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Forget global warming. Of course it will not be stopped. All fossil fuels will be burnt till full exhaustion of reserves, until the remainder is completely unec

Forget global warming. Of course it will not be stopped. All fossil fuels will be burnt till full exhaustion of reserves, until the remainder is completely uneconomical to extract. But then the nations that were the last to start switching will find their economies too inefficient and expensive to run with the fossil fuels while everyone else is using much cheaper renewables, and will probably no longer have money for the switch, ending up in a major predicament.

zeckalpha 4y ago
As climate risk increases demand for renewables, we may actually see a decline in price for fossil fuels, at least for a time, resulting in prolonged bimodal consumption. I think we've been in this artificially low fossil fuel price environment since the beginning though: the externalities aren't priced in.
maxerickson 4y ago
It's more or less a tautology that extraction will continue until it isn't worth doing. The thing is, abundant cheap energy will make it less and less worth doing.
staunton 4y ago
> Of course it will not be stopped One way or another, it will definitely be stopped. At some point, civilization collapse would end the burning of fossil fuels at scale. The question is at what point it will stop and whether any tipping points are passed which accelerate the process out of control. It's far from obvious that all efforts to limit carbon emissions will fail and to say otherwise is deeply cynical. Measures are being taken already. They are not enough to reach the claimed goals and the claimed goals will probably not be reached, but that's very different from saying warming will not be stopped at all, let alone "of course". More measures will follow once the adverse effects get worse in industrialized countries (e.g. deaths and economic damage due to changing climate and weather events).
marcosdumay 4y ago
Expanding renewable energy is exactly what will make the fossil fuels uneconomical to extract. I won't happen by magic. Even with their ever increasing scarcity, as long as no alternative exists, they will be economical.
pyrale 4y ago
> But then the nations that were the last to start switching will find their economies too inefficient and expensive to run with the fossil fuels while everyone else is using much cheaper renewables, and will probably no longer have money for the switch, ending up in a major predicament. If all the fossil fuel is burned, we will probably never reach that point ; society breakdown will happen sooner.

zeckalpha 4y ago

As climate risk increases demand for renewables, we may actually see a decline in price for fossil fuels, at least for a time, resulting in prolonged bimodal consumption. I think we've been in this artificially low fossil fuel price environment since the beginning though: the externalities aren't priced in.

maxerickson 4y ago

It's more or less a tautology that extraction will continue until it isn't worth doing. The thing is, abundant cheap energy will make it less and less worth doing.

staunton 4y ago

> Of course it will not be stopped One way or another, it will definitely be stopped. At some point, civilization collapse would end the burning of fossil fuels at scale. The question is at what point it will stop and whether any tipping points are passed which accelerate the process out of control. It's far from obvious that all efforts to limit carbon emissions will fail and to say otherwise is deeply cynical. Measures are being taken already. They are not enough to reach the claimed goals and the claimed goals will probably not be reached, but that's very different from saying warming will not be stopped at all, let alone "of course". More measures will follow once the adverse effects get worse in industrialized countries (e.g. deaths and economic damage due to changing climate and weather events).

marcosdumay 4y ago

Expanding renewable energy is exactly what will make the fossil fuels uneconomical to extract. I won't happen by magic. Even with their ever increasing scarcity, as long as no alternative exists, they will be economical.

pyrale 4y ago

> But then the nations that were the last to start switching will find their economies too inefficient and expensive to run with the fossil fuels while everyone else is using much cheaper renewables, and will probably no longer have money for the switch, ending up in a major predicament. If all the fossil fuel is burned, we will probably never reach that point ; society breakdown will happen sooner.