I value the work and arguments presented by Dr Smil. He asks uncomfortable questions that climate activists usually skip over. The obstacles to implementing renewables or electrifying the economy are far more dauting than generally acknowledged. Just consider the transformation of cities required to go from 5% EV to 90% EV, with regards to bringing and distributing electricity, installing private and public charging stations, as well as increasing non-car alternatives. This is a massive, 5-10 year undertaking. From that standpoint, Smil correctly defines current reality.
What he does not acknowledge is that climate disasters will precipitate change, change that is inconceivable in our current reality. The economic pain from climate disasters - hurricanes, floods, megafires, heat waves and droughts - will soon reach a global breakpoint. At that time, global economies will be mobilized on an unprecedented scale and the impossible will become feasible. In this regard, Bill's view is correct: a shift is inevitable. As someone once said before: you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
I have just finished Vaclav Smil's book. After reading lots of James Lovelock, Lawrence Krauss, Steven Koonin, Seth Klein etc. on clinate. Dr. Smil wrote 8 books with the word "Energy" in the title... before 1990. Based on my reading of his book, I would hardly call him a "naysaying academic". I would call him a realist. You make no mention of the fossil fuel-intertwined pillars of civilization which Dr. Smil describes in his book: steel, cement, ammonia, plastic. Decarbonizing those is hardly on the scale of "making tanks very fast at the start of WW II." No informed person doubts climate change is real... and Smil doesn't say "it isn't that big a crisis". He just cools down the rhetoric with actual real-life facts that ask for solutions. And he presents a warning about how difficult that will be, how much time and money it will take.... not that it shouldn't be undertaken. As he has said, he is neither a pessimist nor nor an optimist. He is a gatherer of facts.
I grew up in a logging town and often felt that environmentalism was a privileged position for those who didn't depend on livelihoods like logging. As a former academic, I see things differently: logging companies hurt the landscape and the communities that they pillaged, even if they did offer the illusion of sustainable careers to a generation or two. But I still don't know how to make sustainable policy also economically beneficial to rural communities in places like Montana. I felt much the same when I left a tenured faculty position. Academic work has become unsustainable for many, but those who really get to question the point of it are often those who had more privilege and options to begin with. Those who are burned out in academia are like my relatives who feel they have no way to feed their families except by working in oil fields or mines. The policy solutions that seem to actually make it through government are things like broadband. But I don't think broadband makes people in dying logging towns feel like they have economic opportunities. Likewise, I worry that people without my own financial security are unable to truly rethink their relationship to academe. I wrote about that recently here: https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/p/who-gets-to-think-about-purpose?s=w
With the rapid development of industry, but pollution has a growing impact on the normal life of human beings, the development of a low-carbon economy will become an inevitable trend of social progress. Developing a low-carbon economy is not only an inevitable choice for ecology and social civilization at the national and international levels, but also the only way for the further development of mankind.
Yeah this is a tough one because this guy is kinda right. I looked at emissions' current trajectories from the latest IPCC report (a horizontal line still moving slightly upward but curving down slightly) vs. what it would take to limit emissions to 2 or 1.5 degrees (emissions lines moving downward at 30 and 45 degrees respectively starting yesterday) and it looks pretty impossible without worldwide radical/revolutionary action. The IPCC even included an emissions trajectory for 2C assuming we continue to dither through this decade that also moves downwards at a 45 degree angle starting in 2030. It all looks like a real stretch. But to tell all those Pacific nations soon to be underwater that they are essentially doomed, not to mention all the other impending climate disasters that await? That's a bitter pill to swallow for a climate scientist/policy maker.
And if you tell people we are cruisin' towards a pretty hellish 3C by 2100 and that it will keep rising beyond that date, that kinda makes people throw up their hands and say well screw it we're doomed. So maybe there is a sweet spot between acknowledging the reality of the situation and our prospects of achieving 2C limits, and setting achievable climate goals. What will get people more engaged? Radical goals or incremental ones?
When I read the Smil piece last week in the NYT, it was upsetting to see you attacked without the opportunity to rebut in that story. I am glad you wrote this and hope the Times will pick it up.
Regarding "Realism is often defined as some middle ground between opposing sides. And in controversies between humans, that’s at least a reasonable idea."
Here's the problem: As soon as one accepts the middle ground thesis of realism, then one or more parties to a issue can game the debate by creating an artificial extreme position - thus shifting the 'reasonable' center to their advantage. And this is what industry commonly does in political debates and advocacy. In political processes (i.e. Congress) the shifting occurs as an iterative or an evolutionary process.
I'm not surprised that Denmark's plan to move away from fossil fuels emphasizes district heating so much. My guess is the biggest political sticking point in Europe right now is figuring out a way to decarbonize that doesn't destroy gas utilities' business models.
This idea profiled on Volts, about "geogrids", seems like it might be a clever solution to that political problem. Keep the pipes in the ground and captive customers part of the business model, but edit out the fossil fuels part of the business model, and gas utilities no longer have to be an enemy to the climate movement.
You make so many excellent points, Bill. Forgive me if I borrow some for debates with smarty-pants, as in "meeting these goals is going to take too long." Your answer: "we made tanks in a big hurry for WWII." Simple, straightforward, and no-nonsense.
Your closing point about particulate matter and its effect on developing fetuses really caught my eye, as well. I wonder if the so-called Right To Life people would consider lobbying hard for clean air? If one woman can be prosecuted for aborting a fetus, could an entire industry be prosecuted for inflicting irreparable harm on millions of those same fetuses?
I value the work and arguments presented by Dr Smil. He asks uncomfortable questions that climate activists usually skip over. The obstacles to implementing renewables or electrifying the economy are far more dauting than generally acknowledged. Just consider the transformation of cities required to go from 5% EV to 90% EV, with regards to bringing and distributing electricity, installing private and public charging stations, as well as increasing non-car alternatives. This is a massive, 5-10 year undertaking. From that standpoint, Smil correctly defines current reality.
What he does not acknowledge is that climate disasters will precipitate change, change that is inconceivable in our current reality. The economic pain from climate disasters - hurricanes, floods, megafires, heat waves and droughts - will soon reach a global breakpoint. At that time, global economies will be mobilized on an unprecedented scale and the impossible will become feasible. In this regard, Bill's view is correct: a shift is inevitable. As someone once said before: you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
https://static01.nyt.com/images/2022/05/01/magazine/01mag-talk-01/01mag-talk-01-master675.jpg
Who is that sponsoring this talk by Professor Smil?
Why, look at that, it's a methane company!
I have just finished Vaclav Smil's book. After reading lots of James Lovelock, Lawrence Krauss, Steven Koonin, Seth Klein etc. on clinate. Dr. Smil wrote 8 books with the word "Energy" in the title... before 1990. Based on my reading of his book, I would hardly call him a "naysaying academic". I would call him a realist. You make no mention of the fossil fuel-intertwined pillars of civilization which Dr. Smil describes in his book: steel, cement, ammonia, plastic. Decarbonizing those is hardly on the scale of "making tanks very fast at the start of WW II." No informed person doubts climate change is real... and Smil doesn't say "it isn't that big a crisis". He just cools down the rhetoric with actual real-life facts that ask for solutions. And he presents a warning about how difficult that will be, how much time and money it will take.... not that it shouldn't be undertaken. As he has said, he is neither a pessimist nor nor an optimist. He is a gatherer of facts.
I grew up in a logging town and often felt that environmentalism was a privileged position for those who didn't depend on livelihoods like logging. As a former academic, I see things differently: logging companies hurt the landscape and the communities that they pillaged, even if they did offer the illusion of sustainable careers to a generation or two. But I still don't know how to make sustainable policy also economically beneficial to rural communities in places like Montana. I felt much the same when I left a tenured faculty position. Academic work has become unsustainable for many, but those who really get to question the point of it are often those who had more privilege and options to begin with. Those who are burned out in academia are like my relatives who feel they have no way to feed their families except by working in oil fields or mines. The policy solutions that seem to actually make it through government are things like broadband. But I don't think broadband makes people in dying logging towns feel like they have economic opportunities. Likewise, I worry that people without my own financial security are unable to truly rethink their relationship to academe. I wrote about that recently here: https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/p/who-gets-to-think-about-purpose?s=w
With the rapid development of industry, but pollution has a growing impact on the normal life of human beings, the development of a low-carbon economy will become an inevitable trend of social progress. Developing a low-carbon economy is not only an inevitable choice for ecology and social civilization at the national and international levels, but also the only way for the further development of mankind.
Yeah this is a tough one because this guy is kinda right. I looked at emissions' current trajectories from the latest IPCC report (a horizontal line still moving slightly upward but curving down slightly) vs. what it would take to limit emissions to 2 or 1.5 degrees (emissions lines moving downward at 30 and 45 degrees respectively starting yesterday) and it looks pretty impossible without worldwide radical/revolutionary action. The IPCC even included an emissions trajectory for 2C assuming we continue to dither through this decade that also moves downwards at a 45 degree angle starting in 2030. It all looks like a real stretch. But to tell all those Pacific nations soon to be underwater that they are essentially doomed, not to mention all the other impending climate disasters that await? That's a bitter pill to swallow for a climate scientist/policy maker.
And if you tell people we are cruisin' towards a pretty hellish 3C by 2100 and that it will keep rising beyond that date, that kinda makes people throw up their hands and say well screw it we're doomed. So maybe there is a sweet spot between acknowledging the reality of the situation and our prospects of achieving 2C limits, and setting achievable climate goals. What will get people more engaged? Radical goals or incremental ones?
When I read the Smil piece last week in the NYT, it was upsetting to see you attacked without the opportunity to rebut in that story. I am glad you wrote this and hope the Times will pick it up.
Regarding "Realism is often defined as some middle ground between opposing sides. And in controversies between humans, that’s at least a reasonable idea."
Here's the problem: As soon as one accepts the middle ground thesis of realism, then one or more parties to a issue can game the debate by creating an artificial extreme position - thus shifting the 'reasonable' center to their advantage. And this is what industry commonly does in political debates and advocacy. In political processes (i.e. Congress) the shifting occurs as an iterative or an evolutionary process.
I'm not surprised that Denmark's plan to move away from fossil fuels emphasizes district heating so much. My guess is the biggest political sticking point in Europe right now is figuring out a way to decarbonize that doesn't destroy gas utilities' business models.
This idea profiled on Volts, about "geogrids", seems like it might be a clever solution to that political problem. Keep the pipes in the ground and captive customers part of the business model, but edit out the fossil fuels part of the business model, and gas utilities no longer have to be an enemy to the climate movement.
https://www.volts.wtf/p/volts-podcast-audrey-schulman-and?s=r
You make so many excellent points, Bill. Forgive me if I borrow some for debates with smarty-pants, as in "meeting these goals is going to take too long." Your answer: "we made tanks in a big hurry for WWII." Simple, straightforward, and no-nonsense.
Your closing point about particulate matter and its effect on developing fetuses really caught my eye, as well. I wonder if the so-called Right To Life people would consider lobbying hard for clean air? If one woman can be prosecuted for aborting a fetus, could an entire industry be prosecuted for inflicting irreparable harm on millions of those same fetuses?
Thank you for your important and tireless work Bill. Natalie