Green energy

“Green energy,” Monterey Herald” – Jan. 19, 2023

The cartoon conflates House Speaker McCarthy, fossil fuels and storm damage implying ‘irresponsible Republicans are destroying the planet promoting fossil fuels’.  The fact is that the U.S. currently contributes about 15% greenhouse gas and should we disappear from the earth China, India and Russia will continue to overwhelm our relatively meager contribution. As Steven Koonin points out in “Unsettled”, “Humans have had no detectable impact on hurricanes over the past century.” Climate scientists like Judith Curry, E. Kirsten Peters, Steven Koonin point out, CO2 is not the single control knob for climate. Paradoxically it is not definitively understood to what extent CO2 at 280 ppm in the 18th century to about 415 ppm today, caused the 1C.deg. delta.  It could be more or less natural such as the Medieval Warming period that allowed Vikings to live in Greenland, and suddenly cooled in the 11th century. It would take about 250 years to get CO2 to 1000 ppm and that’s assuming we do nothing. Methane dissipates in 12 years. Thus, we have at least 100 years or more to judiciously transition to green energy which ironically includes nuclear. The Henny-Penny alarmism is at best misguided and contraindicated in helping policy makers.

— Jack Knutson, Pebble Beach