Global warming

[Eric the Green]

(07-26-2017, 02:53 PM)X_4AD_84 Wrote: As I've noted to you previously, the US hit peak CO2 output some time ago. Meme spouting gasbags aside, we are not going to return to "King Coal" especially not after converting many plants to natural gas or shutting them down. Some existing coal fired plants may convert to lower CO2 output per joule of net electricity generated. Overall, we shall continue our downward profile of CO2.

What will really matter will be China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc.

And they will do what they want to do.

But even factoring that in, population dynamics will present a global peak of CO2 output, probably right in line with or slightly leading peak population. It could come as soon as 10 years from now. Then, the long global downward trajectory in CO2 output. Meanwhile, greening and the ocean cycle will fix tremendous volumes of carbon. That's what's amazing about Gaia.

Yes. But it should be clear by now from my posts above that China is moving the way the USA did, toward peak CO2 output, and much faster and more permanently than the USA moved too. And the other BRIC countries are moving too, while Traitor Trump puts the USA on the sidelines and shifts our movement into R = Reverse.

CO2 will eventually be absorbed. But warming will continue because of our additions to what is already up there (and in the oceans), and due to stay up there for decades-- even up to a century. Although peak CO2 output won't end global warming, it could come 10 years from now; but if Trump gets his way, it won't, because the USA will rev up CO2 again. I wouldn't count on King Coal being entirely dethroned if Drump gets his way, and natural gas still spews plenty of CO2. And the natural gas boom is also an oil boom in places like N Dakota, and then there's those polluting pipelines. Luckily, there's resistance and defiance of Trump from blue-states and cities, and the rest of the world.

The map of what the world will look like, if we continue on our present course, still applies, because we need to change our present course (which includes even what we've already changed). We haven't shifted enough to clean energy yet to avoid our fate. If China continues to lead the way, and other nations follow it-- the world's new leader-- then we have a chance to avoid the fate of a 216-foot sea level rise. If the world follows Drump, however, then we don't. The USA has a stark and clear choice to make. It boils down to D and R, as congressional voting records and presidential behaviors alike make MORE THAN crystal clear!

And as for militant USA nationalism, there's nothing greater the USA could do than to recover its leadership in the climate field, instead of letting anti-democratic, state-capitalist China be the trend setter and moral leader of the world.

There may be some extreme alarmists among the climate science activism crowd. I'd say the world is much better served by them, than by the skeptics. Even if the sea doesn't rise 216 feet and the ice caps don't all melt, we have no right to kill off other species, nor to endanger millions of people. We should have converted long ago. We have gone into R = Reverse far too often and far too long. We need to change yesterday.