Re: <nettime> Modest prophet of doom

[Jean-Noël Montagné <jnm@autistici.org>]

Hello Brian and all,

I also watched the video of Tim Lenton's talk. I am quite surprised to 
see that he does not mention at any time the question of energy 
resources and mining resources that are supposed to accompany the 
transition to renewable energy or electric mobility. This is an 
essential point.

For renewable energies, we must not forget that the metals used in wind 
turbines and solar panels, as well as the manufacturing processes for 
solar panels, are mostly obtained from coal-based energy, in China or in 
other countries with low production costs. Without the very low cost of 
coal, there is no low-cost renewable energy! Under the current 
production conditions of solar and wind power in Asia, renewable energy 
for the whole world would be a massive acceleration of global warming 
through CO2 emissions.

Same problem for electric mobility, to replace 1.4 billion thermic cars. 
Moreover, there is not enough low-cost lithium, nickel, copper, aluminum 
and other  metals to transform the entire world's car fleet from thermal 
to electric, not to mention the electrical production needed to move 
these vehicles. It is estimated that we will only be able to operate one 
tenth of the current car fleet when oil becomes too scarce, in less than 
20 years. And forget about hydrogen, which has no economic/ecologic 
future, except for a few niches. From production to traction, hydrogen 
has only 25% efficiency...

Economic activity is directly based on low-cost transport, from the 
extraction of raw materials to the marketing of finished products. 
Especially for goods with complexity, like digital tools, when the 
finished product is the result of globalized industrialization. But the 
total global production of oil is now on the plateau phase and will soon 
decline. https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-outlook-2022

The decline of all global economic activities is therefore unavoidable 
in the short term. In this context, green growth based on renewables is 
materially impossible, even for rich countries, because driven by 
high-tech, and high-tech needs traditional growth and has no resilience 
in the face of climate disruption, geopolitics and the finiteness of 
certain resources......

Forget Davos. Recent actuality about Exxon mobil and Total knowing 
perfectly the CO2 catastrophe since the seventies, as well as other oil 
companies, proves once again that those people refuse to "look up". 
Shareholders are mass-murderers.

Jean-Noël


Le 20/01/2023 à 21:37, Brian Holmes a écrit :
>  "Positive tipping points to avoid climate tipping points" (5). After 
> recapping the various cascade scenarios of the current climate 
> emergency, he goes on to discuss reinforcing feedbacks that could push 
> global society out of the current business-as-usual trajectory. 
> Basically he's talking about cheap power from renewables and rising 
> sales of electric cars as the drivers for major transformations in the 
> sectors of battery storage, hydrogen fuel-cell production and "green 
> fertiliser" (nitrogen produced without the use of methane feedstocks). 
> The video is extraordinary because of the intense questions asked by 
> the rebellious young scientists, including how does he deal 
> emotionally with his own knowledge and whether it would be important 
> to examine negative social tipping cascades, like the effects of 
> European colonization of the Americas.
>
>
> Do you think it can be done? Will Davos Man finally answer the 
> ecological question? Will you sign on too? Can a nudge in time save 
> nine degrees of global warming?

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