Kasz216 said: A) In regards to this part. Unfortunitly Research isn't like it is in say, Civilization, where you can put your taxes more towards beakers and science will develop things lineraly quicker.
B) Further more, it wouldn't drive the economy if the technology was free.
C) Essentially global warming would rely on completely unknown tech, because current tech and methods just couldn't work. Outside of argueably Nuclear which in of itself can be problematic. The big issue with most renewable technology is essentially how to store energy for peak times, and how to adjust quickly and how to store energy. Solutions unlikely to be solved anytime soon, and if they are, good luck getting them to a cheap enough level.
D) Assuming we did discover this, we're talking decades before we could even finish building the plants needed to harness this... by then chances are it's far to late as the carbon feedback loop will have started. (assuming it hasn't already.)
E) If the US completely stopped emitting all hydrocarbons today. It would make zero change in global warming. it'd just get burned elsewhere. Stopped mining? It'd make a difference. A very small one however.
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A) Being a mathematician and mathematical physicist, I think I know how research works better than you do. And more money for scientific research will accelerate the process of actual research, because right now, there's a severe lack of funding for research of all sorts, due in part to the GFC and countries going on austerity binges (if you don't mind the minor contradiction in that phrase).
B) I didn't say that the results of the research would drive the economy. I said that spending money on the research would, itself, stimulate the economy. As in, during the research stage, not the application stage.
C) You assume that it would rely on such tech. In fact, there's a hell of a lot of research already being done on things like improving efficiency on solar cells (my PhD supervisor's first PhD student worked on mathematical modelling of solar cells to that end, in fact), improving efficiency of batteries (my supervisor's own work had to do with battery cathodes), addressing the concerns of nuclear waste (my own PhD was related to this, although it didn't involve the nuclear waste stage at all), and many other things that would help. But as I said, there's an issue of lack of funding at the moment, and there are many ideas that haven't had the benefit of dedicated research. And that's before you factor in the research into improving energy efficiency of other things (such as, for instance, air conditioning of office buildings - I've seen a job opening for mathematical modelling of that sort of thing).
On a related point, even with just ideas, some of these sorts of things are being addressed... like this.
D) I wasn't just talking about improving power generation (although that's certainly a major concern). Power consumption is just as important. And research into climate itself is also part of the work that needs to be done. I can tell you right now, Climate modellers are crying for more research money so that they can employ more researchers, at least here in Australia. Just being able to get a more accurate model of the climate itself would enable them to better test ideas for stopping the positive feedback problem. Carbon capture, as another example, needs more research.
E) Hence the need for results to be patent-free, so that they may be implemented throughout the world. Even if some countries would see the resulting technology as too expensive for them, it's likely that other organisations would help to implement them, if there were concrete demonstration that doing so would help to save the world.
Note that I'm not an American - I'm Australian. You mention what impact the US ceasing all hydrocarbon emissions would have. I'm concerned about the entire world. And for the entire world to address the problem, the "rich" nations need to put money into research. We need to find ways to enable the "poor" nations to grow without further destroying our world, and we need to find ways to reduce the destruction caused by our own activities. America, in particular, needs to stop passing the buck by going "but such-and-such a country isn't doing it, so why should we?". The answer to the question, by the way, is because you're always claiming to be world leaders, and you're obscenely wealthy compared to the other countries that haven't signed on to the various protocols. Australia under John Howard also refused - thankfully, we now have more reasonable leaders that have made a major push towards reducing our emissions. That's right - a country that produces far less than America is doing everything it can.