Thursday, August 07, 2014

"We're F'd"

Probably.  Not a very happy read, this, mostly because no matter how scary the outlook I don't see us (US or globally) doing nearly enough to head off very bad things.  More, I'm not very confident in our being able to successfully deal with said very bad things when they arrive.

At a global level this is insane, and there is no reason we couldn't do something but at an individual level, it's just too hard and too expensive.  I would love to get off the grid and go carbon neutral, but it isn't very feasible.  For commuting: award winning SEPTA kind of sucks for me: too expensive and very inconvenient relative to driving, and the roads I would need to take are kind of dangerous for bicycling (plus riding 10 mi to work in the summer morning would leave me in such a state that no one would want to come near me for the rest of the day).  At home: solar/wind/etc plus the energy storage for load leveling is very expensive, and there isn't enough back from energy companies to offset by feeding the grid.

I think that there is basically no hope without a carbon tax--including gasoline--coupled with a massive [federal] push for renewable energy and more efficient use of that energy.  We need fully electric transportation with more mass transit.  We need more efficient heat pumps.  We need a smarter, more efficient grid.

I suspect we will have most of those things eventually, but I also suspect it will be too late.

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