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Josh Mitteldorf's avatar

Thank you for a nuanced assessment of an issue which has been painted in black and white by people on both sides.

There are some things we should be able to agree on. Approaches to climate mitigation need not cost trillions of dollars, and need not involve huge risks of side effects.

Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI.org) has been documenting available cost savings in energy use for 40 years. We can be doing more with less energy, and saving money in the process.

* There is no need for heating systems in homes and apartment buildings. If the same money that is usually used for furnaces and ductwork is used instead for intelligent controls, superinsulation, and heat-exchanged ventilation, buildings can be designed to use no heating fuel, yet cost no more. RMI headquarters in Snowmass, CO is a showcase of this technology, and it is >20 years old.

* Bullet trains use a lot less fuel than airplanes, and they are faster and more convenient for travel legs under 1500 miles.

* Public transit uses a lot less fuel than private automobiles. It is slower and less convenient only because we haven't scaled up public transit so that it covers major cities with trains that run every few minutes. Traffic jams and smog can be avoided in the process.

* Amory Lovins talks about streamlining industrial processes to use less petroleum and less electricity. This is not being done only because energy is cheap and engineers are conservative. https://dailyinspirationblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/15280/

* Small-scale organic farming is much more energy efficient than industrial farming, and produces more per acre. Organic farming also preserves topsoil and avoids environmental damage in the process of manufacturing fertilizers and pesticides. Industrial agriculture is only economical because of vast externalized costs.

None of these common-sense, cost-saving policies are part of the agendas of people pushing climate mitigation projects. Instead they want to build nuclear power plants and pump CO2 into the ground, deploying substituting electric cars that move the environmental impact out of the cities into power stations and lithium mines.

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Sandy K's avatar

Thank you, Dr Setty! I teach ecology at a university and we have a "climate change" lesson coming up this semester....this article is better than my discussion points. One of my instructors years ago was part of the IPCC...he told us decades ago that this agenda was an elaborate crap shoot. You nailed it.

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