I can't help but feel that you are being condescending. Not sure how to react. Statements like "Glad you have caught up to the reality of the situation." are uncalled for. For now, I'll ignore it.

> You keep saying "Why are we doing this?" I guess I don't understand what "this" is.

"This" is many things. The simplest of which is an almost religious attachment to renewable energy as a savior. That is the way it is being sold. The mantra is that we need to switch to renewables as far and wide as possible and as quickly as possible to "save the planet".

So, yeah, why are we doing this when we know it will do absolutely nothing. It's a waste of money, time and resources.

I have no problem with pushing renewables to cleanup our act. Claiming that this will save the planet --which is how this is being sold-- is delusional at best.

> The problem isn't "lets drive across the US on 20 gallons of gas"

No, it is. Because when you do the math and check the purported solutions to see if they pass physics, what you discover it that they are ALL the equivalent of claiming we can drive a bus across the US with only 20 gallons in the tank.

That's the problem. That's another one of the meanings of "this". We are accepting lies as facts. We are making big decisions without demanding that the numbers pass basic process scrutiny. This --that-- is a problem.

> I happen to like civilization (mostly!), so I think I want to try to save it somehow.

Well, then demand that we stop focusing on the wrong thing. You are doing it yourself. You said:

> Switching to zero emissions doesn't fix it, it stops the blood loss

No, it does not. Not even close. When you look at the problem from a larger perspective you quickly realize these single variable "solutions" are false.

I am assuming you are speaking of vehicles, if you mean everything, even industrial processes, well, if there is such a thing as "more impossible" then that is "more impossible".

That's the problem. We are reducing everything to single variable magical solutions when reality is a complex multivariate problem.

Take a moment to list everything that has to happen to switch to zero emissions and quantify it all to the extent possible.

Then go back to my very original observation and answer the simplest question I asked:

How is going to zero emissions --which is impossible-- better than humanity leaving the planet today?

Any solution has to be OVER A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER than humanity leaving the planet. We know this. The natural rate of change is 1 ppm in 500 years. If we want to fix it in 50 years you have to be 1000 times better (actually, far more than that).

The problem keeps coming back to a very uncomfortable baseline. It's like Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. It takes a certain amount of energy to break away from earth's gravitational pull with a rocket. That's the baseline. Any solution that claims to be able to do it faster (in a rocket) either uses insanely more energy or is impossible (I also work in aerospace, helped get astronauts to the International Space Station and, with some luck, will have hardware on the moon in a few years --so, yeah, math and physics are kind of what I do). The baseline when it comes to atmospheric CO2 concentration the no-humans-on-earth scenarios. Anything that claims to be able to do better than that has to answer serious questions and show the math and physics will work on a planetary scale.

I don't know what your background might be. Maybe what I am saying is difficult to process because of this. Not a dig. I just don't know where you are coming from and if things like "Conservation of Energy" mean anything to you at all beyond a google search. I am trying to keep it super simple because I can't make the assumption that readers have the scientific background required for a different approach.