The irrational minds of the climate kooks

 Maker S. Mark:

If someone proposes a solution to an "existential problem" that has no chance of success, should we be forced to take the problem seriously?

If the climate alarmists truly believe there is a climate emergency, then they should be able to answer the first basic question about "the plan."  Are the numbers in the plan even remotely achievable?  Remember: based on their screeching, we have only twelve years before we all die from "man-made climate change."

To answer that question, let's break part of the plan into the most basic math problem: can we replace 25%, 50%, or 75% of the cars on the road in ten years?  To understand the theoretical possibility, we will simplify this to how many years will it take to replace all vehicles on the road in the U.S.

I will start with how many vehicles are on the road today in the U.S.  According to this link, in 2020, there were 286 million.  I will round that to 300 million to simplify the math.

How many total vehicles are sold every year in the U.S.?  This link answers that an average of a little fewer than 15 million vehicles are sold in the U.S. every year (assuming sold vehicles and production capacity are related).

How many electric vehicles are produced in the US? From this link, we produce fewer than 1 million.  I will round up to one million for my calculation.

The simple math problem is, how many years will it take to replace all the cars in the U.S. with electric vehicles (total in the U.S. rounded up / average production volume per year)?

It is 300M / 15M/year = 20 years.  This assumes two important things: first, there are no new additions into the economy of drivers and vehicles.  Second, that we can convert all production to electric vehicles overnight.

If you believe that we are all going to die in 12 years, we are eight years too late in converting to all electric vehicles even if the underlying assumptions were possible.

This simple math problem shows that the people that are screaming the loudest do not have a serious solution to the existential problem of "man-made climate change."  The automobile situation in the U.S. alone cannot be resolved in twenty years, let alone in ten years.

Here is where the math gets a little more fun:

If we are currently producing 1 million electric vehicles a year, and we are struggling to attain the materials to hit that number, what is the maximum number of electric vehicles we can produce without a "magic wand"?

I will be generous and say we can at best expect to triple production to 3M a year.  If we need 300M to be produced (300M / 3M/year = 100 years), that means that it will take 100 years just to replace all the vehicles on the road.  Companies are already struggling to get the minerals needed for batteries.  When we try to go from 1M to 2M, it will get worse and more expensive.  I can't even image the costs and environmental impact of trying to go from 2M to 3M.  My prediction is that in ten years, the best we can hope to achieve in the U.S. is replacing 10% to 15% of the vehicles on the road with electric vehicles.

Unserious people, who can't do this basic math, definitely cannot comprehend the complex science involved in studying the climate.  The numbers don't lie.  Their solution will not solve the "man-made climate problem" without a magic wand to replace every vehicle in the U.S. in one or even two generations.

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Another factor that should be calculated is what do you do with all the electric cars once the batteries have reached their life span and the cost of replacement is beyond the reach of the owners?  You can blow them up or find bigger landfills. 

See, also:

Doomsday Climate Predictions Meltdown: Arctic Sea Ice Extent Reaches 12-Year Mid-August High