This letter is in response to the one published on July 15 by Daniel Lyons [“Fossil fuels and CO₂ reduction,” Gazette]. Lyons quotes Canadian scientist, Vaslav Smil, who characterizes the goal of fully decarbonizing by 2050 as, “Realities versus Wishful Thinking.” While the challenges of decoupling from our dependence on fossil fuels are large and complicated, computer models, such as the one developed by Climate Interactive and MIT called En-ROADS, shows that limiting global warming is possible and putting a price on fossil fuels is a key element.
The aphorism, “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” seems pertinent here. While reaching net zero by 2050 currently seems unlikely, much work can, and should, be done to reduce emissions as much as possible to avoid the worst of the possible impacts. If the goal of net zero is seen as hopeless or, even worse, dangerous to the economy, the response could be to abandon all efforts, which would truly be catastrophic. Lyons also addresses the question of attribution of extreme weather events to climate change. While determining the contribution of climate change to a particular event is complex — although Climate Central has developed sophisticated tools for this — the link is clearly apparent in long-term trends. There is no other explanation for the disappearing ice in the arctic sea, consecutive record-breaking years of rising temperatures, or the 280 billion tons of Greenland ice melting every year.
The climate activist community has been criticized as hysterical and overly alarmist but, putting aside whether this attitude is unrealistic or on-point, it seems clear that the climate denialism prevalent in the current administration is significantly more unrealistic and dangerous. Meanwhile, China installed more solar energy last year than the rest of the world combined.
Joe Silverman
Florence