Last night I was listening to some "expert" talking about global warming, and he was saying that current forecasts suggest that it won't be until 2080 or thereabouts that the use of fossil fuels will start diminishing. That is, the use of fossil fuels for energy is going to keep increasing until 2080, and then start to subside. A lot of this is because of all the people in China, India and Brazil that are making their way out of the lower class into the middle class and wanting to buy cars. Also, many countries have abundant coal resources and don't want to be importing oil and LNG as long as they can use their own coal reserves to provide the energy they need.

This week, Barak Obama and the Chinese Prime Minister signed a deal saying that both countries would begin reducing their carbon footprints by 2030. Obama is a lame duck president and he knows that anything he signs will not bind the next President of the USA. The Chinese Prime Minister knows that he's not likely to still be in power by 2030 either.

The bottom line here is that our society is based on fossil fuels. Our cities have suburbs where people live 10 or more miles from the city centers where they work. If it were not for cars and gasoline, those suburbs would not be practical. Also, cities are growing, and most new houses and buildings use fossil fuels for heat and use electricity produced by burning fossil fuels for air conditioning. That's simply because using fossil fuels for heat costs less than electricity, and will for the foreseeable future. And, while we may be able to use electric cars to commute to work, what will aeroplanes be powered with except hydrocarbon fuels? Our entire society runs on fossil fuels, and it's going to take several generations to change to a non-carbon based society. It's easy enough for people to complain about the problem, but changing our society to a carbon neutral one is going to be a very slow process if it happens at all.