Ben1445, on 01 Jan 2020 - 16:56, said:
30+ years... that'll be 2050 and beyond. The unfortunate reality is that that will be way too late for the climate.
Analysis of ice cores samples has shown that climate was never stable, multiple degrees of fluctuations back and forth on a very regular (every century or so) basis. The ends of ice ages with raised sea levels and higher temperature actually brought progress to humanity. We've had the thermometer too shortly to gather data on the time scale climate happens to take place at. When we look out of the attic roof window, we see huge climate change on neighboring planets. But then it's called solar made climate change.
We see the glaciers melting but neglect to remember that they had melted tremendously before humans became such a nuisance to Earth life. Sea levels had risen 100 meters (adding 3 continents or so) before we got serious about agriculture, let alone technology. Life was always on coast lines, so we don't know much about the people who lived before us.
History shows climate hops around all the time, driven by multiple factors. Sun's mood (it's moody), Earth wobble, meteor impacts, floods, etc, etc. The last time sea levels rose, we packed up and moved. But didn't learn to stay away from coast lines.
With the tiny effect humans have on claimed climate factors, we're not going to be turning a global cooling cycle into a warming one. Much greater dangers theaten human life, or any life on earth. And some of them are actually in our own hands. We can fix nuclear energy, make it more efficient and less scary. It's statiscally safe, but incidents make it to history books whereas deaths from coal, oil and gas are easily forgotten or never even acknowledged.
In the hypothetical case that we're on the brink of sliding off a CO2 enduced climate cliff, into a pan of boiling water...we should be banning car production, period. The first 4 years or so, a new BEV is a bigger hit through CO2 emissions than an equivalent ICE car. Only after that, CO2 and heat are lower. New BEVs are a sucker punch to the environment. Especially the fancy ones that have the big batteries. We should not make new cars, espcially BEVs, if we truly believe things are critical. They are critical only in the hypo way. Just ban production. Costs a few jobs, but we get to keep out planet, right?
Now I do feel and am a proponent that BEVs are the future. I've been a hybrid drivetrain entrepreneur, lost some good money on that. ICEVs are criminally outdated and there is no way forward for them, it's at the end of the line. The very best get 50% thermal efficiency, and those are just 20 ultra costly cars driven sparsely for recreational purposes (F1). Better as ambient air heater than as rotational motors. But let's worry about the CO2, not the heat itself... Everywhere we look out of the window and don't see wind turbines, we're wasting renewable energy available to us. Fix that before we shame people who don't have a fancy new big battery car yet.
Greener F1 would be using last year's F2 engines, used all season or scrapped, fix them up, do a tune and get them racing again. More fuel burned is in no relation to the facilties needed to develop pointless V6 hybrids that have no road relevancy. Too restrictive regulations, efficiency should be better. The F1 tailpipes are not what causes environmental damage. The whole industry running off it, the spectators driving and flying to races, etc, etc.
Now please let's sit together with some people who are not financially connected to cars, oil or racing (anymore) and find a good path for development. Road, Air, Rail, Sea. And racing in each.
If cars are most like bumber cars and subway trains, they need smaller batteries. Once time investment, forever green. Most ships are large enough (but not too large) for solar and wind farms. New train lines could be largely gravity powered (the one true renewable resource), odd as that might seem. Planes are seeing a future as well. Large distance orbital rockets (a bit over the top?) and hopes of batteries that will enable continental flights without too bad delays. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter as much, the Earth will cool and warm as external factors dictate, but we can stop missing the point and just tax ourselves and hand over liberties to unelected officials who are somehow going to tax us into a safer climate.
Who's willing to join my think tank?