You are picking a short sentence that does not at all represent the shocking conclusion these researchers reached. You missed the entire point of the article. I am not saying it supports my conclusion. This is not what they were trying to prove. At all.

Let's assume absolutely everything I said is complete and utter nonsense. What is this article good for? Why am I bringing it up?

Because, for decades, we have been told that renewable energy is the secret to gaining control of atmospheric CO2 concentration and climate change. We are STILL being told this is the case. We have thrown silly amounts of money at it based on this "truth" parroted by anyone and everyone who bought the hook, line and sinker.

And yet, at least since 2014, we have known that this is completely false. Quoting:

"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.

So our best-case scenario, which was based on our most optimistic forecasts for renewable energy, would still result in severe climate change, with all its dire consequences: shifting climatic zones, freshwater shortages, eroding coasts, and
ocean acidification, among others. Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require both radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon.

Those calculations cast our work at Google’s RE<C program in a sobering new light. Suppose for a moment that it
had achieved the most extraordinary success possible, and that we had found cheap renewable energy technologies that
could gradually replace all the world’s coal plants—a situation roughly equivalent to the energy innovation study’s best-case scenario. Even if that dream had come to pass, it still wouldn’t have solved climate change. This realization was frankly shocking"

That's the conclusion. That's where they stopped. The business that is magic pixie dust is the next step, carbon sequestration. Their research, and this paper, did not go into that part of it.

In other words, to paraphrase, they said "We can't fix it unless we can go out and grab the carbon out of the atmosphere".

When I read that, years ago, I went into a mode any good engineer knows well: Problem solving. The revelation was that the "save the planet with renewable energy" plan was nothing but lies. That was shocking to me. I installed a 13 kW solar array on my property thinking that I was going to be part of a solution. It turned out to be a shocking lie.

And so, I started to dig. And dig I did, for over a year. I can't possibly lay out everything in detail here, I've been thinking of organizing it and putting it up on a website. And this isn't pull-out-of-my-ass conclusions. Math, physics, chemistry, science, reliable data from the most reliable universities, government organizations and researchers.

The problem is that everyone is on the bandwagon.

Anyone who took basic college physics can understand that what we are being sold is complete and utter nonsense. Thinking we can control the planet is hubris at best, a delusion. We can muck it up, sure, but going into the atmosphere to capture CO2 at a planetary scale to do in 50 years when powerful natural processes require a thousand times more is just silly.

And yes, I am saying, no, it can't be done. I have seen nothing that suggests this is possible. Not even remotely. And everyone who argues with me will spend time on personal attacks and very conveniently ignores the science. I have yet to run into someone who can present a single viable technique or technology, along with the science and math to support it, that can "save the planet". When you look at these "solution" as an engineer what you discover, 100% of the time, is that the scale and breath of resources and energy they would require could very well dwarf all the energy we produce on the planet. You generally discover these "solutions" will require burning so much fuel that we would likely double our CO2 output trying to fix the problem. In other words, the very definition of an exercise in futility. Chemical solutions require destroying entire ecosystems to mine pixie dust that has to be processed, transported and then distributed at a planetary scale. Please. This is ridiculous.

And then there's the doomsday scenarios. The planet isn't going anywhere. The planet knows how to fix balance things, it has been doing that for billions of years. We need to stop talking about saving it and start talking about adapting to it.

Not to go too far, here in California we are dealing with an absolutely massive forest fire. If I read correctly, it is the largest fire ever recorded in this state (or something like that). The carbon output of this fire alone is likely to exceed all emissions of all ground transportation in the US for the entire year.

And we think we can control the planet? C'mon.

One of the solutions that has been proposed is massive reforestation. Plant billions, trillions of trees. Let's ignore the energy and resource analysis for a moment (this would require burning massive amounts of fuel as well as equally massive amounts of water, nutrients, etc.). Yes, trees take CO2 and make tree parts out of it. Sounds like a great idea. Not a new idea at all, this is precisely what one of the ways the planet reacts to increased CO2. We would be doing more of it.

What's the problem?

Imagine we had a billion new trees in California (no sure that's possible). What you would have would be a billion more fuel sticks. And, probabilistically speaking, a far greater possibility of an hellish fire we cannot even imagine. We could wake up, twenty years from now, proud of having a billion new trees, only to live the reality of having created a horrific ecological disaster for having the hubris to think we can actually control the environment to our liking.

If I were to summarize my intent in wanting to have this conversation it is that we need to start talking about the reality of this problem rather than fantastic pixie-dust solutions. Only when we do that will we create an environment where it could just be possible to gain the understanding necessary to benefit both the planet and humanity. We are just passengers on this spacecraft. We just shit all over it. Sadly cleaning it isn't going to be that simple. And the nonsense we are talking about --like the idea that renewable energy will stop global warming, hence referencing the paper-- is between lies and pointless. We need to release our scientists from political pressure and start talking about the real problem we are facing.

If you read this paper when it came out and did not immediately understand we have been lied to mercilessly, well, I can only conclude you didn't in fact read it or you chose to read into it a conclusion that does not exist.