I think it's real and potentially catastrophic. But I see very little chance of (sufficient) coordinated action to mitigate it.
I.e., I think there's too much temptation for individual countries to pursue a competitive economic or military advantage by letting everyone but themselves make sacrifices.
Is it though? For developing countries, having a large supply of fossil fuels has always been a huge accelerator for industrialization and overall economic growth even if that fuel has to be imported. There really is no substitute, especially when you consider that it's not used only for transportation and power generation but also for manufacturing as an industrial heat source and chemical feed stock.
The cheapest mix of reliable power is 95% solar/battery and 5% natural gas. And that's in the US with its cheap gas and poor insolation. In the third world it'll be much higher than 95%.
Solar energy is cheaper than oil right now. On average. Too bad it's highly variable but if you can cope with extreme variability you can get extremely cheap energy.
Pretty tough to cope with variability if you want to build a modern industrial economy. I mean even with cheap labor it kind of kills your cost structure when capital intensive facilities have to shut down due to electricity shortage. Plus there are plenty of industrial processes that require fossil fuels as inputs separate from just electricity.
fossil fuels were a proxy for energy. China continues to show the world that energy independence can come via electricity that you generate within your borders, and that it can be cheaper than importing foreign oil.
Right, that's exactly the point. Regardless of the consequences, worldwide fossil fuel consumption will continue increasing. Those stable organic molecules with energy rich chemical bonds are so damn useful for everything that enables modern industrial civilization and there is no substitute.
No, plastic usage world wide is less than 10% of fossil fuel usage. Only in China can the plastic increase compensate for lowering demand because they are the factory of the world.
I don't understand your argument. You agree they're increasing coal use? Besides, anyone wanting to know the state of coal use just needs to go to Youtube, search "Bejing" or "Delhi" air quality and ample evidence of what's happening and the effects will come forward in 1000 different voices.
A comparison of Beijing air quality between 2020 and 2025 will show drastic differences -- it's gotten much better.
China's coal usage is relatively flat. They've increased their capacity, but they've been decreasing their capacity factor (aka what percentage of the time the plants are running) at approximately the same rate. They used to run their plants 24/7. Now they run only at night. They've started adding batteries to the grid so in the future the coal plants will only run after a stretch of cloudy days.
The data I'm finding says that it's still increasing, especially in India. They expect it to start dropping in 2028-2030 due to the buildouts you're mentioning but for now that isn't happening.
Claim is that it's about strategic safety for both countries. Coal is easy, and they have plenty of it (unlike oil, which neither have in any quantity).
They're doing both solar and coal because of security. They're doing 5X as much solar than they are of coal because solar is cheaper. They're doing the coal because the need something for the night. But now that batteries are becoming cheaper than coal for that, they'll do more batteries and less coal.
Trump is implementing multi decade right wing fantasies in many fronts. The idea that we can't achieve anything is limiting yourself when you're in a political arena. To win, like Trump, when you get power you have to attack on many fronts, cultural, capital, legal, and approach it as a zero sum scorched earth war where norms are another obstacle in your way.
Right, the definition should reflect general usage. Did the general usage here just coincidentally change days after a Republican appointee used a word in a hearing? That’s a heck of a coincidence! No, what happened was that liberals used their control over putatively neutral institutions like M-W to advance their position in a political dispute.
I think it's real and potentially catastrophic. But I see very little chance of (sufficient) coordinated action to mitigate it.
I.e., I think there's too much temptation for individual countries to pursue a competitive economic or military advantage by letting everyone but themselves make sacrifices.
I hope I'm wrong.