I understand of course, that these are NAS members, prominent scientists, but on the other hand, the chief editor is Steven Pacala, of "Wedgies" fame, who famously wrote, with Socolow, the 2004 paper indicating that we could solve all of our climate problems with then existing technology.
S. Pacala R. Socolow, Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies Science 305, 968-972 (2004).
In the week beginning August 15, 2004, two days after this "earth shattering" wedgie idea was announced to the world with great fanfare, the concentration of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere was 375.98 ppm.
On Wednesday of this week, it was 419.37 ppm.
October 18: 419.37 ppm
October 17: 419.66 ppm
October 16: 419.53 ppm
October 15: 419.81 ppm
October 14: Unavailable
Last Updated: October 19, 2023
Recent Daily Average Mauna Loa CO2
Those "existing" wedgies in 2004 did nothing at all to stop the rise of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide by over 43 ppm in less than 20 years.
Pacala and Socolow are institutionally associated with Princeton. Princeton University is an intellectual community where everybody's been carrying on endlessly about how the existence of nuclear power makes nuclear war a sure thing. Of course the only nuclear war that ever took place, some 68 years ago, took place before a single commercial nuclear plant existed anywhere on the planet. Notably over at Princeton, they don't give a rat's ass over there about any other kind of war, including those killing people right now, and apparently they have all come to the conclusion that fear of a risk of nuclear war outweighs the reality of the planet bursting into flames because all we can do is to rehash the same line of crap and wishful thinking handed out in the "Wedgies" paper.
Over at Princeton, they still have metaphorical "duck and cover" drills led by Frank Von Hippel.
I do understand that Robert Oppenheimer used to work just down the road, but still...
As for the "wedgies," they didn't work.
In 2023, air pollution is creating a death toll equivalent to the nuclear attack on Hiroshima every three or four days, and has been doing so for decades.
People can lie to each other and to themselves, but numbers don't lie.
If tiresome dogma is chanted repeatedly by a National Academy of Sciences team rather than a congregation in a fundamentalist church, it is still tiresome dogma.
We are not going to "save" the world with soothsaying about plans to rip the surface of the Earth apart for mines for unsustainable fantasies and by covering every last shred of wilderness with industrial parks for the display of semiconductors and rickety greasy towers on which no reliance can be placed.
It was garbage thinking in 2004, and it remains garbage thinking in 2023.
Have a happy Friday.
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