Climate approaches, provocation 219

The trouble with the nuclear solution is that it is only half the task (while creating some new ones). Nuclear power would generate cheap electricity without producing CO2.The problem comes in replacing the appliances that use gas for example to heat buildings. Electric heaters would have to be manufactured, let’s say worldwide 1 billion. That is an expense beyond the shift to nuclear. Who pays for it (the removal of the old and the installation of the new and remodeling), And how do we cope with the fact that such a manufacturing process of necessity requires a lot of raw materials which means mining manufacturing of parts and transportation.

The problem with technical innovations, creating something new and  unheard of,  is the problem of scale. How are you to manufacture whatever it is in sufficient quantities to make the needed difference, and then, how to deploy those units to scale (without for example using diesel trucks)?

To stay under 2° not only as a limited goal but as a forever goal requires stopping, not only the use of fossil fuel‘s but major sequestration of what is already in the atmosphere. This requires draconian moves that would affect practically every job in the world and lead to massive social disruption. But so will not making those draconian moves. We probably need to do something that forces people to go try stuff, mostly having to do with local food. Is there really any alternative proposed narrative that coheres across the facts?

Since there is no proposed path on how to force the system, we seem to be stuck with the best guess that we just drift into collapse.

Is there a plausible alternative? Proposals seem to fall into two categories.

First is techno-utopian – human creativity will win out. Certainly did not prevent WW2. Protein bars made from insects. (Scale?) Cheap sequestration (that can be controlled).

Second. local agricultural experiments. (mafia controlled?)

If we start here, we can think, if we stop short of this complex narrative we are circling the wagons, treading water.