“NotZero” insanity

I’m having a “debate” with a climate change denier on Twitter (who’d have guessed?). Part of the exchange is the fact that this man – because it’s always a man – claims that the costs of attempting to reach Net Zero, the point at which our carbon emissions are balanced with the amount of carbon stored in the ground rather than the sky, are too high, particularly the social costs. He claimed that solar PVs are not the cheapest form of energy because the costs for inverters and installation haven’t fallen as fast as the costs for the panels themselves. Our exchange continued ignoring the implications of not attempting to reach NetZero. My rebuttal was this:

Let’s take into account the whole process chain. You have to mine the silicon and bauxite (perhaps. Aluminium is the second-most recycled material after glass); you build the panels; you transport the panels. All this has a big carbon cost. You install the panels and they only work during the day! In 25 years, you’ll need to recycle those panels and get newer ones (that will probably capture and convert more of the energy) and begin the whole process again. Compare that to the carbon cost of oil, petrol, “natural” gas or coal. You have the carbon cost (and monetary cost) of extraction. You have both costs of refinement and you have the cost of transportation (there’s no such thing as “home-grown, local, organic seasonal fossil fuel”) and then when you get it, there’s the carbon and monetary cost of burning it after which, you have to do it all again. That’s insane. That’s the real cost of “NotZero”. We’re better than that.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I haven’t had a reply. I wouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t blocked me in a “nah, nah, nah, not listening” fit of pique. This often happens with climate deniers, they only want to hear from people who will confirm their bias. I don’t have any scientific training past school, so when someone says that climate change is not real, I always want to know more because, let’s face it, it would make life so much easier if we don’t need to change anything. I’d love to think that increased CO2 is great because it’s “plant food” without also having some knowledge that the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has two main effects, as I understand it. It traps heat reflected from the Earth that would normally escape to space and it binds to water molecules to create carbonic acid. The effects are that a warmer atmosphere holds more water, which comes down all of a sudden leading to simultaneous drought and flood conditions. The carbonic acid acidifies oceans and warms them, too. I wish that wasn’t the case, that one of these deniers will have a good argument, some proof that they are right.