Getting to net zero--and even net negative--is surprisingly feasible, and affordable

[Jim__]

7. To state the glaringly obvious, the "we" the Bloomberg article is talking about ...

... is different from the implied "we" in the report cited in the OP. The "we" in the OP report is less than 5% of the size of the "we" in the Bloomberg article. And the OP report is specifically tailored to the US energy and industrial system: The researchers created a detailed model of the entire U.S. energy and industrial system to produce the first detailed, peer-reviewed study of how to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2050. Your citation is off the mark.

A part of your "criticism":

The result has been that yearly increases in carbon dioxide concentrations on this planet measured at Mauna Load has reached 2.4 ppm year, having increased since the last week of 2004 when it was 377.9 ppm to yesterday, when it was 415.46 ppm. (Accessed 01/28/21)

As noted by an NOAA report on climate change, burning fossil fuels for energy is the main cause of the increase in global atmospheric carbon dioxide. The more energy created through alternative sources, the less the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

As a chart in wikipedia clearly shows, we are disproportionately increasing the burning of fossil fuels to meet the increased demand for energy:



The report cited in the OP is a plan for decreasing, in absolute terms, the generation of electricity in the US through the burning of fossil fuels.

From your "criticism":

Perhaps you have heard that cliché about doing the same thing over and over and over and expecting a different result being defined as insanity.

Sigh. Sure. John Larroquette used to cite that to say he'd go to the bar every night and get drunk. Of course, when going to the bar, he never expected to get drunk. It's a very simple scenario. But even that scenario is too complicated for the cliché. It's simple to predict he'll get drunk at the bar. But his denialism and alcoholism are much too complicated to be explained away by it.

Let's look at another example of your cliché demonstrating insanity. Late last summer, fires blazed across California. Fire fighters fought them with water, chemical retardants, airplane drops of water and retardant, building control lines, etc. Yet, as they fought these fire, the fires only got worse. Clearly, according to the cliché the fire fighters, or at least the people who were sending them to fight the fires, must have been insane. They were performing the same acts over and over and over, and yet the result was the same, the fires continued to get worse.

Eventually, they did put the fires out. And, while the fires burned they managed to drive them away from some populated areas. In other words, what they were doing was not insane. The cliché doesn't actually apply. It doesn't actually apply to the generation of energy either. Clichés rarely apply to complex real-world situations.