Source? Why are you so convinced she is a prop? Is it really impossible that someone can be a well-informed, well-spoken person as a teen?

I also disagree that her "disability" and general cuteness affords her some kind of immunity from criticism. That doesn't really make sense considering how controversial she has become and the level of ire she's drawn from some segments of the political spectrum.

And, in any case, tuning someone out simply because they happen to be young isn't all that fair either. They are the generation that has the most to lose from inaction, but their voice shouldn't matter? I think you underestimate young people here.

 

I don't underestimate them at all... I used to BE young, I remember it quite well.

It's not that their voice doesn't matter, it's that they don't understand the big picture which is that a significant (or catastrophic, as proposed by some folks) disruption in the global economy will have far reaching consequences, to the tune of poverty, famine, and wars costing likely hundreds of millions of lives. That's obvious fact, and you can easily extrapolate from global conflicts in recent history.

I'm opposed to going down the road to KNOWN catastrophe in order to *hopefully* avoid a hypothetical ill-defined possible catastrophe.

If anyone has a plan to TRANSITION the global economy to low-carbon, I'm all ears.

But frankly as an experienced engineer and power guy, I don't see any non-disruptive way to do that on the desired timeline without large-scale use of nuclear power (which could provide zero carbon emissions, or even net carbon removal with clean energy to power carbon capture if needed). But the "greenies" have to much superstitious vodoo fear of that. I'll get behind it when they get serious about it.

 

Also...

It's not about saving "the planet", I don't give a rats arse about "the planet", I only care about "the people" and what's best for them. The planet doesn't care either way, and it has experienced numerous environmental catastrophes over the eons.

Same with animals, extinction is a natural part of evolution.

Obviously a nice environment to live in is generally good for people, and we need some animals to eat and perform other ecological functions. But neither the planet or the animals are a goal in and of themselves, all has to be viewed in the context of people... cuz if you think people in general are going to voluntarily suffer great deprivations to provide some nebulous benefits to nebulous entities, you're smoking crack.

 

Emotions are high on both sides of this argument. Has carbon gone from 280-400ppm? absolutely. Does that mean we’re doomed? I don’t think so. It’s interesting how science is effected by funding. We really don’t know the implications of +co2. We have an enormous durable atmosphere. We can act without panic. Activist pitted against deniers make interesting fodder for debate but won’t move the needle.
Economics will solve this problem long before we wreck the climate beyond repair.
China, India, etc. are going to pollute as long as it’s in their economic interest to do so. It makes no difference what we do.
Economic viable solutions will be developed either by MIT smart people or some uneducated redneck. The holy grail is storing hydrogen at room temperature at near atmospheric pressure <500psi. Sounds crazy but it’s possible, still experimental but it’s being done.
Roof top solar is cheap and will be viable once storage solutions other than rare earth batteries are developed. The rich show off guy will be the first to buy it, the technology will mature making it viable for the masses. Coal plants will shut down because of economics. (We’ll continue flying on kerosene by the way).
When the average person can put up solar panels, generate and store hydrogen in his garage we’ll forget all this was ever an issue. It may be some different variation of what I described who knows? Someone smarter than me will figure it out. Probably some greedy capitalist. Everything good seems to come from greedy capitalist in a free society.
God love them.
(If we could only figure out what happened to Epstein)

 

She's not "well-spoken" she's well rehearsed. She can't answer simple questions when asked in an open forum, she only knows how to recite talking points which leads people to believe that she is a prop.

 

Excellent post overall, and I think this is worthy of emphasis.

 

Call me when China and India are forced to reduce their emissions. Then I'll take this issue seriously.

 

My point exactly.
Alarmist roll out whacky predictions designed to guilt and scare us into action while China continues expanding use of coal.
We will move beyond coal, it will happen when it’s cheap to store energy renewable sources will be useful. Until renewable are on demand (storage) and cheap, coal will be used. Economics always prevail.
We still have 12 years. They’ll give us another extension if that runs out.

 

Yes.

H2 has good potential for transport modes which are too large for batteries (trucks, ships, long-range trains). A non-cryogenic, low pressure storage system would be a huge enabler, and as you said they have some tech for that.

H2 is also good in that it may not need as much infrastructure as fossil fuels... a small device could produce gaseous, low-pressure H2 at home using grid power and a little water. So you could refuel your H2 car at home, office, job site, etc. Batteries might still be more ecomical for smaller pax cars used on short trips.

Unfortunately there's a little problem with H2 use for airliners. Remember the tropopause? Where the temp lapse rate changes? It does that because that's where the humidity changes.... there's almost no water in the stratosphere. Burning H2 fuel produces only one by-product: H2O. Turns out that dumping water vapor into the stratosphere where it doesn't belong would likely have a bad greenhouse effect of it's own. May just need biofuel (or artificial fuel created from atmospheric carbon) for jets.

It's already heavy deployed in my 'hood. It won't solve the problem but with durable collectors, it should be a economical contributor.

Politics too. Personally I think we can do without coal, in addition to the cost and the carbon, it does spew some pretty nasty pollution which is NOT subject to debate.

Logically and mathematically we could, if we mostly eliminated most other large-scale carbon sources. But politically and emotionally, aviation will HAVE to move to lower or near-zero carbon fuel.... the greta/OAC crowd has cast aviation as the high-profile villain/bogeyman of this political production. We're very visible, loud, and represent the kind of progress they badly want to crush. The fact that we're a tiny fraction of the total problem is irrelevant to the agenda.

 

Coal is undeniably dirty to mine, process, and burn. It will be the first to go and rightly so. Rare earth batteries aren’t much better. If EV people only knew the environmental catastrophe they’re contributing to. A corolla is better for the environment than a Prius.
Coal will phase out first followed by other petros as the next technology matures. These things happen over time.

As for aircraft , the reason for the discussion, I don’t think hydrogen will ever be stored dense enough to be viable. These storage devices will be large. Aircraft will be among the last to ween off petroleum. As for the political pressure, I’ll believe it when the activists quit flying around wagging fingers. That girl did float around in a port-a-john though. I was impressed.