# DopeZine vol. 1: The Long Bust **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 2, 2022, 12:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopezine-vol-1-the-long-bust/965536 "2022-06-02T00:08:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 8
**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2022, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopezine-vol-1-the-long-bust/965536/8 "2022-06-02T00:15:59Z")
**I’ll take my planet well-done, please.** _“The Long Bust - point 5: Global warming causes environmental and economic calamity”_ “The Long Boom” predicts a future of abundant, Earth-friendly technologies. Hybrid cars that get 80 miles to the gallon, composite-bodied automobiles that use natural gas to power turbine-electric motors, and Hydrogen fuel-cell cars filling our highways by 2010. OK, so one out of three ain’t bad. But, even the hybrid car prediction is grossly optimistic. Instead of cars getting 80 miles to the gallon, most hybrids are used to increase the horsepower of gas-guzzling muscle-cars (the average horsepower of an automobile has increased fairly linearly from 100 in 1980 to 250 in 2021) [FOTW #1224, February 7, 2022: Average Horsepower Reaches All-Time High for Model Year 2021 Light-Duty Vehicles | Department of Energy](https://www.energy.gov/eere/vehicles/articles/fotw-1224-february-7-2022-average-horsepower-reaches-all-time-high-model) OK, everyone knows that predicting the future is hard. But, there are misses, and then there are _misses_ . Hydrogen fueled vehicles are about as common on today’s highways as those powered by Mr. Fusion. Ones using fuel cells are even rarer, if such a thing is possible. I wonder if the two Peters had never heard of batteries, because that’s what today’s electrically-powered cars are using for energy storage. But, that doesn’t really matter, because _no_ alternative to gasoline has made a dent in our oil consumption. The fact that truly “green” energy has not been widely implemented means that total CO2 emissions have increased in an almost monotonic fashion from 5 billion metric tons in 1940 to 36 billion in 2021: > **[Global CO2 emissions by year 1940-2023 | Statista](https://www.statista.com/statistics/276629/global-co2-emissions/)** > > Annual global carbon dioxide emissions have increased by more than 60 percent since 1990 and are now at their highest ever levels. The green energy revolution posited in “The Long Boom” has not happened – in fact, CO2 emissions may be accelerating. Which means – the Earth is getting hotter. As CO2 accumulates in the atmosphere, global temperatures have risen. It’s not a huge number, and the data is almost hidden by the noise, but the trend is clear – the Earth is getting warmer. > **[Global Warming](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/GlobalWarming/page2.php)** > > Global warming is happening now, and scientists are confident that greenhouse gases are responsible. To understand what this means for humanity, it is necessary to understand what global warming is, how scientists know it's happening, and how they... Climate Change is likely to cause massive social disruption as it changes rainfall patterns and shorelines. Unlike the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, where a quarter-million people were killed in a day, and many more were displaced, the destruction caused by Climate Change is slow-moving. The Southwest will come under increasing pressure as rainfall dwindles. Already, Lake Meade has fallen to levels that trigger water use restrictions. This will surely get worse, and will pit state against state and famers against cities. Some of the fastest-growing cities in the US are in areas with the poorest water resources. Climate Change is a problem that requires global resources to solve. An individual can choose to live with an environmental “footprint” that is a small as possible, but unless a significant faction of the world’s population starts to live that way, nothing is going to change. But, at least we have the Internet, and we can debate what needs to happen, if anything: > [@I pit the idea that "100 Companies are reponsible for 71% of global warming"](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-the-idea-that-100-companies-are-reponsible-for-71-of-global-warming/923339/3): > > These woke people want carbon taxes, renewable subsidies and enforceable global agreements. But they can’t get any traction because the fossil fuel companies and their allies are spending billions to lie about climate change. I’m an old woke person who’s been banging the drum about climate change since 1992, and this has been a constant since then. > [@Has anybody else given up on climate change?](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/has-anybody-else-given-up-on-climate-change/954326): > > Have anybody else given up on climate change? I confess that I have. It seems to me that even if we could get the entire planet to resolutely agree on stopping or at least seriously slowing down climate change, we’re basically too late. Fossil fuels are still the mainstay of our energy sources, supplemented by hydroelectric, nuclear, geothermal, solar and wind technologies. But it isn’t likely that solar and wind energy will be able to take up the slack in the foreseeable future, even allowing… > [@Effect of reduced new car sales on global warming](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/effect-of-reduced-new-car-sales-on-global-warming/962924/3): > > But then people are continuing to drive their older cars, since they can’t replace them with new. Didn’t mention this in the OP and maybe should have. It’s mainly ICE cars that are having a slowdown. EV production increased in the last two years. That’s mostly due to Tesla; I’m not sure about the rest of the EV models. “The Long Boom” predicts a rosy future, but then cautions in a sidebar that a “Major Ecological Crisis” might disrupt the food supply causing price increases and sporadic famines. In a surprising turn of events, Climate Change has not caused this to happen (yet). But, a global pandemic, which has so far killed a mere 20 Million people or so ([Excess mortality during the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) - Our World in Data](https://ourworldindata.org/excess-mortality-covid)) ( ¼ percent of the world’s population) not only disrupted the food supply, but far, worse – the _toilet paper_ supply. This disruption was not caused by the fatalities themselves, for the most part, but rather by the attempts to curtail the spread of the virus. Nobody (at least, nobody _I_ know) predicted that implementing what would seem, on the surface, to be reasonable precautions against spreading the virus would result in the impossibility to purchase a Raspberry Pi computer, but that’s what happened, along with 6-24 month waits on new cars. But, even with all that, the US economy survived COVID-19 in astonishingly good shape. Housing prices reached record levels. The stock market set new highs. Unemployment, high during lockdown, reached near-record lows after restrictions were removed. Weirdly, it seems that it might be possible to predict an economic boom, completely miss the possibility of a disruptive global pandemic, and still be “right” – at least if you are an American. The Chinese workers welded into their houses to slow the spread of the virus might not be benefiting from the “Golden Age” of technology, but the American standard of living seems to be stable, or even improving. Is it possible that we are, in fact, living better through technology, even though most of the predictions in “The Long Boom” are questionable, if not downright completely incorrect? What if the benefits of technology are very inequitably distributed? If the Western world gets richer at the expense of the rest of the world, is that desirable? Is a “Boom” even a good thing? Maybe doing with less is the best course for the planet right now. Hard to predict. (Not that this has ever stopped any pundit before…) Well, one thing that doesn’t take a particularly clear crystal ball to predict is - viruses come and go, but CO2 lasts forever- or, at least a long time. Although the ecological disasters that “The Long Boom” worries about haven’t materialized, the night is still young. Humans are surprisingly resourceful and resilient, but when hundreds of millions of people, and trillions of dollars of property are at risk due to sea level rise: > **[Coming crisis of coastal flooding: $1 trillion of real estate at risk by 2100](https://archive.curbed.com/2018/6/18/17474076/real-estate-climate-change-coastal-flooding-sea-level)** > > New report argues for fast response to slow-motion crisis of chronic flooding and property damage. Well, that has to put a damper on a “Boom.” Or, maybe not. Perhaps the old, distained “[broken windows theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broken_windows_theory)” will finally be vindicated, and the relocation or buffering of all those billions of dollars of property that the sea is trying to embrace will create a new economic engine, the likes of which haven’t been seen since the rebuilding of Europe after World War II. Maybe. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/dopezine-vol-1-the-long-bust/965536)._