| You are absolutely correct. Here's a data point: If we shoved the entire United States into the ocean and ended this nation as we know it, the reduction in GHG's (greenhouse gases) would be less than 15%, maybe half, if that much. A single massive wild fire emits more GHG's than the entire transportation and energy industry does in an entire year. See "Emissions by Country" section in this report: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss... Also, http://www.pnas.org/content/106/6/1704.full.pdf The paper explains, paraphrasing, how the issues created by carbon dioxide concentration are irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop. Here's an excellent write-up on the conclusions from extensive experiments by Google: https://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-re... From the article: "We decided to combine our energy innovation study’s best-case scenario results with Hansen’s climate model to see whether a 55 percent emission cut by 2050 would bring the world back below that 350-ppm threshold. Our calculations revealed otherwise. Even if every renewable energy technology advanced as quickly as imagined and they were all applied globally, atmospheric CO2 levels wouldn’t just remain above 350 ppm; they would continue to rise exponentially due to continued fossil fuel use."
Paraphrasing: If the world converted to 100% renewable energy, CO2 levels would still rise exponentially. Another point they made: "Our reckoning showed that reversing the trend would require both radical technological advances in cheap zero-carbon energy, as well as a method of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and sequestering the carbon." |