This is a very difficult problem to tackle, this idea of a transition to a cleaner and more sustainable way for humanity to live. Like it or not, we had in the order of one to many centuries of optimizing the use of oil to either directly provide or support just-about everything we do and need. It is going to be very difficult to unplug from that.

What we need more than anything else are honest conversations about all of this. Sadly the mixing of political forces (which only exist for the benefit of the political class) and industrial/business/financial forces (which, of course, exist in support of their goals) makes this nearly impossible to address, at least on the time scale of one or a couple of human generations. I think this is a multi-generation problem, meaning, somewhere in the one to two century range.

BTW, I designed and built a 13 kW ground-mounted solar array three years ago. By this I mean, I purchased all the components and physically built the structure and wired it all. I have about three years of minute-by-minute data on solar production. No batteries yet, they just don't make sense in terms of ROI, at all. Eventually, maybe.

I'll just say the solar experience has been "interesting". Homes around mine don't have nearly this size system and they likely spent two to three times the money to install them. I have spoken to a few neighbors who are actually sorry they put money into solar because the size of their systems were calculated based on rates at that time. As rates have gone up they find themselves paying to lease their solar system as well as paying a bundle for electricity.

Going back to honesty in discussing some of the issues of our time. Climate change and the issues regarding atmospheric CO2 concentration often lead to the idea that we have to act immediately to "save the planet" or we are all going to die in twenty years (or whatever nonsense politicians are pushing). This is objectively false and it is amazing to me that the scientific community does not riot against such dishonesty.

Furthermore, understanding the idea that we just can't do anything about atmospheric CO2 accumulation can be verified while armed with very basic high school math and critical thinking.

The first thing you do is look at the graphs we have from reliable and accurate atmospheric CO2 concentration data from the past 800,000 years. Here's that graph:

https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/images/air_bubbles_historical...

And the data:

https://cdiac.ess-dive.lbl.gov/trends/co2/ice_core_co2.html

You then fit straight lines to the graph in order to determine the rate of change of both atmospheric CO2 accumulation and decline. Here are my lines for the decline portion of the data:

https://i.imgur.com/37AKa8L.png

Looking at it in rough strokes, it looks like it took, on average, somewhere around 25,000 years for a 100 ppm increase and, say, 50,000 years for a corresponding 100 ppm decrease. In some cases it took twice that time, I am just trying to generalize.

The planet did this entirely on its own...because we were not around or we were insignificant during this time period.

This is extremely valuable data and an equally valuable conclusion because it establishes an important baseline:

If humanity LEFT THE PLANET tomorrow, it would take about 50,000 years for a reduction of about 100 ppm in atmospheric CO2.

I'll repeat that: If we left the planet and all of our technology was shut down, you are looking at a minimum of 50,000 years for a meaningful "save the planet" change in CO2 concentration.

At this point the question becomes glaringly obvious:

How does anything LESS than leaving the planet even make a dent on CO2 at a human time scale?

This is important. 50K-years for 100 ppm is not a human time scale. We could very well be extinct by that time due to a virus or collective stupidity. I am going to define "human time scale" to mean a century or less. In other words, something we can wrap our brains around. That also means making plans and taking action today for something that will not deliver results for, say, 50 to 100 years. Imagine the world making decisions in the 1920's for us to benefit from today. That's pretty much ridiculous on the face of it.

And yet, that isn't the problem, is it?

Because of the baseline revealed by this data we know, without any doubt, that anything less than leaving the planet cannot possibly delivery a faster rate of change, a faster decline than 100 ppm in 50,000 years.

Solar panels all over the planet? How is that MORE than leaving the planet?

A billion electric vehicles? Same question.

No more fossil fuels? Nope.

In fact, Google Research boldly set out to show the world that a full migration to renewable energy sources could address the issue. To their credit, when they discovered just how wrong they were, they published the data. In this charged environment these researchers deserve a ton of respect. They went in --and say so themselves-- with a position of believing that renewables could save the planet. What they discovered instead was precisely what I understood through the simple exercise on this graph, that this is an impossibility. Their methodology was different from mine, the result was the same.

Here's that paper, it is well worth reading:

https://storage.googleapis.com/pub-tools-public-publication-...

From the paper:

"we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope"

"Trying to combat climate change exclusively with today’s renewable energy technologies simply won’t work"

"if all power plants and industrial facilities switch over to zero-carbon energy sources right now, we’ll still be left with a ruinous amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. It would take centuries for atmospheric levels to return to normal"

"<snip> to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use."

"Suppose for a moment that <snip> we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that
could gradually replace all the world’s coal plants <snip> Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldn’t have solved climate change. This realization was frankly shocking"

Well worth reading. Like I said, these guys deserve a ton of respect for effectively saying "we were wrong, and here's why".

Why aren't we talking about this AT ALL. This is reality. Not what we are being told by politicians and zealots. Climate change has become a religion or a cult and science has been left far behind. Here are two ways to come to the same general conclusion. One uses a super-simple look at 800,000 years of atmospheric CO2 data. The other took a detailed look at mathematical climate and other models. The conclusion was the same: We can cover the planet with renewable energy sources and do NOTHING to atmospheric CO2, or worse.

I've been trying to elevate this to some level of consciousness here on HN any time the topic comes-up. It is often met with a pile of downvotes and attacks. Because, of course, they "know", even though none of the detractors bothered to devote even 1% of the time I have trying to understand actual reality in a sea of nonsense.

Frankly, I am not sure what else to do. In this charged political climate it is actually dangerous to stick your neck out too far. I think you understand now that this is not --I am not-- denying climate change, I am simply saying "the emperor has no clothes" to all the nonsense we seem to be told to focus on.

I think we need to learn to live with whatever is coming. We can't do a thing about it. New industries will sprout to help us manage it. The planet will deal (and is dealing) with CO2 as it has for millions of years.

And that's the other set of questions that the graphs and some research can answer:

How did CO2 increase when humanity was not around to muck it up?

Continental scale forest fires burning for 25,000 years as well as other sources of CO2.

How did the planet bring it down?

Rain, storms, cyclones, hurricanes, and the regrowth of vegetation over 50,000+ years.

So, we have to learn to deal with changing weather patterns and perhaps start helping the planet a tiny bit by planting trees. Judiciously though, because more trees could also mean more fuel to burn. In other words, we could, if not careful, actually increase CO2 if we plant a billion trees and create the conditions for the mother of all forest fires.

Like I keep saying, not a single variable problem. Is it?