Why Global Warming Is Inevitable, by David Deming

Even if you accept the hypothesis that global warming is caused by carbon dioxide, which David Deming does, there is no way to stop rising levels of the gas in the atmosphere. From Deming at lewrockwell.com:

Across the globe, there are concerted efforts to ameliorate the anticipated effects of global warming by reducing use of fossil fuels and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The goal is to reach “net zero” emissions at some time in the near future. This will not happen. Significant utilization of fossil fuel resources will continue, not for several years, but for several decades. The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will continue to rise. The greenhouse effect is locked in and will not be aborted through political action.

There is an innumeracy problem. People fail to grasp the magnitude of the numbers involved in the terrestrial carbon cycle. Individuals are advised to reduce carbon emissions by driving less, eating less meat, using less energy, and recycling. One might as well attempt to empty the Pacific Ocean with a thimble. Efforts by state governments will also have no appreciable effect. California has mandated that all new car sales be electric vehicles by the year 2035. New York state has banned the use of natural gas in stoves and furnaces. Even if fully implemented, regulations such as these will have no appreciable effect on emissions. California, with 39 million people, has annual CO2 emissions of about 300 million tons. This sounds like a large number, but it’s less than one percent of total world CO2 emissions, less than 0.001 percent of the CO2 that’s already in the atmosphere, and about 0.0002 percent of the CO2 stored in the oceans.

Year after year, CO2 emissions continue to rise inexorably. Coal is responsible for more CO2 than any other fossil fuel, and worldwide use of coal continues to increase. The rate of utilization is increasing, not decreasing. Although renewable energy sources like wind and solar are the fastest growing category, their net contribution to the energy mix worldwide remains small, about 7 to 8 percent. For decades, fossil fuels have supplied about 80 percent of world energy. Fossil fuel utilization is not going to zero at any time in the foreseeable future. Energy produces human prosperity. Life expectancy, literacy, educational achievement, and wealth all correlate strongly with total energy use. And when it comes to supplying energy, fossil fuels have four great advantages:  they are relatively inexpensive, reliable, abundant, and concentrated. In contrast, renewables such as wind and solar are diffuse and intermittent. If the wind does not blow, or the sun does not shine, electric power generation drops to zero. Battery storage is insufficient by many orders of magnitude. The fuels may be free, but the machinery for capturing and transferring power is neither cheap nor sustainable. We lack the technology to replace fossil fuels, nor is there any foreseeable path to this chimerical future. The limitation is not political, it is physical.

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