management, etc.

If you take one action on climate change it would be to help us achieve systemic change:

• Most people don't ever hear about climate change. Talk about it everyday with family, friends, at work. Let people know you are worried and that the current freakish weather is happening because of climate change (climate attribution science is now able to show this quickly)
• Be politically involved. Vote for climate hawks, and contact your representatives to push or support them to act on climate. Publicly support legislation that moves us off of fossil fuels to clean energy*
• Support fossil fuel workers so they don't get left behind. Our energy sources need to change but we should help them adjust.

*Right now Senate Democrats just approved a $3.5 trillion plan that includes strong action on climate change. We need to push them to adopt at least the climate provisions in that plan:

• A Clean Energy Standard (actually not a standard but a payment plan but it does the same thing) to get our electricity sector to 80% clean energy by 2030, and 100% by 2035
• Tax credits for renewable energy investments, including for homeowners putting solar on their roofs
• Tax credits and investments in EVs - to make them affordable and to build out the charging infrastructure
• A Civilian Climate Corps to put people to work making the transition to all electric
• End all fossil fuel subsidies

The last time Congress looked at climate legislation was ~2009 when the House passed the Waxman-Markey cap and trade bill but the Senate never even voted on it. If legislation doesn't pass this year, it would be another 10 years to have an administration and congress interested in doing anything about it. By then the situation will be much more dire and we will have lost so much more.

The advice to just give up is bullshit. I understand it, but we can't do that. If you are young, or you have kids, giving up means an awful future. Why would anyone accept that when we know what is wrong and know what we need to do to stop it? Yes, it will be hard. Lots is lost already. But there is still so much to save that it is worth the effort.

For me, once the forests burn and the snowline is the top of Rendezvous Peak (see Greater Yellowstone Climate Assessment), and extinctions are increasing dramatically and the rivers are too hot for trout - what's the point of living? We gotta do all we can to save all of that.

[Core Shot]

If you care about climate change, make your home all-electric. It saves just as much carbon as electrifying your vehicle...more in the high country...and is cheaper (especially if you have AC.)

• If you're replacing or adding an air conditioner, make it a heat pump. Keep the furnace as backup if you're scared.
• If you're replacing your furnace, make it a heat pump and enjoy some air conditioning on smoke days
• If you're replacing your water heater, go with a heat pump water heater
• If you're replacing your cooktop, go induction
• If you're replacing your dryer, go with a low amp combo unit; or an electric dryer. Add a booster fan on the vent if you're scared.

On the vehicle side, I know you don't want to hear it, consider a unibody and enjoy the extra 10 mpg.

Electric dryer?
Same as EV.

Where does that power come from? Unicorn farts?

Why the fuck did they kill diesel. Biodiesel makes so much sense.
Ethanol in your gas? What a waste unless you live close to corn country.

Wanna get serious about electric then build a hundred more nuke plants.

PS. Induction stoves are awesome.

[WMD]

The problem with nukes is the energy costs 2-5 times that of renewables, and they take 8-12 years to build. You can build a lot of wind, solar, and storage for this prices and in that amount of time. On climate, time matters. Every bit of fossil fuel we burn adds co2 to the atmosphere, which increases temperatures. So the sooner we stop, the lower warming will be.

[Sirshredalot]

Electric dryer?
Same as EV.

Where does that power come from? Unicorn farts?

Why the fuck did they kill diesel. Biodiesel makes so much sense.
Ethanol in your gas? What a waste unless you live close to corn country.

Wanna get serious about electric then build a hundred more nuke plants.

PS. Induction stoves are awesome.

Existing nukes are fine and shouldn't be retired early. Building new nukes is wildly fucking expensive. On a per-mw basis, utility-scale wind and solar are the cheapest power plants we can build right now. Nukes are the most expensive. But we should continue to have r&d there to see if we can get costs down.

Where does the electricity come from for the electric dryer? Increasingly, the answer to that question is wind and solar. Wind and solar are very cheap to build right now and they continue to get cheaper.

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[nickwm21]

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite EV CEO takes 200 cross country flights a year and enjoys liquid methane fueled space travel…

But sure, swap out your NG range for induction… that’ll make a difference.


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[abraham]

Existing nukes are fine and shouldn't be retired early. Building new nukes is wildly fucking expensive. On a per-mw basis, utility-scale wind and solar are the cheapest power plants we can build right now. Nukes are the most expensive. But we should continue to have r&d there to see if we can get costs down.

Where does the electricity come from for the electric dryer? Increasingly, the answer to that question is wind and solar. Wind and solar are very cheap to build right now and they continue to get cheaper.

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If you have time there's some interesting discussion about the process design choices and how they impact nuclear plant costs.
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR...NDk0MmQ4?ep=14

[Sirshredalot]

Meanwhile, everyone’s favorite EV CEO takes 200 cross country flights a year and enjoys liquid methane fueled space travel…

But sure, swap out your NG range for induction… that’ll make a difference.


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I'm not sure what your point is, other than to insult Mary Barra.

Does Musk suck? Yes. Are EVs good? Also yes. Should we make rich guys pay a bunch of money towards carbon mitigation when they makes those lifestyle choices? Absolutely.

I'm not sure what you're driving at. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that one person dumping a gas range is going to make a big difference.

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[Core Shot]

I own 150 Mwh of solar.

I’m not against it.

But Nat gas is not evil. Its clean burning and efficient. And better burned locally in your high efficiency boiler or water heater than being run through a peaker to generate electricity miles from your home, with transmission losses.
Or more likely, your Tesla is running on coal

[Sirshredalot]

I own 150 Mwh of solar.

I’m not against it.

But Nat gas is not evil. Its clean burning and efficient. And better burned locally in your high efficiency boiler or water heater than being run through a peaker to generate electricity miles from your home, with transmission losses.
Or more likely, your Tesla is running on coal

Nat gas has been a very useful bridge fuel, but it is both marginally more expensive and meaningfully dirtier to burn at utility-scale than it is to use renewables. And it's probably going to need to be phased out of residential use eventually.

I like my gas appliances too, but I, personally, wouldn't design new construction to rely on them. I think building codes are going to end up phasing it out eventually. It will be a hard lift to move the country to something more efficient for home heating. There are still big parts of this country where oil boilers in poorly insulated houses are common.

Even the Teslas plugged in to a dirty grid are still wildly more efficient than an equivalent gasser and the grid is getting cleaner every day. The future is here, dude.

I'm with you that biodiesel is an interesting technology!

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[WMD]

Core Shot, I think your numbers are off on your solar system. My home system is 9.86kW, which is producing over 50kWh's today, and will produce somewhere around 13.6 mWh's in a year.

Natural gas is mostly CH4, or methane, which is a fossil fuel. Burning it emits co2, although less than coal. But it is pretty well documented that methane leaks at drill sites, in transportation and processing and methane is 80+ times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 over 20 years.

Scientists have measured big increases in the amount of methane, the powerful global warming gas, entering the atmosphere over the last decade. Cows or wetlands have been fingered as possible sources, but new research points to methane emissions from fossil fuel production—mainly from shale gas operations in the United States and Canada—as the culprit.The “massive” increase in methane emissions occurred at the same time as the use of fracking for shale gas took off in the U.S., says Robert Howarth, an ecologist at Cornell University and author of the study published Aug 14 in the journal Biogeosciences.
“We know the increase is largely due to fossil fuel production and this research suggests over half is from shale gas operations,” Howarth says in an interview.
This big methane increase matters because methane heats up the climateover 80 times more than an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the first 20 years after it is released into the atmosphere, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. After 20 years most of the methane becomes CO2, which can last for hundreds of years.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/e...ths-atmosphere

Electrify everything. Including your car. An internal combustion engine wastes about 80% of the energy in gas as excess heat, leaving only about 20% to propel the vehicle. EV's are much more efficient, with 80% of the energy going to propel the vehicle.

There is no way to get to net zero emissions while still burning gas.

[Core Shot]

Oops. Yeah. It’s 150kWh. Two commercial systems. Mwh would mean I have a mini nuke plant.

Good point about efficiency and energy waste in EV vs ICE.
A coal or Nat gas power plant is more efficient than a car.
But biodiesel is better than gas. Especially compared to the frick fracking nightmare

Just drove halfway across the country. Could not imagine that in an EV unless it was an RV and self driving. Waiting for a recharge would suck.

[k2skier112]

Existing nukes are fine and shouldn't be retired early. Building new nukes is wildly fucking expensive. On a per-mw basis, utility-scale wind and solar are the cheapest power plants we can build right now. Nukes are the most expensive. But we should continue to have r&d there to see if we can get costs down.

Where does the electricity come from for the electric dryer? Increasingly, the answer to that question is wind and solar. Wind and solar are very cheap to build right now and they continue to get cheaper.

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Over 50% of the US's CO2 output is from transportation and electricity. These 2 are easy and reachable soon

Until a permanent safe storage place is found for nuclear waste, which is impossible (unless we blast it into space) , we should be getting away from the most toxic form of electric generation there is

A large gas tax is the only thing that will make a long overdue gas mileage mandate possible. Commuting in v8 trucks is moronic & high HP muscle cars will be dinosaurs

[Falcon3]

The OKLO-Aurora projects are 1.5mW mini-nukes that take spent fuel from the big nuclear plants and reuse it. If we can figure out the enrichment/recycling process and security issues from having these spread out around the country, it’s a big step toward greening the nuclear field.


Also, just replacing traditional turbine energy plants with solar and wind isn’t enough to provide the grid stability we need.

USA runs on 60hz AC current. Regardless of the voltages, pretty much everything is cycling 60 times per second.

When you have a large turbine running, that generator is literally spinning at 60 revs per second. Then the electric motor attached on your end is also spinning at 60 revs/second. Basically every generator in your interconnection (the entire west half of US or east half, then Texas/ERCOT) are all running synchronously, which provides a massive amount of physical inertia stabilize frequency.

Too much load on the system will cause the turbines to slow down. Too little will cause them to speed up. We have giant interconnected software systems called Automatic Generation Control that keeps the frequency within .3 hertz (in reality it’s potentially dangerous to be .05hz out of 60). If frequency falls out of this range up or down, it has massive, potentially catastrophic consequences to the whole interconnection.

Unfortunately, wind and solar don’t provide this physical spinning grid stability, and we’re still a ways away from figuring out how to keep the grid safe and supply power consistently without the benefit of the giant physically spinning turbines.

[Bunion 2020]

^^^ I think the most telling and interesting point that you raise is that no one solution will be the one solution.

Thanks for that post.

[old goat]

Replace your stove, your heat and AC, your car. All good ideas.
Half of Americans in this "wealthy" country live paycheck to paycheck.
We have easy tech solutions to global warming--so just do it. We have an easy tech solution to Covid. How's that working?
Technology has always been touted as the answer to every problem with no thought to the consequences down the road. No one saw any problem with the internal combustion engine--which is what we're dealing with now. Do you know that there won't be serious consequences from the technologies you are touting?

What you technology-focused people don't understand is the social and political implications and obstacles. You ignore them as if they can just be swept away. I shouldn't have said "lie" earlier. Delusion is more accurate. And the reports you cite are part of the delusion.
Mark Zuckerberg is a smart tech guy. Look what he's one to this world by ignoring the social/political implications.

Don't get me wrong--old as I am I still am all for doing everything possible to stop global warming, but right now the focus needs to be on community organizing and the ballot box. The technology may be improving every day but the political situation is getting worse and the prospect for meaningful government action on climate change is as far off as it's ever been.

[The SnowShow]

Siracusa Sicily broke the Europe temp record...120° 🤯🤯

[MagnificentUnicorn]

I was talking about this the other day at the pub. We were reminiscing about the ‘90s, post Reagan/Bush, and how it seemed there was more hope for the future in regards to the planet and society. What happened? I think in large part it was the tech revolution.


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[chicken feathers]

^that, the politicalization of the topic, and a misinformation campaign among other things.

[liv2ski]

The internet gave every uniformed dumb ass a platform where other dumb asses could support their dumb ass view points. And here we are now. Science is scorned and likes are king.

[WMD]

Replace your stove, your heat and AC, your car. All good ideas.
Half of Americans in this "wealthy" country live paycheck to paycheck.
We have easy tech solutions to global warming--so just do it. We have an easy tech solution to Covid. How's that working?
Technology has always been touted as the answer to every problem with no thought to the consequences down the road. No one saw any problem with the internal combustion engine--which is what we're dealing with now. Do you know that there won't be serious consequences from the technologies you are touting?

What you technology-focused people don't understand is the social and political implications and obstacles. You ignore them as if they can just be swept away. I shouldn't have said "lie" earlier. Delusion is more accurate. And the reports you cite are part of the delusion.
Mark Zuckerberg is a smart tech guy. Look what he's one to this world by ignoring the social/political implications.

Don't get me wrong--old as I am I still am all for doing everything possible to stop global warming, but right now the focus needs to be on community organizing and the ballot box. The technology may be improving every day but the political situation is getting worse and the prospect for meaningful government action on climate change is as far off as it's ever been.

Please don't equate me with the tech-focused people. I show that we have the tech to cut emissions because so many, like Montana Senator Jon Tester, say what we need is more "research and innovation" to "solve" climate change. There has been incredible research and innovation already - enough to cut emissions enough to allow us to avoid the worst effects of climate change. What we need is the political will to use them and to stop deflecting by saying we need more. Showing that we have the tech is an attempt to dismantle the political argument that we can't do it.

Change is inevitable. Justice is not. Many want to split addressing climate change from addressing economic, racial, and enviro justice. I say why should people try to save a livable planet if it just makes their personal lives more unlivable? But different arguments work for different people.

The Green New Deal caught shit from old white environmentalists who say that by including social justice the climate goals are diluted and nothing will change. The argument from the GND people is that by understanding that the same causes of injustice, that people and the planet are treated as disposable in creating wealth for the few, are the causes of the climate crisis, allows us to address the root causes and improve people's lives while addressing climate change. The argument is that by making the movement inclusive, a bigger tent so to speak, there are more people pushing for change and it is more likely. The Democrat's $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation package is all about this. But centrists will try to split it up - Sinema will say it is too big and should only focus on climate. Manchin will argue it is too big and should cut many of the climate provisions. You may not know it, but many are organizing and pushing to accomplish all of it. It is not being ignored, and there is community organizing going on that is focused on the ballot box.

Meaningful government action is closer than it has been since 2009 -- but you are right, realistically it is also as far off as it has ever been as our elected officials are unlikely to really pass it. If you support climate action, contact your elected officials and urge them to pass this once in a generation legislation to protect the climate. In particular we need: The Clean Energy Standard (really clean energy payment program), the Civilian Climate Corps to put millions of people to work on the clean energy transition, an end to fossil fuel subsidies, and lots of money for clean energy and EV tax credits.

Edit to add: How do you suggest we address the political and social problems so that we can take on serious issues like climate change? Serious question, not meant as snark.

Also, how do I know there won't be serious consequences from the technologies I'm touting? I am absolutely certain there will be serious consequences. Mining for lithium and cobalt for batteries is terribly destructive, for example, and there will be many other problems that come up. But we know that if we continue burning fossil fuels for heat and power, we will make the planet unlivable. I'm for using what we have available to stop that. If I propose de-growth and simpler lives with less consumption (which ultimately is what we need) it is unlikely to make any headway right now, so I'm proposing what can help avoid imminent catastrophe.