Renewable energy's record year helps uncouple growth of global economy and CO2 emissions

[The2ndWheel]

3. Well for me, I think that we can grow on pretty much anything if we put our minds to it

Which is at least just as worrisome as anything carbon related. The seemingly unlimited human imagination coupled with potentially limitless energy? I can picture a few ways we can screw things up a little more with that, since the problem isn't simply just carbon.

But then I don't think anything we do will solve the most basic problem. That being, the planet and physical reality being finite. It either is or it isn't, and what kind of energy we use cannot change that. We can't have everything. We can't have a planet molded for human beings, and at the same time the various other forms of life that exist. We can have a few squirrels, some small birds, and whatever we put in a zoo, but that's probably about it. If we do find a limitless source of energy, I have little doubt that the planet will be further molded into the images we have inside our heads.

We're really too big to fail at this point. Now, I'm pretty sure that we can't stop that process, and I don't even know if we should if we could. If a lion could build a conveyor belt with gazelle after gazelle after gazelle on it, it probably would.