In article ,
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On Sunday, June 3, 2018 at 8:14:16 AM UTC-6, Paul Schlyter wrote:

The wrong choices in the AGW problem would be:

1. We don't cut down future CO2 emissions and this eventually leads to
temperatures so high that the human civilisation might collapse.

But that won't happen. What will happen is that it will lead to temperatures so
high that millions of people will die needlessly - in Third World countries.
*Then* we will know it's real, and cut down CO2 emissions in time to prevent any
real disasters where _we_ live.

It might not happen, but it cannot be excluded either. Millions of people
needlessly dying will certainly cause unrest and massive amounts of
migration on a scale we haven't seen so far. Certainly there will be wars
over this too. And it's those side effects which could be a danger to our
civilisation. Some nukes detonated, in India or Pakistan, or in the
Middle East, could be enough.

2. We do cut down future CO2 emissions but it turns out that increased
CO2 wasn't as catastrophic as previously believed. Then we've "lost some
money" by switching to energy sources not requiring fossil fuel. Would
that be such a big deal? Eventually we'll run out of fossil fuels anyway
so we will sooner or later be required to make this switch. Now we made
the switch a little earlier, that's all.

Most of the mainstream suggestions for addressing global warming involve
switching from fossil fuels to wind energy and solar power. The best options for
energy storage are only available in places that already have hydroelectricity.

So what is being suggested is a radical re-orientation of our society towards
less dependency on energy and less energy use. This would downgrade heavy
industry, and thus impact the military defense capabilities of the United States
of America.

Thus, the stakes are much higher than you seem to think: if we do what some
people are telling us, the likely consequence is that Russia or China will end
up ruling the world.

More like China than Russia then. But don't you think that would cause
huge conflicts?

Now you perhaps may see why there is some resistance to AGW.

I understand that the desire of most americans to continue "the american
way of life" as before is a major reason behind the denial of AGW.
There's a similar problem in Europe where the AGW denial isn't as
explicit as in the US but still most europeans continue their old life
style which, compared to the globally average lifestyle, is quite
extravagant.

Doing something about it, in the way we're generally told to, actually is the
alternative that seems to have genuinely devastating consequences, while it's
the risk of doing nothing that's small.

However, none of this has anything to do with the science of whether AGW is real
or not. Some people are just excessively optimistic, and seem to think that the
laws of nature will conform to our convenience - instead of every alternative
having unpleasant consequences sometimes.

As I've pointed out, though, the situation isn't as bad as it seems. There is at
least one proven way to generate abundant electrical power anywhere which is
carbon free.

So we heat our homes with electricity, and go to work on trolley buses, and get
the electricity from *nuclear power plants*... and, thanks to breeder reactors,
we don't need to use just the limited supplies of U-235. We can last that way
while continuing to have an industrialized society with heavy energy usage, long
enough to come up with something more permanent (solar power satellites, fusion
power, and so on).

Then alternative 2 ends up having the relatively low costs you outline. But
right now, this is an alternative that's off the table; the Greens don't like
nuclear power. (The issue isn't really proliferation, as the countries that
aren't either major industrialized democracies, or countries that already have
nuclear weapons make up a very small fraction of world energy use, and could
continue to use fossil fuels without appreciable impact.)

Spreading nuclear power plants, including breeder reactors, in every
country over the world as you suggest will of course strongly reduce CO2
emissions. But doing so has its own risks, making radioactive substances
much more easily available -- not like you could buy them in your grocery
store of course, but still easy enough to get to enable some highly
motivated terrorist groups to get their hands at it. Imagine e.g. some
future equivalent to ISIS, armed with not very large but still nukes - I
think you'll get the idea.