Elon Musk on Climate Change

Elon Musk’s short talk on climate change (uploaded as “Elon Musk’s Unbelievably Simple 12-minute Killer Break Down on Climate Change”), as Kyle took notes on it, with the slides he screenshotted.

Why it was kept

Kyle kept Musk’s framing that civilization is designed to be very sensitive to climate change, that the fossil-fuel age will end regardless, that the problem is an “untaxed negative externality” (“whatever you incentivize will happen”), and that a revenue-neutral carbon tax is the way to win support on both left and right.

As Kyle captured it

• Watched Elon Musk talk about Climate Change
  • URL:: {{video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=xKCuDxpccYM}}
  • Notes::
    • Carbon in the atmosphere has increased dramatically
      • 
    • Majority of people on the planet live right on the coast line which exacerbates the threat
    • “We’ve essentially designed civilization to be super sensitive to climate change.”
    • Hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, Nuclear Energy
    • “We want to use energy sources that will be good for a billion years.”
    • It’s a matter of fact that the fossil fuel age will end because we will run out of carbon to burn
      • 
    • Incentives are misaligned in an unhealthy market riddled with hidden subsidies
      • “Untaxed negative externality.”
      • “Whatever you incentivize will happen. That’s why you have very little change today.”
    • Saying “scientists disagree” is the same thing that they did with smoking. They find a few scientists who disagree and then confuse the public.
    • To try and make this bipartisan support you can make it a revenue-neutral activity (get support on the right and the left)
      • 

Connections

Elon Musk · Climate Change · Nuclear Energy · Incentives · Carbon Removal