Everyone should agree that Nuclear energy (+solar and wind expansion) is an excellent way to solve our problems with CO2. China and India perhaps need it the most, as most of the CO2 growth is coming from those countries (U.S. and Europe have declined emissions in recent years)

why should everyone agree with this?

i respectfully disagree. first, project drawdown considers nuclear[1] a "regret" solution, because we have no story for dealing with nuclear waste. in the US specifically, until i see some movement on the yucca mountain [2] political clusterf*ck[3], i won't see nuclear as worth considering.

also, energy generation is only 25% of "our problems with co2"[4]. agriculture and transit make up the bulk of the other 75%, and i don't think we're going to have nuclear trucks or cows any time soon.

[1]: https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/electricity-generation/nu...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_r...

[3]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwY2E0hjGuU

[4]: https://www.gatesnotes.com/Energy/My-plan-for-fighting-clima...

You're making the perfect the enemy of the good. You say nuclear power is "not worth considering" because of waste, but the current dominant methods of energy generation not only generate waste but evenly distribute it over the entire earth, to the extent that it threatens our way of life on a timescale of decades. Nuclear power is strictly better from a waste perspective - all the waste is in one place. Species don't go extinct from nuclear power.

You can obviously power a Tesla with nuclear energy...

Gen 4 Nuclear reactors produce significantly less waste, cost less to produce, and are safer than current reactors, in some designs they're even able to consume nuclear waste to generate energy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_IV_reactor

The waste problem is regulatory. If the nuclear regulatory authorities allowed us to build breeder reactors and thorium reactors the waste situation would basically go away.

France get's around 80% of its energy from nuclear and recycles the uranium so the half life of the fuel is in 100s of years instead of 1000s[0].

The chinese are going to leap frog the US in nuclear tech with their thorium reactor research[1].

The biggest issue with the US adopting nuclear is the cost and political will(less jobs). Natural gas, coal and other fuels sources are much cheaper up front costs.

[0]:https://www.heritage.org/environment/commentary/recycling-nu...

[1]:https://www.environmentalleader.com/2016/08/chinas-research-...

> because we have no story for dealing with nuclear waste.

We have no story for dealing with CO2 waste from fossil fuels, and so far we know that's destroyign the planet while nuclear waste isn't.

“India and China need it the most” - not true at all sir. Per capita usage is key.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

I would expect India and China's per capita consumption needs to continue to rise over the next century as their economies grow and improve. That's almost 3 billion people...almost half the world population. If you want to really make a mark, there's opportunity there. I know there's opportunity in the U.S...but U.S. has already reduced it's carbon output by 25% since 2005: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_by_th...

"but the people who have denied the science and the solutions own a special responsibility that history will judge harshly."

This is pretty arrogant. There are myriad so-called "solutions" proposed and not all of them are good or will work. Which will work and which won't can be the subject of reasonable disagreement (nuclear anyone?).

But no, this high priest has spoken no one can question his "solution".

Please.

Actually it does, it prepares the public for the notion that more drastic measures are needed than chin-stroking over the problem another few decades. People going like "oh it will be fine", are losing credibility year by year. Specifically, anything involving burning coal and fuel is rapidly becoming unpopular and is likely to become heavily taxed. This has already happened to the point where it is happening even in places where that would have been considered the least likely to happen not so long ago.

7 billion people won't individually be able to fix this but they can be nudged the right way collectively. Articles like this may be thin on facts but they do help. Admittedly, the Guardian is preaching to choir here of course. Their readership doesn't need a lot of convincing.

Anyway, whether you are a believer or not, buying real estate on the coast requires a bit of risk assessment these days. Places like Florida are mostly within the risk zone. So Republican state or not, they are going to have some issues there and the necessary infrastructure (e.g. dykes) won't build itself.

"a believer"? Dude this is not a matter of believe it or not. Facts and figures are there and don't really care if you or anyone else "believe" them or not. Woah...

You are dealing with people who don't believe in that sort of stuff and will happily misrepresent, distort, and paraphrase whatever numbers and facts you throw at them from whatever source fits their belief system best. People aren't rational. That's 99% of the problem right there. Look no further than the Whitehouse for that in action. Even environmentalists are spending disproportionate amounts of effort on things that fundamentally don't really help a lot. Yes it would be awefully nice if 7 billion people stopped eating meat but you shipping over avocados and quinoa to fuel your vegan lifestyle is probably not helping.

It actually matters very much if someone is a believer or not. I don’t know where you live, but in the U.S., we have so many people in denial that our efforts to curb the effects of climate change over the last 20 years are now being reversed. There’s not enough support anymore. If more people don’t start accepting this information as “facts”, this planet is in a world of hurt in the next 100 years.

Going both by surveys [1] and by informal chats with friends of all ages, the Millenials were the peak AGW / Global Climate Change generation, with the subsequent generation (Gen Z) being both less convinced and less likely to demand expensive, global action. The picture is muddied a bit as Gen Z does does demand good care of environment, for general reasons (unspecific to AGW), thus sharing certain talking and policy points with AGW believers.

Talking with a Gen-Z'r, expect AGW to be sooner taken as a meme, and given ironic support only, rather than taken straight. The general feel is that Millenials went off the rails with certain topics and thus significantly lowered the credibility of the related talking points. It's not helped by the impression that the centralized media (like cable and big online platforms, basically "boomer" media) paint one picture with simplistic, sharp divisions, while the decentralized media (social media, new style online media) paints more complex, and more convincing picture.

I expect the shift away form belief in AGW to continue in subsequent generations.

--

[1] http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks...

Patriarchy?! Please. In the west at least, women make the purchasing decisions in many households so unless their decisions are subconciously driven by patriarchy I think you are out on a limb with that one: 'Women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing, through a combination of their buying power and influence. Influence means that even when a woman isn’t paying for something herself, she is often the influence or veto vote behind someone else’s purchase.'

https://www.bloomberg.com/diversity-inclusion/blog/top-10-th...