When there is a genuine profit motive for developing an alternative to oil.
Why do you believe a profit motive is necessary to end our addiction to fossil fuels?
Clearly there is no correlation between our yearly production of CO2 and the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere
There's no shortage of empirical evidence proving human-generated CO2 is causing the earth to heat up:
"Atmospheric CO2 levels (Green is Law Dome ice core, Blue is Mauna Loa, Hawaii) and Cumulative CO2 emissions (CDIAC). While atmospheric CO2 levels are usually expressed in parts per million, here they are displayed as the amount of CO2 residing in the atmosphere in gigatonnes. CO2 emissions includes fossil fuel emissions, cement production and emissions from gas flaring.
"The Smoking Gun
"The final piece of evidence is ‘the smoking gun’, the proof that CO2 is causing the increases in temperature.
"CO2 traps energy at very specific wavelengths, while other greenhouse gases trap different wavelengths. In physics, these wavelengths can be measured using a technique called spectroscopy. Here’s an example:
"Spectrum of the greenhouse radiation measured at the surface. Greenhouse effect from water vapor is filtered out, showing the contributions of other greenhouse gases (Evans 2006).
"The graph shows different wavelengths of energy, measured at the Earth’s surface. Among the spikes you can see energy being radiated back to Earth by ozone (O3), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N20).
"But the spike for CO2 on the left dwarfs all the other greenhouse gases, and tells us something very important:
most of the energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelength of energy captured by CO2."
Empirical evidence that humans are causing global warming
"Summing Up
Like a detective story, first you need a victim, in this case the planet Earth: more energy is remaining in the atmosphere.
Then you need a method, and ask how the energy could be made to remain. For that, you need a provable mechanism by which energy can be trapped in the atmosphere, and greenhouse gases provide that mechanism.
"Next, you need a ‘motive’. Why has this happened? Because CO2 has increased by nearly 50% in the last 150 years and the increase is from burning fossil fuels.
And finally, the smoking gun, the evidence that proves ‘whodunit’: energy being trapped in the atmosphere corresponds exactly to the wavelengths of energy captured by CO2.
"The last point is what places CO2 at the scene of the crime.
"The investigation by science builds up empirical evidence that proves, step by step, that man-made carbon dioxide is causing the Earth to warm up."
