If this survey is real the messages these young people are receiving are completely wrong.
We need to reduce our impact on our planet but CO2 is a complete red herring. The current ECS (temperature increase for a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere) is centred around 3°C (IPCC AR6). The 2°C will destroy civilisation is simply made up.
davezawadi (David Stone): Now I will reiterate the costs of the electric solution.
There are many issues here. One of them is, as you raised, the Indian and Chinese burning of coal.
Quite a few members of the IET are Indian and Chinese. If you read the IET Membership newsletter, you will see that many eminent Chinese engineers are becoming FIET. A discussion about continuing/rejecting continued use of coal in these very WWW pages can involve influential engineers in India and China, if we moderate our language so as to include them.
The issue in Germany gives an example of the difficulties. Let me explain.
Germans largely accept the claims of CO2 emissions affecting global warming. There are large open lignite mines in Garzweiler and Hambach, S and SW of Cologne, in my state of NRW, operated by the company RWE, which you can see in large grey areas on Google maps.
Germany has committed to elimination of coal-fired energy in the near future. Still, RWE is aiming to extend its open-face mining operations up until the time limits set by the German government. (It is currently in open conflict with protesters, as well as government, concerning its right to do so.) The company is currently claiming compensation from the government – that is, from taxpayers such as myself -- for foregone profits, had the government not decided to exit coal-fired energy production; that is, had the German public not decided that fossil-fuel fired energy production was no longer appropriate.
People such as myself think that RWE should stop lignite mining, now. This very instant.
This is a politically momentous issue. German taxpayers such as myself are not in agreement that our money should contribute to RWE profits as they would have been had CO2 emissions been benign. Which they aren't and will never be.
Just an example.
davezawadi (David Stone): Now I will reiterate the costs of the electric solution.
There are many issues here. One of them is, as you raised, the Indian and Chinese burning of coal.
Quite a few members of the IET are Indian and Chinese. If you read the IET Membership newsletter, you will see that many eminent Chinese engineers are becoming FIET. A discussion about continuing/rejecting continued use of coal in these very WWW pages can involve influential engineers in India and China, if we moderate our language so as to include them.
The issue in Germany gives an example of the difficulties. Let me explain.
Germans largely accept the claims of CO2 emissions affecting global warming. There are large open lignite mines in Garzweiler and Hambach, S and SW of Cologne, in my state of NRW, operated by the company RWE, which you can see in large grey areas on Google maps.
Germany has committed to elimination of coal-fired energy in the near future. Still, RWE is aiming to extend its open-face mining operations up until the time limits set by the German government. (It is currently in open conflict with protesters, as well as government, concerning its right to do so.) The company is currently claiming compensation from the government – that is, from taxpayers such as myself -- for foregone profits, had the government not decided to exit coal-fired energy production; that is, had the German public not decided that fossil-fuel fired energy production was no longer appropriate.
People such as myself think that RWE should stop lignite mining, now. This very instant.
This is a politically momentous issue. German taxpayers such as myself are not in agreement that our money should contribute to RWE profits as they would have been had CO2 emissions been benign. Which they aren't and will never be.
Just an example.
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