Thats a fallacious argument. Low and no carbon sources of electricity have been available since the 1920s. We could have reduced poverty without relying on the vast (and quite wasteful) quantities of fossil fuels that we did. This future is the result of a series of choices made to the financial benefit of a select few.
Does it help you somehow to believe in this good vs. evil narrative?
It isnt true. Feeding 7bn people today requires the energy density (etc.) of fossil fuels; let alone what the 20th C. required to bring people out of poverty.
The idea that you're going to bring 1bn people in the developing world out of poverty, in the manner of the late 20th C., by building "low carbon" sources of energy in the 60s,etc. in those very poor regions is ridiculous.
What about my statement implied a good vs evil narrative? It is factually true, and given the vastly superior energy density of nuclear fuels, I think it’s odd to tout fossil fuels as distinctly important for power generation.
7bn are fed because of tractors, not baseload electrical generation input into electrical grids which dont exist in many countries, and many many more in the 20th C.
…because we chose to pursue fossil fuels instead of focusing on low carbon sources and electrical distribution. Tractors can run on electricity, so can Haber-Bosch. Wasn’t required to choose the high carbon future, but it was profitable for some people.
That is simply false, and displays a stunning ignorance of history and engineering. The low carbon source of electricity available in the 1920s was mainly just hydroelectric. It was only possible to build such power plants in a few limited locations, and the electricity generated couldn't be transmitted very far. Electricity also couldn't practically be used for most transportation, except a limited set of rail lines or short range vehicles.
The only way to rapidly industrialize and lift people out of dire poverty was to burn fossil fuels at an unsustainable rate. Now that we have built up a sufficient economic surplus we can gradually transition to a more sustainable future.
Even if the electric car cannot replace the ICE one, I cannot think of a good reason to burn fossil fuel for base load generation. We have hydro, we have nuclear, we have solar, and we have wind - at least two of those are dandy at base load generation, the other two act as good peaking sources.
How much energy do islands spend compared to the rest of the world? Of course there will be some places where fossil fuels will be the only alternative. But using that as an excuse for inaction in the parts where we do have alternatives does not make sense.
Only with huge amounts of storage. So far there are no large, industrialized areas which have managed to build enough storage to maintain base load through multiple days of little sunshine or wind. It's a nice idea in theory but costs will have to come way down before we can afford to deploy storage at scale (especially in areas where the geography makes pumped hydroelectric impractical).
Currently we're talking about small islands. But why would an industrialized area built enough storage now if we don't have enough supply? Germany for example gets about 40-50% of its electricity from renewables (averaged over a year), with hardly any storage. Yet only a few percent of the renewable supply are wasted. We're very far away from getting 50% of our primary energy from renewables, so we could plausibly wait with building storage until that goal is achieved. If we had a proper carbon price, we could let the market figure out when it is most economical to start building storage for multiple days...
No, stopping climate change doesn't lower standards of living. Why is it a lower standard of living if I get my electricity from renewable or nuclear power? Why is a lower standard of living if my car is electric? Why is it a lower standard of living if my home is heated with a heat pump?
Stopping climate change is strictly necessary if we want to keep our current standard of living.
Drive electric? Stopping climate change would require massive infrastructure changes at this point. How about no car at all? Creating and improving that infrastructure takes decades.
Same goes for other things. Imports vs eating seasonal and buying local. Frequent (transatlantic) flights vs staying at home. More frugality with what we have, less frequent changes in tech, clothing, household products, etc.
People try to hold onto the status quo for dear life, not realizing that's the very thing keeping us from solving the issue. Or any future issue we can't just get a few scientists to solve for the lazy masses.
> Drive electric? Stopping climate change would require massive infrastructure changes at this point. How about no car at all? Creating and improving that infrastructure takes decades.
You act like gas stations came before cars - they didn't.
As more electric cars enter the market demand for charging increases and the market responds. It won't take decades.
The world transformed itself so quickly the last 100 years it seems dubious to think with all of our advances we can't advance quickly now.
Electricity, heat, and transport is about 70% of our emissions. Another 20% or so is agriculture. We can get rid of the 70% without any change to our lifestyles at all.
We don't have to eliminate electricity, heating and transport. All these things can be powered by renewables. Quite the contrary, as the long term costs of renewables are lower, we can raise our living standards, if we push them forward quickly.
How about replacing fossil fuels with carbon free fuels. You know, like everyone who is talking seriously about climate change is proposing, instead of the strawman of going back to the stone age?
You're talking about the idea of stopping climate change. With nuclear power and Teslas.
The reality of stopping the climate change and environmental concerns in general is expensive fuels, gas from Russia (+ Ukrainians getting shelled), and closing of nuclear power plants.
Yes, fossil fuels have powered the industrial revolution. But for some time already we were at a point, where it is more beneficial to switch to renewable power. Going forward, renewables are the way of preventing poverty, not trying to stick to fossil fuels. It is the people with low income, which get hit worst by climate change.
Fossil fuel has also enabled a population explosion which fuels the coming crisis. Much harder to get inside planetary boundaries when so many people need to share the finite resources.
I.e. populations of any organism grow to consume the available resources unfortunately.
That's true if we continue to insist on squeezing as many billions of people onto the planet as possible. If we aimed at having a sustainable global population we could stop man-made climate change (as opposed to the naturally changing climate that plunges us into ice-ages periodically) without condemning billions to poverty.
Interesting to see the downvotes. Compare wikipedia:
> An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and greenhouse periods, during which there are no glaciers on the planet. Earth is currently in the Quaternary glaciation.
> geologists describe the entire time period [from 2.58 million years ago] up to the present as an "ice age"
> Since planet Earth still has ice sheets, geologists consider the Quaternary glaciation to be ongoing, with the Earth now experiencing an interglacial period.
You’re unfairly omitting how fossil fuels have lifted billions out of poverty. Stopping climate change also lowers standards of living.