I’m curious, are you American and you just don’t realize the size of the Eurozone? Or are you European and you’re blaming the US for European liberalism?
This actually comes down to petrodollars. As long as oil is bought and sold in USD’s, the reserve is fixed.
I disagree. Claiming Musk has morals which prevent him from turning people into political pawns is akin to claiming Jeffery Dahmer really didn’t enjoy the taste…
I am American. I do not underestimate the size of the Eurozone. Their combined GDP puts them on a similar footing to China.
The Eurozone actually denotes a currency standard, not a sovereign standard, so sovereign nation GDP is typically broken out in calculation rankings…
As long as we are lumping the Eurozone into one basket, I would point you to the $1.65 trillion of American debt held by the 27 member nations. Japan only holds 1.06 trillion and China has shed American debt to a level of only 590 billion.
I would suggest holding the greatest percentage of foreign debt from what is arguably the most indebted nation in human history, who appears to be dragging the world back to a pre-WW2 economic footing, is the 800 pound gorilla in your room.
Yes, the debt is at the point where it will start making credit hard to come by for smaller borrowers. But to get things back at least to my comments,
Elon Musk doesn’t have much power over the future. CO2 does.
I agree completely. Musk is a sideshow.
CO2 has been known to fluctuate over the past 800,000 years based on ice core data. Pre-industrial peaks never broke the 300ppm ceiling. Currently, conventional wisdom places CO2 levels over 430ppm.
This is the slow death option more commonly referred to as extinction. The human desire to engineer complexity to counteract the forces of nature is a theme not likely to go away…until we do… This is not a flaw in design…it’s a feature…
As George Carlin used to say, “The planet is fine. The planet isn’t going anywhere. We are…”
My perspective here differs slightly from yours. Musk, CO2—all of these exert a certain power over the notions currently forming in our minds regarding the future. In this sense, they function as guiding principles for our actions.
Consider the prevailing narrative: “we must switch to electric vehicles.” For many, this is an obvious proposition. But why is it considered obvious? Because, we are told, oil is running out, the ozone layer has holes, and CO2 levels are rising. These premises are presented as being as indisputable as the fact that the sun shines.
The point, however, is that these are abstract concepts—things neither you nor I have observed firsthand (I am not disputing them, merely highlighting the structure of the underlying thought process).
In reality, I have never personally seen crude oil, CO2, or an ozone hole. Yet, those who tell these stories—despite my lack of direct experience—have convinced me that these premises are true. The result? I go out and buy an electric vehicle.
My point is this: I am not entirely convinced that these issues are significant enough to warrant shaping my consumer preferences. That is precisely where the power of these narratives lies.
While those who wield such influence may not be physically present beside us at every moment, their voices steer the course of our desires and preferences. Can we be truly certain that these narratives—and their widespread acceptance—have been subjected to proper scrutiny?
I don’t think it matters what sort of car you buy. China is in the process of building more than 50 coal burning power plants. They’re building more coal plants in a year than India did in a decade.
I was skeptical about climate change until I slogged through a textbook on the subject. The best scrutiny is your own eyes (and brain).
The science on climate change is long established and has only been cast into doubt, where that doubt is found, by dishonest actors paid by fossil fuel corporations. Followed by populists using scepticism to boost their following.
The science is very simple and is unarguable. It’s simply about the levels in the atmosphere of one gas CO2. The way the greenhouse effect works was discovered by Eunice Newton Foote (1856) and has been re-established many times since then.
The only thing we are uncertain about is how it will manifest and what the consequences will be. We are beginning to see the effects play out now. Musk is clever enough to understand this and get into the electric car game. But his vision of humanity living off planet, or even on Mars is a pipe dream. We are going to have to deal with it here on the ground.
Why do you think this?
It’s the inability of the human body to survive in these environments. It might be possible to construct a space vehicle which is habitable, but it would be incredibly expensive and would need high levels of maintenance just to operate. And the number of people it could support would only be a handful.
I do expect it to be done in the future, but not for a long time.
So you mean it’s a pipedream right now. Maybe future humans will overcome the challenges and do it successfully.
Yes, I’m thinking in maybe 400, 500 years time.
I think that will be during the most volatile part of the heat spike. Things might settle out after a few thousand years. Maybe we can shoot for 5000 years. We need to be able to approach the speed of light, so maybe they’ll have that technology then.
By the way, this is a video about time dilation and how it might be possible to scoot around the universe without breaking physics:
