zlacker

>>Brajes+(OP)
I'm starting to wonder whether the conventional wisdom of reducing carbon emissions in favour of more electricalisation is really solving the actual problem. As is often pointed out on HN, electrical cars are substantially heavier than their fossil fueled alternatives, and generate other pollution along the way. Furthermore, we're digging our lithium brines from the environment, without really understanding what all this lithium will do once it's leached out into the environment or what impact the mines themselves will have.

With the recent advances of turning CO2 into other substances, such as propane, should we be focusing more on closing the carbon cycle and simply be producing fossil fuels from the waste products of yesteryear?

Naively, it feels like we understand C, O and H, better than we understand some of the rare metals we're now introducing in the name of climate change.

>>alexch+Ei
CO2 levels have gone up by a third just since I've been alive.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to work out that that's an enormous problem that must be solved. To be honest, with the house well and truly on fire, who cares about hypotheticals like lithium leaching.

I feel the graphs on this site are underselling the problem. The scale should be "last 60 years", "last 30 years". The changes we are making to the environment are profound and speak for themselves.