Maybe that would work. If the framework on which the solar panels were mounted were sufficiently strong and rigid, it could probably be submerged without being damaged by wave action on the bottom. Or, one would float the panels on small lakes or lagoons where wind wouldn't generate huge waves. Floating panels should be look at as a specialty application.

Wind turbines, however, can be located off shore. But they have to be off a shore that gets enough wind. In Minnesota, at least, wind is providing a substantial share of electrical energy. States from MN to TX down the center of the continent generally have good wind. Texas is a leader in wind energy -- surprising, even though there is an exceptionally large amount of hot air in TX. — Bitter Crank

It's one of a few technical ideas ...floating around! Another idea is strong plastic spheres, the entire surface of which is one big solar panel, with the electrolysis or desalination machinery inside. These are free floating - and set to drift along relatively predictable ocean currents, soaking up light and creating hydrogen fuel or fresh water stored within. They're also a delivery system - just throw them in the ocean and they arrive some months later, juiced up with fuel or water.

Aesthetically, I like the spheres...they're so, "I am not a prisoner - I am a free man!"
(No? Old TV show! Classic!)

Onshore wind has the bird problem, and noise. I think they're beautiful, but some people think they're an eyesore. Add to that real estate costs - and clearly, there's some advantages to making energy at sea.

One major problem that is not amenable to a technical solution is population. Not if we want to remain civilized, anyway.

7 billion plus people have the capacity to swamp improvements in food production and fresh water supply by merely continuing to reproduce at moderate levels. What we need to do, in the midterm and long term is reduce the number of people on the planet. That means population attrition, not just in Europe or Japan, but everywhere. — Bitter Crank

I reject the premise. The idea that there's too many people is a pernicious implication from the misapplication of technology for ideological ends. The way technology is applied now there's too many people, but it needn't be the case. We can support massive population going forward - and protect environmental resources from over-exploitation at the same time if we apply technology as directed by scientific rationality.

I don't know if you were aware, but long established research shows that improving living conditions tends to reduce family size. It happened in Europe and Japan - as you indicate. Counter intuitively, poor people tend to have more children - presumably, due in part to a lack of contraception, but also - a rational decision where there's high infant mortality, and parents need looking after in their old age.

The UNDP, assuming continued improvements in living standards - and importantly, women's rights with regard to reproductive health, predicts a leveling off of population growth by 2100, at around 11 billion. I think that's entirely manageable from a scientific and technological perspective.

Not quite it, but thank you for reading enough to get that far. To quickly summarize my thesis is that scientific progress if pursued without limits will inevitably produce powers which we can't successfully manage. Evidence, we currently have thousands of hair trigger hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throats, hardly a case of successful management. — Jake

Consider the motives for creating nuclear weapons. They are not motives drawn from a scientific understanding of reality, but occur as a consequence of competing pre-scientific ideologies. The nation state as a sovereign political entity dates back to the Treaty of Westphalia (1650).

The nation state is not a scientific fact - it's just made up, yet it is from behind national borders - in competition with other nations, decision are made about how technology is applied - both military technology, and domestic energy policy. The sum of all national energy policies does not amount to a global energy policy. The global reality is externalized by the local ideology.

Similarly, if we had accepted a scientific understanding of reality, instead of maintaining an ideological misunderstanding of the world, there would be no motive to produce nuclear weapons.

(I should add here, this is to illustrate the mistake we made - suppressing science as truth from 1630 onward. Not to propose who we are now, might all join hands and dance around the maypole to the strains of Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair. I'm not that naive.)

What I'm saying is, what you think is "hardly a case of successful management" - is actually caused by something else; failure to recognize that science is true knowledge of reality - that could easily have been accepted by the Church in 1630, as the word of God the Creator. Instead it was suppressed as heresy - while at the same time, used to drive the Industrial Revolution. We raced ahead technologically while remaining ideologically primitive. That's the mismanagement you identify, but attribute - incorrectly, to the nature of science and technology itself.

The technology exists - the need to apply it is clear. So why is it not applied?
— karl stone

Well, we've not yet resolved key problems with your proposal, as I understand it so far. How do we derive commercial value from petroleum in the ground which forever remains in the ground? How do we put mass solar panels on an ocean subject to repeated storms. Maybe the technology has not been applied simply because it wouldn't work as you describe it? — Jake

Hey, it's not me - I've only been here a few decades. It was like that when I found it!

I answered these questions insofar as I'm able - in my previous post. I can really only point you to experts working on this issue - as I did above. I'm not an economist; I did undergraduate modules in micro and macro economics, and that's my answer to the stranded asset question. They're submersible!

No worries on replying, there is no obligation. But sorry, no, you don't get it. Not yet anyway. That's completely normal, especially for science worshipers, no matter how many PhDs they have. — Jake

I really do understand your argument. You believe any technology we invent to solve one problem, necessarily causes other problems, and perhaps, bigger problems. Is that not it?

I do not accept that argument because, I believe, you assume that the application of technology we have is a rational and natural course of events, for a world blind to that problem.

What I'm saying is that the application of technology is perverse - and that the problem you describe is inherent to this perversion of science and technology.

This perversion stems from the suppression of science as truth from the 1630's, and the subsequent use of science as a tool for the pursuit of ideological power and profit.

I get what you're saying, but accepting a scientific understanding of reality as the basis to apply technology, this problem would be subject to redress. Currently, it's not subject to redress because profit and power dictate the application of technology - like clean energy technology. The technology exists - the need to apply it is clear. So why is it not applied?

I read the rest of your post, and I take that on board - while dancing by the light of the holy bunsen burner!

I think I need more discussion of this, which seems central to your plan. I read your answer to SSU, but don't get it. Or maybe you don't get it either? Not sure. Try again if you want. — Jake

I don't know what you don't get about mortgaging an asset. It allows us to monetize fossil fuels without extracting them. SSU asked - 'How would they have value if they are not used?'

It's something known as the 'Stranded Asset problem' - and I can't give a definitive answer, but argue that, in acceptance of a scientific understanding of reality as a basis to apply the technology necessary to secure the future, the surety is inherent in the long term viability of civilization. Essentially, sovereign debt owned by the world. There are a great many variables - not least, who gets the money, I don't want to weigh in on. Big can o' worms. The concept has initiated a new programme at the Smith School of Oxford University which considers stranded assets across a range of sectors from an academic perspective. This link has an interesting precis of the issue:

https://www.carbontracker.org/terms/stranded-assets/

Where I live, we just narrowly missed getting hit by a Category 4 hurricane which just ripped through the Gulf of Mexico. Storms on the ocean are, you know, kinda common. Where exactly do we put the panels that won't experience storms? — Jake

One word: submersible!

I don't know what it means, but I think it answers your question.

LOL

Here's a new report on food and warming, that suggests we need to at least cut back on the meat.
If you don't have time for the academic report, here's the news version. — unenlightened

I wouldn't disagree with the report per se - but merely point out that it's written ceteris paribus, all else being equal, as if food were the only variable in the equation. It assumes continued fossil fuel use - something I aim to overcome within a generation. Instead, you argue - I should go without meat so oil companies can keep pumping the black gold that will kill us anyway. Perhaps a little later, if we all go veggie - but inevitably. Keeping fossil fuels in the ground is necessary to survival - so why not do that first, and then wonder what else we have to cut, rather than cutting living standards to protect the profits of the very corporations that have failed to apply the best technology available?

but in my view, a war for survival is not the way to go.
— karl stone

Hmmm, Odd. If survival is the goal, and there is a real threat to survival, then why wouldn't an all-out effect be the way to go?

If we lose our freedom we will never get it back
— karl stone — Bitter Crank

That is my only reason. I'm not hiding my light under a bushel or anything. I think freedom is an important economic and political principle, that an all out war for survival would necessarily negate. It's easy to be cynical, but the invisible hand of capitalism is a straight up, real world, miracle - without which, production requires people are told what to do and when to do it, in a system that centrally plans what is produced and how it is distributed. In such systems, people are interchangeable - replacement parts for the economic machine that can be, and are discarded when they're no longer useful. It gives me the creeps.

Throughout American history, "freedom" has always been somewhat illusory. That's probably true everywhere, and it is certainly true here. Deviation from the norm, or clearly expressed dissatisfaction with the norm, usually meant sustained hostility. Luckily for many dissenters of various kinds, there was always frontier territory where one could go, at least until the frontier came to an end in the latter 19th century. Strong challenges to the status quo, like unionism, socialism, Mormonism, abolition, women's suffrage, civil rights for blacks, and so on have been intensely resisted by the central authorities. — Bitter Crank

In Russia now, there's an intense homophobia unto this day - as an example of social movements that didn't happen under an oppressive system. You say:

"unionism, socialism, Mormonism, abolition, women's suffrage, civil rights for blacks, and so on have been intensely resisted"

Sure, but at least they happened. Look at Pussy Riot - jailed for dancing in Church. Russians can't scratch their arse without someone wondering what they're hiding up there.

If I might be so bold as to skip over the rest as more or less agreed, I want to get to this last line:

If the US is going to make it's critical reduction in CO2 and other green house gas emissions, it will be because the central government and centralized corporate powers decided to do it. — Bitter Crank

Again, agreed - which is why I believe it's necessary to find a way that allows them to - without demolishing their interests. Otherwise, it won't happen. I suggest they can accept a scientific understanding of reality in common as an authority to direct the application of technology, without undermining their wealth and power. Or, either, making that power absolute.

Thank you, and thanks again.

Helloo-oo....moderator. Is there anybody there? My post disappeared. Please assist.

Truth in the meaningful sense is not the same as truth in the logical sense. Something can be logically valid but meaningfully false. Establishing truth in the meaningful sense is not the purpose of logic.

Where's my response to Jake's post gone?

Caught by spam filter - restored by mods. Thanks mods!

Where's my response to Jake's post gone?

Caught by spam filter - restored by mods. Thanks mods!

Hi again Karl,

Well, obviously we're not opposed to clean energy and abundant fresh water. If we confine your post to a purely technical analysis of how to solve purely technical problems, your ideas may be worth considering. I don't really feel qualified to analyze your technical ideas, but they are interesting to examine. — Jake

"Jake!"

Hiya Jake!

That's not exactly what my post is about. I just needed to prove that sustainability was technologically possible - and it is. Rather, my post is about creating the political and economic rationale to apply the technology without over-turning the apple cart of global capitalism.

I would however decline your larger claim that these technical fixes will "save the world". — Jake

I know. I read your other thread. Interesting thesis. I'm sorry I haven't replied on your thread yet, but I'm hitting this hard - here and elsewhere right now. I get it. You think of technology like the Chinese finger trap - the harder you pull the more it grips. The answer is implicit in my thesis; that we accept a scientific understanding of reality as a basis for the application of technology because, what you don't appreciate is...

We tried to "save the world" by implementing the industrial revolution, and what we accomplished was to replace one set of problems with another set of problems that are arguably larger. We tried to "save the world" with the Manhattan project, and what we accomplished was to put human civilization less than an hour away from destruction in every moment of every day. — Jake

...that science as truth was suppressed, primarily by religion, and thus technology was applied for power and profit, not as a scientific understanding of reality would suggest. Consider, in reality as described by science, nation states are not real things, money is not a real thing. Those are man made ideological concepts - not eternal truths that describe reality as it really is. So, when we apply technology as directed by ideological motives, it's not technology as science would have it. There's no motive in a scientific understanding of reality to build nuclear weapons, for example. That's a consequence of science as a tool - used by ideologies, in denial of science as a rule.

You're trying to apply technical fixes to a problem which is not fundamentally technical. The real problem can be described with a single four letter word. More. — Jake

In those terms, what I'm arguing for is: More, and better!

What the evidence shows is that whatever technical powers we develop we will relentlessly push the envelope in a reckless manner in the endless quest for more, more, and more. And by doing so we continue a process of giving ourselves more power than we can successfully manage. — Jake

Again, science is not just a tool box - it's also an instruction manual. We used the tools but haven't read the instructions. It's a poor workman that blames his tools!

Your ideas might give us some breathing room, but if successful they just kick the can down the road a little bit and we'll soon find ourselves once again up against the wall. As example, endless free clean energy would result in us burning through other finite resources at an accelerated rate. The problem gets moved from one box to another box, but the real problem doesn't get addressed, or solved. — Jake

I completely disagree with that. By applying technology in the manner I describe, we multiply resources. With fresh water from renewable energy, we can develop wasteland for agriculture and habitation, thereby protecting forests, river and lakes from over-exploitation. Further, mining the sea bed for metals has recently become technologically feasible - such that we have 7/10ths of the earths surface as yet untouched. There's no immediate problem, though eventually, we will be looking to space for resources.

It appears that, like most of our culture, you've bought in to the science "religion" which has as many or more problems than regular religion. — Jake

Beneath my surface enthusiasm lies the heart of a cynic. I reject the suggestion my critical faculties are not engaged. I always rip a thing to its component pieces, and rebuild it to see how it works, or failing that - cross-check several sources before I commit to an idea. Your assertion depends on your Chinese finger trap view of science and technology - but now I've I've refuted that, maybe you'll reconsider.

Yeah my bad, I read the hydrogen part, but didn't think about it writing my post. It was more an example of the type of questions I would have. — ChatteringMonkey

You're my hero! I love that you straight up admitted it. Kudos!

I guess the main issue then might be the cost and efficiency of producing hydrogen. I allways hear that it's not particulary energy efficient, but i'm no expert so... — ChatteringMonkey

No, you're right. The system I describe has all the thermodynamic efficiency of a steam train. There's an energy loss with conversion from electricity to hydrogen fuel, and from hydrogen fuel back into electrical energy - that's not dissimilar to the heat loss from the fire box and boiler of a steam locomotive. However, it's a clean process, and the sun is blazing down upon millions of square miles of ocean anyway. Capturing that sunlight and turning it into fuel made from seawater - effectively negates that thermodynamic inefficiency, like we'd still be using steam trains if we had an infinite amount of coal that didn't harm the environment.

The mortgages and the hydrogen production are two seperate things it seems to me, as mortgages can be used to finance whatever renewable energy source. And the market would presumably favor the one that cost the least. — ChatteringMonkey

Well, arguably, given that applying this technology is premised upon accepting a scientific understanding of reality as authoritative - it follows that the market would put the science before the profit motive. I entirely accept there are experts who know better than me, and while I'd argue for my technological solution relative to others, there are other technologies - and the best scientific and technological advice to the market might not be my advice, in which case - listen to them.

Though I don't claim to be an expert, I did know that the construction costs were high, and I also know that the production cost itself of nuclear energy are very low. My point was only that the discussion seems more ideological than rational concerning nuclear energy, and that if needed, we should choose nuclear power rather then let CO2 levels rise... until we figure out how to run everything on renewables. But maybe we can allready. — ChatteringMonkey

The financial cost of building a nuclear power station is not the point. Climate change is the point. Nuclear power produces carbon free electricity, however, because construction requires as much as half the energy it will ever produce - it is only half as carbon neutral as it appears, and that's without taking into account the carbon costs of looking after the nuclear waste forever afterward.

Mass mobilization, causally speaking, requires a conjunction of opportunities which I feel is not within the reach of many of us. Add to that the fact that most people with the right number of audience aren't bothered by environmental issues. I'm talking about celebrities.
So, it seems to me, those of us who are concerned about the world are left with no choice but to do our stuff at a much lower social stratum e.g. we can raise the awareness of our family or friends or community. We then hope that our efforts spread out from their. — TheMadFool

A crowd sourced future. I have no principled objections - have at it, make some noise. But ultimately, it would be to put pressure on government and industry to take the matter seriously. What I'm trying to do is develop a philosophy of political economy that promotes sustainability - such that, sustainability is a function of those systems; not some extra burden - but the very means of economic progress. I don't see this as a zero sum game - in which, for one to win the other must lose. In my philosophy capitalism is indispensable to the solution - only capitalism directed in the course of a common acceptance of a scientific understanding of reality. That is to say, science first, and profit second.

According to the latest climate report from the UN, we have even less time to do something "to save the world" than we thought: 12 years... — Bitter Crank

I've read articles about the report, but I haven't read the thing itself. "Act now, idiots!" - was the title of one such article. But the last thing we need is an idiotic reaction. Instead, we need to be cleverer than we've ever been.

Of course we can cut CO2 emissions to practically zero in 12 years (or say 24). When Japan, Germany, Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States mobilized for WWII, heaven and earth were moved. Tremendous productive forces were employed to build the capacity to wage massive war. We can do it again for CO2 reduction. — Bitter Crank

I thought about that as an approach, a war for sustainability - turn over entire national economies to the effort, but I do not think it would work. In wartime, they shoot deserters - the most graphic example of a much larger negation of freedom. Similarly, I think - a war for sustainability would require the negation of freedom on a grand scale, and that's best avoided - not just because people would hate it, but because the entire political and economic system of the west is built on freedom.

How?

Convert private auto manufacture to mass transit production.
Start a crash wind turbine and solar cell production program; install widely.
Build large energy storage batteries.
Immediately reduce consumption of goods which are not merely unnecessary, but are useless.
Reorganize life for need rather than profit.
Obviously: end coal and petroleum production. — Bitter Crank

What you seem to be describing here is a centrally planned economy, and that has failed again and again to deliver for people and the planet. If you would argue capitalism is bad for the environment visit Russia or China. Without a market value, resources tend to be abused. The philosophical notion is titled "Tragedy of the Commons" by Harding - if I recall correctly.

It can be done, but it will almost certainly NOT be done because the short-term costs of saving the planet will cost the rich more money than they can stand losing. It will be necessary to liquidate the wealth of the richest 1%. (Mind, that is liquidate the wealth -- not liquidate the wealthy. Liquidating the wealthy gets too much bad PR.) — Bitter Crank

It can be done, I agree. And the OP here discusses one possible technological solution - that's also a political and economic solution that respects freedom to the greatest degree possible. If we lose our freedom we will never get it back, so I'm sorry - but in my view, a war for survival is not the way to go.

It's hard to critique the idea, because we would need a lot of numbers and technical details to be able to evaluate it. I mean, i like the idea in theory, but have no idea how feasable it is economically and politically. — ChatteringMonkey

I'd suggest regional government, like the EU - is preferable to world government. Regional government would not be so remote that it lacked perceived legitimacy, and because most trade is conducted between neighbours - and regional government applying science based regulation, would inflict equal costs on direct economic competitors, which is to say, no competitive cost. There would need to be some sort of global coordination; but largely, regional government would address regional interests better than a distant global polity.

How much would the proces cost, say compared to more conventional means of producing energy? What about night and winter times, is battery technology sufficient to suppliment times when solar energy is low? — ChatteringMonkey

I suggest we can mortgage fossil fuels while still in the ground, and use that money to apply sustainable energy technology. I also suggest floating solar panels at the equator, producing hydrogen fuel - did you read the OP? Solar panels would not provide electricity directly. Hydrogen fuel would be burnt in power stations, and electricity transmitted through existing grids. Thus, nighttime etc isn't an issue.

And how do you solve the political issues? Often times people just ignore those, because well unlike the laws of nature, people can just adapt their behaviour, and therefor should... but it never really happens that way. So what about countries that don't have access to the oceans, or that are situated in areas where there is not a lot of reliable solar energy? Do you think it reasonable to expect countries to just get allong, and give away energy to those that need it? — ChatteringMonkey

What political issues in particular are you talking about? Of course, energy and water would be produced and delivered to nations far from the sea. Compressed hydrogen fuel, distributed by hydrogen powered vehicles - just as coal and oil and gas are transported to places that don't have any.

I think we should go nuclear again, and geothermal. Nuclear can be a temporary solution, not indiffinately ofcourse, but right now CO2 is a far bigger problem then nuclear waste. And maybe in the future we will find better ways of exploiting earth warmth, which is reliable and as good as infinite. In practice, a mix of all possible low carbon energy sources will probably be needed though. — ChatteringMonkey

Oh super - you had a thought. I've been thinking about this for many, many years, but you think your off the cuff impressions are more likely to be true? Not! Did you know for example, that a nuclear power station requires about half the energy it will ever produce in the construction phase alone - and that's to say nothing of the carbon cost of managing nuclear waste forever afterward?

Those sound like great environmental ideas. You've shown something that hadn't occurred to me...how water, energy, and temperature can be dealt with and helped as part of the same solution method.

It all sounds very well thought-out, and perfectly plausible and possible. — Michael Ossipoff

Thank you very much; that's so kind of you to say so - but I'm not derailing my thread discussing the rest of your ideas. That said, I'd enjoy seeing you defend these wild notions. Is there a thread I might visit?

There's another angle to beef eating which perhaps you haven't fully considered? If we are willing to torture and kill entirely innocent defenseless animals for no better reason than that they taste good, do we have the "psychological infrastructure" necessary to save the world? — Jake

Well, that is an angle I hadn't considered - not least because, I eat defenslicious animals all the time, and am deeply concerned with the question of sustainability. In nature animals eat eachother alive. Farming is less cruel than nature. Where best practice is observed, animals have a good life, and death is relatively painless. The environmental issues around farming would be mitigated by clean energy used to produce fresh water - and would promote best practice.

The point I was trying to make is that saving the planet doesn't require we hunker around in our hemp kaftans, singing cum by yar - while waiting on a lentil casserole cooking by the heat of a beeswax candle. Technology can afford current living standards for a large population going forward, if it is applied on a sufficiently large scale - in accord with a scientific understanding of reality.

As example, why would a person who smokes be motivated to protect the environment when they are busy knowingly trashing their own most personal environment? — Jake

I smoke too, and see no connection. I'm mortal, but humankind is not...necessarily doomed to die.

What if saving the world is, at heart, not really a technical problem but a psychological, moral, emotional problem? — Jake

In my view, it's an epistemological question. It's about truth. Our problem is that in 1633, Galileo discovered the means to establish valid knowledge by scientific method, and was arrested by the Church, tried and found guilty of heresy. Science as truth was suppressed to maintain religious, political and economic ideology intact - even while science was applied to drive the industrial revolution.

Those religious, political and economic ideologies providing our identities and motives, do not describe the world as it really is, and so we act at odds to the world we live in. There's a relationship between the validity of the knowledge bases of action, and the consequences of such action. It's cause and effect. This is the problem I address, and it implies the answer I propose - that is, accepting a scientific understanding of reality in common as a basis for the application of technology.

Because individuals are mortal, I just do not believe people will sacrifice their pleasures for the sake of sustainability; but if it can be shown that such sacrifice is not necessary, achieving sustainability hoves into the realms of possibility.

Chattermonkey, - I read your posts, and Jake, I read your other thread, but I have to away until later today, when I will respond.

Another quick interruption.

Having already plugged my sagely wife — Jake

Hey, what you do on your own time...

Having already plugged my sagely wife above, I will now shamelessly plug my own "blowharding to save the world" thread, which can be found here. — Jake

Thanks man, I'll have a look, but right now I need to press on with these replies.

While Karl addresses energy and water, my thread addresses another very important component of the world saving project, knowledge.
Karl argues for more knowledge to help manage energy and water resources, a reasonable enough proposition, if one limits the subject to energy and water. There are many challenges before us, and it's very understandable to attempt to leverage the awesome power of knowledge to meet those challenges. — Jake

I'm intrigued, but having not looked - I wonder if you're aware of Enemies of the Open Society by Popper. If not, might I suggest you take a look - I have a feeling it's going to come up. A lot!

However, when we 1) add all the knowledge growing projects together, and 2) watch as they feed back upon each other, 3) accelerating the overall pace of knowledge development, 4) we arrive at a different picture, which is.....

The solution is the biggest problem.

I know this to be a hard fact, because when I explain this blowharding theory to my wife while we're making dinner she always says, "Ok honey, I'm sure you're right." See? Proof!!! — Jake

I'm not going to argue with that as a standard of proof, but I have a feeling that I've solved your problem, because - I don't arrive at that conclusion. In relation to Popper's dire warning that elevating science would require we 'make our representations conform' to science as truth until we're all locked stepped coffee coloured people wearing identical denim overalls - I have shown that there are legitimate limitations on the rightful authority of science, insofar as, beyond sustainability, no implication can be said to be compulsory. Does that solve your problem too?

I would suggest that solar panels floating on the surface of the ocean, could produce electricity - used to power desalination and electrolysis, producing fresh water and hydrogen fuel at sea, collected by ship, or pumped through pipelines to shore.
— karl stone

May I point out that covering the oceans will prevent phytoplankton from absorbing CO2. Put your solar panels on coastal deserts instead, and use the desalinated water to irrigate inland and grow some forest. — unenlightened

You might be right, but coastal land is valuable real estate - particularly if it's sunny. Out in the ocean a million square miles of nothing right on the equator - where flotaing solar panels could be soaking up 16 hours sunshine a day and making energy for us - while shading the oceans from accumulating heat. I wouldn't presume to dictate - but ...

As to the politics and economics, what is required is to wage a global war against CO2. Money becomes irrelevant in wartime, one does whatever it takes. — unenlightened

I came up with that idea also, a long time ago. A war for survival - turn over the entire economy to the effort, but found it wasn't necessary. I do not even agree with the scientists who wrote the report published yesterday, when they said:

"Staying below 1.5C will require "rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society".

I think that approach is wrong, and what we should be doing is defending living standards - by applying the energy technology to afford them, as described in my OP. Another article asks - "Are you prepared to give up beef to save the world?" No. I'm willing apply renewable energy technology so that I can eat beef guilt free. And lots of it!

Sorry. Didn't realize I was being a dick. Does that make it better or worse? I don't know. — TheMadFool

Much, much worse! I'd really rather it were a matter of choice - and then I could blame you!

Anyway, the future is so difficult to predict with any degree of certainty. As someone said there are too many variables to factor in. — TheMadFool

That's why it took me twenty years thinking about it, to come up with what now seems pretty bloody simple.

I suggest we do what is most practical. Act locally, think globally. — TheMadFool

What does that mean in practical terms? Is it not just a trendy soundbite that has no meaningful implications?

"Common sense has been proven wrong many-a-times."

Unlike philosophy?

"Your point?"

I'm talking about sustainability in the immediate future, and pointing out that entropy implies - the sun will explode and burn the earth to a crisp in five billion years or so, entirely misses the serious purpose of my remarks. I guess my point is - stop being a dick!

Do you think philosophy has an unhelpful tendency toward superlativism - that passes through common sense, but then just keeps on going?

Have we met? lol

This universe tends toward heat death - a million billion years from now - that's true, but we ain't staying.

Good question. The answer is a little ill-defined at present, because of the multiplicity of possible variables. But there wouldn't be an immediate transition from fossil fuels to renewables - it would take 30 years at least to apply the technology on a sufficient scale. Secondly, oil would continue to be extracted for other things, like plastics - humankind will need long term if we aim to survive. Thirdly, does it matter how we get from here to there? Even if it were to a greater or lesser degree a conceit - to mortgage fossil fuels in order to overcome fossil fuel use, there is always in theory the potential for its use - like with land banks, who cannot be induced to build, because the value of land rises faster than the rent that can be commanded in the market.

There are always forces acting on the ball bearing such that - the initial condition is false. Forces like gravity, electromagnetism, heat, noise etc, are acting on the ball bearing all the time - such that it was never really "balanced." That's human perception. In physics, there is no stationary other than at absolute zero.