{"id":65094,"date":"2023-02-24T08:54:49","date_gmt":"2023-02-24T13:54:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65094"},"modified":"2023-02-24T08:54:49","modified_gmt":"2023-02-24T13:54:49","slug":"a-road-map-that-misses-some-turns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=65094","title":{"rendered":"A road map that misses some turns"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A road map that misses some turns<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n
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A review of No Miracles Needed<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mark Jacobson\u2019s new book, greeted with hosannas by some leading environmentalists, is full of good ideas \u2013 but the whole is less than the sum of its parts.<\/p>\n

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No Miracles Needed<\/strong><\/em>, by Mark Z. Jacobson, published by\u00a0Cambridge University Press<\/a>, Feb 2023. 437 pages.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The book is\u00a0No Miracles Needed: How Today\u2019s Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air<\/a><\/em>\u00a0(Cambridge University Press, Feb 2023).<\/p>\n

Jacobson\u2019s argument is both simple and sweeping: We can transition our entire global economy to renewable energy sources, using existing technologies, fast enough to reduce annual carbon dioxide emissions at least 80% by 2030, and 100% by 2050. Furthermore, we can do all this\u00a0<\/span>while avoiding any major economic disruption such as a drop in annual GDP growth, a rise in unemployment, or any drop in creature comforts. But wait \u2013 there\u2019s more! In so doing, we will also completely eliminate pollution.<\/p>\n

Just don\u2019t tell Jacobson that this future sounds miraculous.<\/p>\n

The energy transition technologies we need \u2013 based on Wind, Water and Solar power, abbreviated to WWS \u2013 are already commercially available, Jacobson insists. He contrasts the technologies he favors with \u201cmiracle technologies\u201d such as geoengineering, Carbon Capture Storage and Utilization (CCUS), or Direct Air Capture of carbon dioxide (DAC). These latter technologies, he argues, are unneeded, unproven, expensive, and will take far too long to implement at scale; we shouldn\u2019t waste our time on such schemes.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The final chapter helps to understand both the hits and misses of the previous chapters. In \u201cMy Journey\u201d, a teenage Jacobson visits the smog-cloaked cities of southern California and quickly becomes aware of the damaging health effects of air pollution:<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A road map that misses some turns A review of No Miracles Needed Mark Jacobson\u2019s new book, greeted with hosannas by some leading environmentalists, is full of good ideas \u2013 but the whole is less than the sum of its parts. No Miracles Needed, by Mark Z. Jacobson, published by\u00a0Cambridge University Press, Feb 2023. 437 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[11879,11876,16655,33742],"class_list":["post-65094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-an-outside-chance","tag-bart-hawkins-kreps","tag-mark-jacobson","tag-no-miracles-needed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=65094"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65095,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65094\/revisions\/65095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=65094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=65094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=65094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}