This Is the Beginning of the Age of...Extinction

[NickB79]

22. Fossil fuels are far more than energy in our world

They're plastics. They're fertilizer. They're pesticides. They're industrial chemicals. All these processes release carbon. Plastics alone are set to quadruple by 2050

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/09/735848489/plastic-has-a-big-carbon-footprint-but-that-isnt-the-whole-story

All told, Muffett says, "emissions from plastics production and incineration could account to 56 gigatons of carbon between now and 2050." That's 56 billion tons, or almost 50 times the annual emissions of all of the coal power plants in the U.S. Another study, led by researcher Songwon Suh at the University of California, Santa Barbara, predicted even more emissions from plastic manufacturing and packaging than CIEL's report did.

And a 100% renewable energy planet would still have a land use issue. A sizeable chunk of our carbon emissions come from agriculture destroying forests, forests being logged, and plowing liberating carbon from soil. Approximately 20% of our current emissions come from this. A lot of this is our desire for meat, especially beef, which is rising globally with no sign of stopping. As nation's become more wealthy, they invariably eat more meat.

So, even in a 100% renewable energy world, we have an extinction event. We'll keep dumping plastic into the ocean, keep catching the last fish for food, keep spraying farmland with pesticides, and keep clearing rainforest for beef cattle