Elon Musk is wrong about climate change

Elon Musk seems to have forgotten some of the basics of how climate change works, so we’re going to set the record straight about it now.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, participated in a call last night with three-time republican nominee for President, Donald Trump.

One portion of this discussion was particularly relevant to our coverage of electric cars and climate change, and thus, it behooves us at Electrek to clear up some of the misconceptions that people might have taken away if they listened in.

Musk, despite previously showing some understanding of climate issues – at one point remarking correctly and succinctly that “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world” – instead tonight repeated several fossil-industry talking points which show a lack of understanding of how climate change works

Mr. Trump, for his part, pushed even more severe climate disinformation than Musk, some of which Musk offered mild pushback to, though Musk largely compromised to a position that is still incorrect. For example, a basic understanding of geometry shows us that higher sea levels result in less shoreline, not more as Mr. Trump suggested.

It should not be a surprise that Mr. Trump showed ignorance of an issue that he has consistently shown ignorance of, so it is less interesting to focus on his comments than on those of a person who has claimed for more than a decade that his personal and corporate missions have been to solve climate change.

To begin with, here are some facts:

• The global climate is warming, and it is warming due to human activity.
• The human activity that is warming the global climate the most is fossil fuel combustion.
• There are other things warming the global climate as well, including the meat industry (both through methane emissions from livestock and through deforestation of the land to grow them and their feed), construction (cement releases significant CO2, though not as much as the previous influences), and others. But fossil fuels are the primary cause.
• That global temperature rise puts many ecosystems out of balance, with disastrous results for those ecosystems.
• Humans rely on functioning ecosystems for their most basic needs – water, air, food, temperature regulation, and so on.
• As ecosystems are disrupted, this will make humans’ lives harder and worse, and lead to greater conflict.
• The fossil fuel industry spends a lot of money and effort to deny and obfuscate these facts, and their tactics have shifted over time, retreating from a hard-line “it’s not happening” position to softer-sounding, but similarly-insidious, positions that still minimize the importance of the problem or delay action.
• The longer we wait to solve climate change, the harder it will be.
• Thus, climate change is a huge and real problem we all need to work to solve quickly, and will require collective cooperation from everyone, whether they be corporations, media, governments, or individuals.

Now that we all understand some basics facts about climate change, we must address some of the points that were made.

CO2 is rising rapidly, and is already too high

In the call, Musk wrongly claimed that current CO2 levels, and the rate they’re rising at, are not particularly dangerous. He suggested that CO2 only becomes a problem around 1,000ppm, at which point it gets hard to breathe, you get headaches, and so on.

1,000ppm is indeed roughly the threshold at which CO2 concentrations directly affect human health, but this is not so relevant to outdoor CO2 levels, rather indoor ones. Indoor levels can be much higher than outdoor levels – though higher outdoor levels set a higher baseline, meaning indoor levels will be even higher when outdoor levels are high.

Musk seemed to think that, since atmospheric CO2 is currently nowhere near 1,000ppm, there’s no rush to handle carbon reduction. This is false. It is false because environmental problems start happening much earlier than 1,000ppm.

Atmospheric CO2 is currently 425.55ppm, a bit above the 400 number Musk mentioned. Musk said that it’s rising around 2ppm per year, and that it would only be a problem if that was closer to 5ppm per year, or if the rate of change were increasing.

It turns out both of those things are happening. In the last year, atmospheric CO2 went up from 421.83 to 425.55ppm, an increase of 3.72ppm. This is closer to Musk’s danger zone of 5ppm than it is to 2ppm. And the rate of change is indeed increasing, not staying flat or going down. You can see that in this chart, with its curve upwards:

These increases are also at least 10x faster than the rate of CO2 increase during the Permian-Triassic extinction period, the largest mass extinction event in Earth’s history (when CO2 levels reached around 2,500ppm).

Climate change is about ecosystem disruption, not headaches

And the problems of climate change are not simply limited to headaches or difficulty breathing.

As should be clear to anyone with even a little knowledge about this topic (or, anyone who read the list of facts above), the real problem with climate change is ecosystem disruption due to rising global temperatures. Musk correctly pointed this out when he said that widespread fossil fuel use is “the dumbest experiment in human history” in 2018.

This disruption takes many forms, including higher temperatures that lead to drought or affect agriculture, sea level rise due to melting glaciers and thermal expansion of water which disrupts coastal communities (where a huge chunk of the world population lives), ocean acidification as CO2 combines with H2O to form H2CO3 (carbonic acid) which harms ocean life, even perhaps a potential collapse of ocean currents. This is just the start of disruptions that can happen from climate change.

That point about agriculture is relevant to another complaint of Musk’s, who remarked that “we don’t need to stop farmers from farming,” which is not a real thing that is happening.

But in fact, human agricultural activities, particularly animal agriculture and the use of nitrogenous fertilizer (which is manufactured with fossil fuels), both contribute to climate change and suffer from it. Some croplands are already becoming unsuitable for traditional crops, which shows how climate change from unsustainable agricultural practices will indeed “stop farmers from farming,” highlighting the need to move to more sustainable agricultural practices, precisely so that farmers can keep farming.

Climate is already affected, and needs cleanup now

These effects do not happen at 1,000ppm, they happen much earlier. Many of them are already happening now. Storms are getting stronger due to warmer water, fires are getting harsher, and even very cold places like Norway are seeing myriad strange effects going on, as seen in Norwegian broadcaster NRK’s excellent climate change feature which I encourage everyone to experience.

These effects do not only affect the natural world – which humans are nevertheless a part of, being living creatures on this planet – but affect human societies as well. More environmental disruption will inevitably lead to more conflict, which the US Department of Defense recognizes as a serious national security threat.

To avoid these effects, the world needs to limit its carbon emissions, and it needs to do so quickly. The optimal level for atmospheric carbon dioxide is between 280 and 350ppm, so we need to reduce carbon from our current 425ppm mark, not increase it, to get there.

Limiting the rise in carbon emissions will take a lot of effort from a lot of people, and reducing atmospheric carbon levels will take even more. But these efforts will only become more difficult and more costly as atmospheric carbon concentrations rise. So, in contrast to Musk’s assertion that we “have quite a bit of time” to confront climate change, in fact, the faster and harder we fight against it, the better.

The Oil & Gas industry is the main culprit

Musk also stated that we should not “vilify” the oil & gas industry. This is an odd statement, considering his history with this industry and his previous statements.

The fossil fuel industry has opposed Tesla since early on, being responsible for much misinformation about electric cars, for lobbying against regulations that Tesla lobbies for, for working to impose additional costs on electric vehicles, and even to stop Tesla from selling cars altogether.

Musk has called out the industry multiple times for doing exactly this, recognizing that this industry is the largest opposition to his company and its mission.

“Tesla is affecting powerful vested interests. Big auto and oil companies aren’t known for their gentle behavior.”

-Elon Musk

Also, as stated in the facts above, the oil & gas industry is responsible for the most climate change. Fossil fuels are responsible for 75% of greenhouse gas emissions. It is difficult not to vilify an industry that causes a majority of a huge problem, that they know is a problem, all while lying about their efforts.

In fact, Tesla itself released a “Master Plan Part 3” last year which focused on how to move the world to sustainable energy, using current technology, more cheaply than if we were to use fossil fuels. This could happen without “starving” everyone, as Musk suggested that vilifying oil & gas would doom society to on the call.

Despite these plans being the centerpiece of Tesla’s strategy since Tesla’s original secret master plan, Musk seems to have forgotten about the current plan just over a year after its publishing.

In the end, Musk’s comments overall were not nearly as disastrously wrong as those that Mr. Trump consistently makes, but they still represent a significant departure from scientific understanding of climate change, and a retreat from Musk’s both previous correct statements on the issue, and from the mission that he has previously claimed, and his company still claims, to have.

So the question is, for those who are still invested in Tesla (either emotionally or financially) and its mission to move the world to sustainable transport to further the goal of fighting climate change: does it seem reasonable that the CEO of said company would repeat climate misinformation, while talking to and funding one of the loudest global voices against climate action and spouters of EV disinformation… or does something feel, you know, kind of strange about that?

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