[aerohead]

Originally Posted by sendler

A focused effort by modern societies can accomplish amazing things. Witness the sudden build up and transformation for World War II by the USA. Which cost 4.1 Trillion over four years in adjusted dollars and was financed with a 94% top income tax bracket creating a de facto maximum income of $2 million adjusted/ year. Which generally remained in place until the mid 1950's. And from personal accumulated wealth by selling government issued war bonds that promised a return after the war. Price controls and rationing coupons for food and resources were instituted. Each car was allowed 3 gallons of gas per week unless it had an official use. Media and movies were redirected to develop content to promote the cause. Resource heavy entertainment with the modern day equivalents such as NASCAR and Disney Land would be generally curtailed. Full employment with overtime hours and good pay provided recovery to a middle class which was still lagging from the great depression fifteen years earlier.
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87% of the worlds primary energy consumption is still from fossil carbon and the share actually increased last year due to cheap fracked gas. And the total energy consumption is increasing exponentially due to continued exponential growth of the World economy as they are still correlated at nearly 1:1. As is the consumption of nonrenewable resources such as Phosphorous for fertilizer and Copper for motor windings. To totally rebuild and replace all infrastructure, industrial processes, and machinery, that is not electric, and replace all primary energy generation with wind, solar and storage, and build out all of the transmission to carry the 5 fold increase in electricity, will require a similar War On Climate and War On Resource Depletion effort. Times 10. At least. 40 years of austerity and focus and $40 trillion just for the USA, to pull it off. Maybe twice that in time and money. And it must be a world wide commitment with $200 trillion to invest. And a world wide commitment to prevent the rich from just relocating their assets to the cheapest tax rate country spurring a race to the bottom. As we are already seeing.
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But we must commit soon while we still have the cheap liquid fuel to build the massive projects that we will need and quit squandering our seed corn. "Do not eat the seed corn."

More sophisticated version of same error.