We ALL know what needs to happen. We ALL know… there is no way the human race can continue on this path. We also ALL know that we (now using the royal “we”) will never ever do what needs to be done. We will sacrifice our children, our grandchildren, our pets, our friends and their offspring, one and all, each and every one, to keep that bit of comfort, warmth, and ease that is given by modern life.

We insist, wail, scream…”There simply MUST be a cheat-code, a technicality, a loophole, that will enable us to carry on as usual…driving, mining, burning, spreading poisonous filth into the water and soil…knowing all the while that this hope is futile.

We all know it. But we will all carry on, pretending that our action of putting our gum wrappers in the proper receptacle will somehow save the species.

But we know. We know.

...a role.

I often experience, even here on DU, people who insist on what the Trumpers called "Alternate facts."

There is, of course, no such thing as "alternate facts," but that doesn't stop people from insisting there is.

This occurred for me recently in this forum, connected with a technical issue that is easily addressed by clicking on a few links.

It most frequently appears here among anti-nukes, and on the outside, as is well known, by the media which elevates ignorance as "debate," and of course, Republicans.

Personally, I can't tell whether at the core these people really know the truth, since they make extreme efforts to avoid it.

Many of us do know. I certainly do. You certainly do. But lies have always been powerful, never more so than today, and the consequences of these lies fall not only on the liars themselves, but on every human being, and, in fact, on every living thing.

I don't believe nuclear is a solution. Not really. If everything was magically shifted to nuclear tomorrow, YES, it would be much much better. But in reality what it would bring about is more population, more food requirements etc. What is the nuclear replacement for potash? For other fertilizers? What is the nuclear replacement for dead zones in the oceans caused by those fertilizers? What is the nuclear replacement for ecosystems overrun by humans? What is the nuclear replacement for plastics? OK, that last one we could maybe work around with new materials (myco plastics?), but...

I am talking about a solution on geological time scales. The only solution I see is is a return to a hunter-gatherer type society worldwide.

No. No I do not, in any even very very remote sense see that happening. Not in the least, not in my wildest dreams. Even though, by what I have read, those societies are happier and have more free time. We are a part of nature that has separated itself from nature, and there is no going back. We would rather our descendants die in the most gruesome horrible way possible...starvation, suffocation, poisoning...than face a future without free porn-on-demand, heated swimming pools, jet travel, etc.

I was fortunate enough to live in a time, an era, a place (the "western world" ), when all but the poorest of us lived as the ancients believed their gods existed.

I do not believe our children will be as fortunate.

What I have repeatedly said that nuclear is not risk free, but is merely better than everything else.

In a rational world that would be enough.

This said, the questions you raised with material constraints, potash and other fertilizers, in particular, ammonia are better addressed by nuclear than any other form of energy.

Ammonia is currently manufactured using dangerous natural gas to generate hydrogen for the Haber-Bosch process. Hydrogen is available from nuclear energy either via electrolysis or (better) by thermochemical reforming.

Potash, which is merely potassium is easily obtained from seawater using heat. (The 500 billion curies of radioactivity in the ocean is, in fact, largely a product of the decay of naturally occurring K-40.) We use about 90 million tons of potash per year on this planet for fertilizer. This is a trivial amount, if we have energy.

Recovery of carbon dioxide from dead zones in the oceans, along with - which are driven by phosphorous and nitrate driven eutrophication - is available by heat driven reformation of the biomass driving eutrophication. I note that in particular, in Louisiana, the dead zone has expanded because of the lie that ethanol is "renewable energy." I absolutely believe that the phosphorous cycle can only be addressed by seawater intake on a massive scale, as can water shortages. Desalination is risk free, but is preferable to mindless embrace of poverty.

As it happens, the US Gulf coast would be an excellent place to restore, since the Gulf of Mexico has suffered the most damage from industrial use of any other major body of water with the possible exception of the Persian Gulf. Regrettably the US Gulf Coast is bordered by populations featuring the highest concentrations of ignoramuses in the United States, which is not to say that everyone there is ignorant, but is to point out that ignorant people are overly represented there. (The moderator of this forum is from Alabama, and he is one of the smartest people on DU.)

I have often fantasized about the Gulf of Mexico becoming rather than a source of climate change, a resource for reversing climate change. I know it is technically feasible, but it is not socially feasible, at least for now, and thus remains a fantasy.

Since nuclear energy is extremely dense - the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant has a 12 acre footprint compared to thousands of square miles of wind farms in California - and the Diablo Canyon plant often produces more power than all the wind turbines in California, replacing the wind turbine garbage with a few nuclear plants would restore Wilderness devoted to energy industrial parks in that State. Land use is the most important advantage for nuclear energy. Anyone serious about land use should embrace nuclear energy. Often they don't - so called "climate activists" often call for the willful destruction of land areas - but there is a difference between "should" and "are."

I have been thinking these issues through for 30 years because I, for one, have not given up on ideas. I'm sharing them with my son as much as is possible before I kick off.

Now, there are some problems with seawater processing to be sure. They are not risk free, but they are risk minimized. The sea is the least damaged matrix we have left; in many ways it's the richest. It's damaged, to be sure, but it is the most resilient matrix.

Now, the solution you propose, returning to hunter gathering is not a solution but rather a surrender and is reactionary in the extreme. It is actually worse than the reactionary return to so called "renewable energy" which was abandoned in the 19th century for a reason.

It is well known that birth rates fall to below the replacement level precisely in those cultures where poverty is largely addressed.

What nuclear energy is not capable of addressing is stupidity, cynicism, laziness, indifference, and ignorance.

My view is that nevertheless none of these issues, stupidity, cynicism, laziness, indifference, and ignorance can be addressed without addressing poverty, and at the risk of engaging in a tautology; stupidity, cynicism, laziness, indifference, and ignorance are the causes of poverty.

Addressing poverty requires not only psychological energy; it requires physical energy as well. The uranium and thorium already mined can easily provide 600 exajoules of energy per year for centuries to come.

The Earth is well beyond its biological carrying capacity to be sure, and has been so for well more than half a century. I don't agree however that all of us committing suicide is a serious proposal for addressing the issue. Much can be saved, and much can be restored.

I have convinced myself that technical solutions do exist, but only in a rational world. This caveat, the requirement for a rational world, is the biggest impediment. Rationality is the only thing in short supply in the world, certainly in the United States, and as I have surely seen for myself, even on DU. Access to energy, physical or psychological needn't be. Right now it is, but it needn't be.

Have a happy New Year.

Trying to clear all that away and make simple comments for public consumption is difficult.

When I was in graduate school, sometimes the professor would tell us to write a paper or answer a test question so "Aunt Fanny" could understand it. Aunt Fanny is a mythical aunt who is intelligent but knows nothing about science or the topic at hand.
It was not easy to write in this style.

Today's public is even more difficult because they are less educated, more hostile, and anti-science.

No one (except for that mythical aunt that won't use a cell phone) is "anti-science"...they use cell phones, gps, the latest automobile tire (to get the best traction)...etc etc etc.

As long as that science tells them what they want to hear. As soon as the science suggests they have to give up some comfort, or speed, or convenience...pffft, shoot them f'n science nerds in the face!

I hate to generalize but as a person of science, it has been my experience that we tend to be a bit on the less social end of the continuum. (Generally speaking only).

Let scientists focus on what they do, which has become more and more highly specialized. Don't ask them to be well-rounded.