Just sit back and wait. Human beings are sometimes remarkably indulgent of academics who advance hair-brained theories ... until, all of the sudden, they aren't. This theory will be the same.

Although Electric Vehicles are OLD technology (introduced in the USA in 1890), the modern motors, electronics, and storage cells are very new. If we were stuck with Lithium cells we would have to develop cells easier and cheaper to recover, and recovery systems to match. We would get there, but it might take a few years. Luckily there is no long term need for that.

Currently there are several kinds of cells proven to work better (charge faster, hold more, last longer, less fire danger and lower failure rates, cheaper) using multiple new chemistries. Once we work those up and start mass production, we can dump Lithium and all of the Lithium problems. (A couple of my favorite do not NEED to be recycled because the decay to non-toxic chemicals natural to the environment and do no damage. Are also not WORTH recovering because they contain no heavy metals or rare earths. Win/Win!)

Some fun reading: https://greenauthority.com/10-altern...-batteries-79/
although I like the look of the carbon nanotube based cells for portable devices, those are not discussed in many articles yet. (Some scientific journals, but those are a heavy read if you do not work in academia or research.) It is not yet clear if those will scale up for things like cell phones and vehicles.

What theory is that, exactly?

This whole discussion makes me tend to want to start an "Eco-Friendly Electronics Company". But that's a near pipe dream. Sure I can make and sell cell phones but you can only use them in sunlight and they'll never be the equivalent of today's top of the liners. I guess you could build the body of a TV in ... hemp? Something recyclable, but then what about the display and all the electonics inside?

Why would you build an eco friendly cell phone without eco friendly power storage?

Build a Sun Still. Mexican tech

https://www.linuxquestions.org/quest...r-still-36120/

Good stuff, but what has it to do with a nation's (or the world's) carbon balance?

My point more is that it seems very difficult to construct products like cell phones with 100% eco friendly parts, manufacturing process, and disposal.

You will in due time be pleased to learn that four times as many coal-powered generation plants have now been constructed to explain why you are now only able to drive about two hundred miles a day before being forced to wait about eight hours to "refuel."

And, what are these "apparently-unlimited cars" who you see whizzing by you? Well, these are driven by "the elites.'"

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Well, "this is how it goes." After a few years on a $175K-a-year Congressional salary, by which time you have accumulated a multi-hundred-million dollar investment portfolio, at least five $100K-plus cars, and/or four similarly-priced houses, you "kinda sorta lose touch with reality." Because you have decided that you have just left reality behind.

Our "Elites" are driving Tesla.
If it is taking you 8 hours to charge, you are probably charging from a standard wall outlet instead of a fast charging station.
Where are you getting that number of coal fired generation plants, because I see no recent numbers that look anything like that. Most new power in the USA is green or nuclear, because green is CHEAPER and faster to deploy than any fired power generation. 4 times WHAT exactly?
If you can, please provide links. I love to read.

One hundred percent? Not 98 or 58 or 26? Citation please. That just seems conveniently lazy and irresponsible. If you see the world in such a binary, 0 or 1, 100% or 0%, Black and White, Conservative or Liberal filtered lens, Gee!, you never have to research or think! Done and done!... or maybe Dun and Bradstreet.

Academics are responsible for quite a few ills but the wildfires and other carbon-related events of this thread isn't one of them. This is little different than the disinformation campaigns that the Tobacco Industry ran excepting the fact that the Fossil Fuel Industry has orders of magnitude more money, lobbyists, and sympathizers than Tobacco could ever dream of after smoking opium.

On the flip side of this particular coin, Academics know History and are aware how civilizations screw up and evaporate, know Political Science and are aware of what motivates Power and Public Welfare isn't numero uno on the list, know Business and what motivates them and that it is money and shareholders, not "the customer", know Science and respect actual researched evidence and critical thought and have stood up to Fossil Fuel "Move along.... nothing to see here" staus quo "Same as it always was" con job.

Yes Academia is at the core of many recent ills but nothing is so simple as to be All Good or All Bad. Context, premises, motivations and methodology matters. What one individual can do is on it's face minimal unless we include spreading wisdom instead of platitudes to promote acting as a block instead of as blockheads quoting The Company Line (or just deciding everything is fake and assuming instinct is enough) and VOTING as well as acting accordingly.

May I vainly remind folks that I'd welcome at least some posts and all of the arguments *ON* the topic?

What upset me about this was that folks find it unthinkable to sacrifice their luxuries despite being visited by the harrowing side effects of global warming themselves. Everyone agrees we have to go green, as long as their car mileage, carniverous diet, jobs, holidays etc. aren't affected. So lying carbon budgets are national acts of self delusion by the Governments in power. Because rule #1 in politics is:"You must get yourself elected!" The government that tells folks the real truth loses the next election, because the opposition will offer easier terms.

This is a global problem. But imagine as a thought experiment that it wasn't. Imagine if everyone was repaid with the side effects and pollution for their own carbon footprint! Imagine you were.....<Pause for thought>

But as long as that doesn't happen, the 'Global North' can pollute away, and the 'Global South' gets the floods, droughts, desertification, sea level rise, mudslides, etc. Oh the Global North gets some too, wildfires & floods & storms getting worse each year but they don't seem to care. Insurance pays up, and they continue (in the carbon budget anyhow) to sequester carbon. Oh, the centuries of carbon sequestration released last year when the forest burnt doesn't get counted either.It's an inconvenient truth, conveniently omitted.

OTOH, who would vote for a government that phased out meat & dairy within 2-4 years, and severely rationed petrol & diesel? So all those gas guzzling SUVs & 6 litre engines would be ornaments, drastic upheaval would follow for farmers, etc. There'd be well attended riots, and that Government would fall.

So humans are not going to reform. We are going to carry on polluting - 1.5°C, 2.0°C, and the rest, probably up to 4°C deluding ourselves with unrealistic carbon budgets until the climate makes the tough decisions for us, or we are stopped. I expect us to be stopped in line with Bible prophecy. All of which means we don't have much time left. And I deplore the way individually intelligent people are acting so stupidly as nations.

Excellent summary, business_kid!

Let me remind everyone that global warming was discovered back in the 1970's when the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth. It was just beginning then and we could have headed it off for good by arranging to grow our economies a bit more slowly. But no one wanted to do that for a very good reason:

For most of human history economics was a zero-sum game: the only way to make the poor richer was to make the rich poorer. Naturally the rich weren't having that, and they could always afford to pay soldiers to protect their interests. Then we discovered fossil fuels, first coal and then oil and gas. Economic growth became possible and the living standards of the poor worldwide could be raised without the rich having to give up anything. A rising tide lifts all boats. That was the world I grew up in. So no one wanted to believe that growth had to be limited because that would once again require some degree of redistribution of wealth from the greedy rich to the starving poor. And as global warming was only just beginning then, the evidence for it was easily written off, allowing economic growth to continue.

Now global warming has become obvious, but we can no longer solve the problem by just growing our economies a bit more slowly or even contracting them somewhat. Even the slump caused by covid wasn't enough to reduce carbon levels to the neccesary extent. To do that, we'd have to go back to a medieval standard of life. And obviously no one is going to vote for that.

Yes, a time of great tribulation is coming. You don't need to be a Jehovah's Witness or any kind of biblical fundamentalist to believe that. It would be obvious if not a word of the Bible had ever been written. Fortunately I am old so I shall not live to see the worst of it. But I don't envy the generation that is growing up now.

Can you name even one Nation that actually has a literal carbon budget? I think this is an imaginary problem.

The actual situation is Governments promising to achieve "net zero" some time in the distant future (when they are no longer in power), so they needn't give any details beyond "invest in renewables" or similar feel-good sounding things.

I think the problem is more serious than "if we all do our part" and I think that despite personally having a miniscule carbon footprint. Surely if we all increased conservation and reduced our consumption it would have an effect but not nearly so much as banding together to demand restrictions that would certainly affect us all but also put a dent into The Suppliers, the 24/7/365 factory chimneys dumping all manner of poison into the water supply and our atmosphere, not only unchecked, but creating disinformation and receiving multi-billion dollar tax breaks and incentives for bad behaviour.

Unfortunately that is a major change for everyone and change is always slow and more often than not, despite everyone, including me, imagining we are "the Captains of our souls" we are also creatures of habit who don't prefer change... until fires get taller than our asses. It's gonna get worse before it gets substantially better.