Recently, large U.S. corporations have voiced their displeasure with the declared position of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on the controversial subject of Climate Change.  Several large and well respected companies and their representatives as well as the U.S. Secretary of Energy, Dr. Chu, have questioned the position of the Chamber.  Their opinions have found extensive media coverage.  What are these issues about? 

 

Continuing burning of fossil fuels increases the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and changes irreversibly the energy flows from Sun to Earth and from Earth to Outer Space.  Planet Earth is warming, ice on mountains and in Polar Regions is melting, and coastal areas across the world are slowly but indefensibly submersed by rising seawaters.

 

Countermeasures like the Kyoto agreement, cap and trade, carbon taxes, hydrogen economy, and electric cars are fool’s gold.  Instead world economies must stop all fossil fuel burning and must produce electric power by converting inexhaustible solar energy and nuclear heat.  Scientists must imitate nature and must produce petroleum substitutes from biomass.  Only natural photosynthesis processes can recycle carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by utilizing solar energy and by recycling carbon dioxide while not increasing atmospheric greenhouse gas accumulation.

 

World governments have only one single option for defending Earth against overheating.  Simultaneously, they must assure that world economies continue their growth and prevent politically risky recessions and depressions.

 

World economies cannot continue with past practices of using fossil fuels for generating electricity and burning petroleum for powering their huge transportation fleets of automobiles, trucks, trains, ships, and airplanes.  Accelerating the discharge of greenhouse gases into the Earth’s atmosphere will irreversibly result in continually rising global temperatures. 

 

Cap and trade measures, carbon taxes, electric cars, and energy conservation efforts will unavoidably lead to more expensive energy supplies.  Energy supplies will become more and more unaffordable.  Costs of doing business will skyrocket. 

 

In addition, living conditions will become less bearable due to ever increasing temperatures and more violent windstorms, more severe and frequent droughts, and more powerful and destructive floods.

 

The only acceptable and long-term viable option is the exclusive use of solar energy and of nuclear heat for electric power generation and the conversion of naturally grown biomass into petroleum substitutes by imitating natural conversion processes. 

 

Our Earth receives from the Sun an inexhaustible amount of energy, which can be converted into unlimited amounts of electricity.  The world also has plenty of arid, barren, or fallow lands for growing virtually inexhaustible and infinitely sustainable amounts of biomass.  Nature has proven that biomass can be converted into petroleum.

 

Now comes the time when world governments must choose between these two, very well defined options. 

 

Continuing with century old practices of burning ever increasing amounts of fossil fuels will sentence world communities and economies to a slow but certain death by global overheating in the near future.  This solution is fiercely supported by the folks that brought us the last financial crisis and that want to continue with their obscene exploitation of the politically less powerful citizens of the world.

 

The more benign, more promising, and permanently viable option is the complete changeover of fossil fuel based energy sources to the exclusive utilization of renewable energies from the Sun.  

 

Replacing fossil fuel based energy supplies completely with solar energy is becoming technically possible.  Sun energy is inexhaustible and will last forever.  Best of all, solar energy based energy conversion processes do not result in global warming and will not harm the environment.  Better yet, it is conceptually possible to restore the lower carbon dioxide levels, which were prevalent during the last, the twentieth century, and to reduce contemporary global temperatures.  This cleanup process is, however, dependent on the availability of inexpensive and abundant, clean energy supplies.  It can be applied only after the changeover from fossil fuels to solar energy is complete and after world economies are growing strongly and are prospering predictably again.

 

A total conversion from fossil energy supplies to solar energy will have huge benefits for world economies.  The fear of overheating will be banned, energy costs will remain affordable even for less wealthy countries, and world economies can be sustainably provisioned with renewable and affordable clean energy for centuries.

 

Steady economic growth can be maintained, a huge number of new jobs can be created, and the threat of skyrocketing petroleum prices can be eliminated effectively.

 

Most of the required energy conversion technologies are already available.  However, not all are economically viable, yet.  The outlook for solar power and wind power to become cost competitive is excellent.  There is one caveat.  A few auxiliary, more advanced energy storage technologies still await development.  The world will become independent of fossil fuels as soon as these new technologies will be available. 

 

Hydrogen conversion and storage, which at one time was promoted as a new energy supply option, can become such an urgently needed, intermittent energy carrier and storage option.  Other storage technologies for the temporary sequestering of mechanical energy and heat energy are conceivable and must find application.

 

Copenhagen is the next meeting place where world governments and citizens must make a choice between two very different energy supply options.

 

Do they want to choose a world of haves and have-nots?  A world, where the haves collect billions of dollars for gambling, get paid by governments when they lose, and then buy themselves palatial retreats in Wyoming or the Alps, where they can endure the effects of global warming joyfully?

 

Or are world citizens more concerned about the generations that are following us, believe “that all Men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights”, and are willing to fight for the rights of their offspring?

 

Science and technology have given us centuries of global industrialization and unimaginable economic growth derived from fossil fuels.  But growth was tied to a Faustian provision; the threat of Global Overheating.

 

Science and technology are now offering again a better future for mankind based on inexhaustible solar energy.  Unfortunately, there is again a Faustian provision; the world must manage nuclear proliferation during an interim period when electricity generation must be powered by nuclear energy instead of energy from fossil fuels.

Is it possible that the upcoming Copenhagen Climate Change Meeting can offer realistic proposals for mitigating, terminating, or even reversing climate changes?  The almost certain answer is a resounding No. 

 

Most likely the discussions and final recommendations will be limited to the typical response by politicians; reduce emissions by 30, 40, or 50 percent in a distant year, preferably far in the future.  Nobody of the proposing and consenting representatives will have the foggiest notion anyhow what such a commitment might necessitate.  However, every representative of the many visiting delegations will go home with a feeling of accomplishment. 

 

After all, they just attended an important meeting, listened to many talks, and were reminded that the Earth could soon be confronted with a tipping point, a major climatic or economic event, after which mitigation will not be feasible any longer and after which only adaptation to a miserable future remains a realistic option.

 

Should world citizens not expect more and demand other, more promising, more inspired prospects for future generations and for their offspring?

 

Unfortunately, mitigation is expensive.  Additionally, only one single concept has been proposed that can indeed halt global warming and resulting climate changes.  The Kyoto Protocol is not even about adaptation; it is all about capitulation to the continuing overheating of planet Earth.  Kyoto can only slow global heating.  Kyoto and its derivatives cannot stop it.

 

Imposing carbon taxes, utilizing carbon dioxide sequestration, slowing economic activities, restricting energy use, and curtailing greenhouse gas emissions will slow global warming.  Using a large car or a small car for committing suicide by idling it in a garage does not change the end result; it only changes the time leading to certain death.

 

The wealth of developed countries like the USA, Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany is based on the very high energy usage of their industries and individuals in the past and nowadays.  These countries have used immense amounts of fossil fuel energy to build huge infrastructures for their industries, transportation systems, information systems, energy supply systems, manufacturing facilities, and for day to day use by their businesses and citizens.

 

After decades of denying the effects of advancing industrialization and escalating energy use on the Earth’s climate, a vast majority of scientists and governments is beginning to admit that fossil fuel combustion is the root cause of global warming and climate changes. 

 

Consensus is building that the present level of fossil energy consumption is resulting in continuing carbon dioxide emissions, which in turn are resulting in increased carbon dioxide concentrations in the Earth’s atmosphere.  Endless discharges of carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels are much larger than the amounts that can be removed by natural processes like absorption in oceans and freshwaters. 

 

Any excess carbon dioxide production, which cannot be removed, stays in the Earth’s atmosphere and cannot be retrieved anymore.  The resulting, higher levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are changing the flows of energy from the Sun to our Earth and from Earth to Outer Space.  As a result, the Earth is slowly heating up.  Average global temperatures are increasing and will eventually lead to the death by overheating of many biological species and systems. 

 

The only viable solution for eliminating the threat of an incipient tipping or turning point is the immediate cessation of all fossil fuel burning!  Such a tipping point can either be a climatic event like e.g. a change in the path of the Gulf Stream, the descent of a huge ice slab into the ocean, or an economic condition like e.g. the worldwide lack of economic resources for ending fossil fuel combustion and for replacing fossil energies with renewable and sustainable solar energies and biomass.

 

All presently proposed approaches for controlling global warming and climate changes are based on an ill conceived concept that is fundamentally flawed and is incapable of saving Earth from overheating!

 

The proof of this statement is rather simple.  Increasing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is caused by excessive fossil fuel burning.  World economies must continue their growth; they cannot prosper without increasing their energy consumption by burning ever more fossil fuels.  Without continuing economic growth, world economies will not be able to implement a radical change in energy supplies by replacing fossil fuels with renewable energies.

 

There is no other choice; fossil fuel energy supplies must be replaced completely with energies from the Sun and from nuclear fuels.

 

Such a changeover is technically possible and can be accomplished as long as world economies are allowed to prosper and grow.  Only while economies are performing productively and are growing strongly can the resources needed for changing world energy supplies be provided without forcing the world into a lasting depression.

 

This changeover will be expensive and will require a long time for implementation.  World governments must agree to this solution soon.  The earlier the changeover is started, the more likely it is that this changeover can be implemented on time.  Saving energy without increasing energy costs will assist in making the change.  Rationing energy supplies and increasing energy costs will slow economies and will be counterproductive.

 

Adhering to the concepts of the Kyoto Treaty will sentence our Earth to a slow death by global overheating, inundation of coastal areas, and economic and cultural decay.