Here is their latest argument. I have to admit, it is the best they have come up with yet:
Okay, Tom, what do we do? How are you going to live with zero carbon emissions? Forget windmills and solar, they take mining, which is also a no-go. Forget hydro, that also requires mining and destroys the environment where the dams are built. So, we've got no real means of energy production. Since animals apparently also cause CC, we shant be using them. You going to go out and harvest crops with your bare hands? You going to live without cars, electricity or anything this side of wooden or stone huts?
Tell me, please, how we're going to live?
Anyone who has actually gotten past the "The guvmint must do something!!111!" has pie-in-the-sky ideals, but trying to actually implement them results in a bigger mess than we're now in. So, what are your plans? Lay 'em out.
They also say that any AGWphobe who does not support nuclear is a hypocrite. Well, I am not a hypocrite, I support nuclear in the mid-term (in the long term we will need renewable or fusion...uranium is too rare).
They are trolling you very nicely Tom, really by the book. All of these arguments are rehashed, nothing original.
Somehow when it comes to replacing fossil fuels, all these die-hard deniers suddenly become environmentalists. Mining is a no go. Right. But fracking for oil and gas while poisoning the water and causing earthquakes, just to burn it and cause AGW, is perfectly fine by them. Forget hydro. Right. It destroys the local environment. Are these the same folks that said who cares about 2100? You think you are having a fruitful discussion, while they are having a field day.
The truth is, should the US and other countries decide/realize that AGW is the same as World War III, the whole energy system could be transformed in about a decade, max two decades. The solutions are well known - solar plants and rooftop solar, wind turbines (not windmills, this term identifies deniers), grid batteries, in addition to hydro and geothermal and existing nuclear until it is retired. And yes, some natural gas backup. Maybe for a few years people will have to do with a reduced amount of barbie dolls and flights to exotic locations, but that is nothing compared to the suffering that will come by not acting. Read some history, about the wartime economies of the UK and the US during WWII. When people realize the house is burning down and that the enemy is at the gates, they are capable of moving fast and temporarily giving up some of life's enjoyments - for the cause.
The truth is also, that all human activity causes some damage to the environment, and the truth is also that 7.6 going on 10 billion humans is well above the carrying capacity of the planet. So no plan will be perfectly clean and no plan will get you past the crisis point harmlessly. To fix that, big steps were needed fifty years ago (but thanks to trolls like that, these steps were not taken).
But the truth is, renewable energy is much cleaner and much less harmful than the current alternative of coal, oil and gas. And EVs are much cleaner than ICE vehicles. So energy and transportation can be transformed with the means we have on hand right now. And there are ways (more difficult, less comprehensive) of transforming other carbon sectors - construction, industry, plant and animal agriculture. It is impossible to maintain current lavish lifestyles, not to mention provision of these lifestyles globally, while achieving carbon neutrality in short order. But it is possible to achieve a 50% reduction relatively quickly. And afforestation can do a lot as well. Some savings will come by eliminating the huge fossil fuel sector itself - prospecting, drilling, mining, transporting, refining, distributing. And good riddance.
So the truth is, the situation we are in is a
much bigger mess than the situation where parts of the economy are transformed towards carbon neutrality, even if that is not a full solution for humanity's problems.
