We are still screwed: the coming climate disaster

[MrGrumpy]

@Timex

After 2050. That’s a ways out. Just because our carbon capture potential technology doesn’t exist at the level required to do the work yet doesn’t mean that it won’t develop to that level in the next 32 years. 32 years is a long freaking time in terms of technology development.

We’ve had solar technology for that long, and it’s only just now becoming competitive with fossil fuels - but that required government incentives.

@Timex

I suspect that such a thing would have extremely limited impact on the overall footprint of humanity. Certainly not enough to get the job done.

Ultimately, you’re talking about taxing energy itself, which amounts to a tax on… doing anything in the economy. It could help shift us to less carbon based energy, but it won’t get the job done on its own, and for the foreseeable future, the only real alternative is nuclear power, which tends to get massive pushback from the same people who are pushing to deal with climate change.

Law of thermodynamics, i.e. there is no free lunch. We’re going to pay for climate change one way or the other (and with a carbon tax, income taxes and/or rebates can be provided for incomes under a certain threshold.) I’m not saying don’t use carbon sequestration or nuclear (although for the latter costs for new plants would need to come way down; the only recent ones under construction in the US were cancelled., and not because of environmentalists.) At the same time, I don’t think we can summarily conclude human behavior can’t change.

Here’s a recent paper on the efficacy of a carbon tax (a few years back, Citibank economists also published a long, detailed paper demonstrating that mitigating climate change is more cost effective than not.)

‘Carbon pricing works,’ Canadian economists say as national debate heats up

Edit: Can’t post without some doom and gloom.
https://scripps.ucsd.edu/programs/keelingcurve/2018/05/02/carbon-dioxide-in-the-atmosphere-hits-record-high-monthly-average/