The author shows not that we need to cut our life style due to CO2 emissions, but that we need to work hard to adapt to ever increasing CO2 concentrations. The fear of global warming, err… climate change, has led to a cult of energy “efficiency.’ But increased energy use has always led to improvements in lifestyle. We should thus find ways to make energy cheaper, while adapting to any costs it imposes on the environment.

And, if we are serious about reducing CO2, the best we can do is to increase greatly our use of nuclear energy for electrical production. Nuclear power uses far less land and far fewer resources than solar and wind, while being dramatically more reliable. If cars move towards being electric, as I think they will, we can reduce CO2 while increasing mobility by powering them from nuclear sources. Then we can reserve CO2 emissions for aircraft and other uses where it is the only choice.

There’s another factor, too, in the CO2 equation: the bulk of CO2 emissions, and especially the increase in them, comes from poorer countries that probably are unable, politically, to avoid those increases. When you are a dirt poor urban dweller in India, are you going to continue to remain dirt poor in order to “save the planet?” Not likely.