There is a limited amount of oil and natural gas and the atmosphere can tolerate a limited amount of CO2. So one the very long run 10-20% of the current emissions is not sustainable. However if the really start to reduce the consumption now, we can gain quite some years with a reduced consumption.
You cannot categorically say that. There is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks.
But noone is "categorically saying that"!?
And what relevance does it have that there is no evidence that reduced levels are not going to get balanced by other carbon sinks? Is your suggestion that we should ignore the predictions of current models until we have rejected with extremely high probability every imaginable potential carbon sink that could maybe turn out to balance emissions if we are really lucky? Do you think that that is a reliable approach to mitigating risks?
There is actually evidence of the contrary, there is a global greening going on.
If you look at the map, where wasn't a human effort of deforestation (I'm looking at you Brazil) there has been a very large scale increase of forest area just in the last 20-40 years.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146296/global-green-up-slows-warming#:~:text=Scientists%20say%20that%20global%20greening,the%20surge%20in%20plant%20growth.
I mean, what you are saying here is obviously true, but also pretty unsurprising, isn't it? If arctic regions thaw, you get more vegetation, who would have thought!? (Well, and more effects, but much of it pretty unsurprising.)
But notice how nothing in that article says that that in any way contradicted existing climate models.
It doesn't say "this leads to lower global warming than predicted". It just says "this leads to lower global warming than if this effect didn't happen".
And given how obvious it seems to me that one effect of warming and higher CO2 concentrations would be an increase in vegetation, at least in some areas, and at least up to a certain degree of warming (obviously, at venus level temperatures, that does not hold anymore), I would think that it is extremely unlikely that this is something that people who build climate models hadn't thought of decades ago.
Which is to say: What I read in that article is "as anyone whose job is the modeling of the earth's climate has known for decades, increases in vegetation due to warming and CO2 concentrations counteract global warming due to CO2 emissions to some degree, and here is the accumulating evidence that strengthens the confidence that we can have that our modeling of this effect is correct". Or alternatively maybe "... and here is the accumulating evidence that allows us to slightly narrow down some climate model parameters."
What I absolutely don't see is that anyone is suggesting that this means that we can emit any significant amount of additional CO2 before we get serious problems vs. what scientists have been saying in the past.
So ... what do you think the relevance of this is, and why?
Now it's obvious that it's bad idea to burn all fossil fuels at once at an accelerated rate. And that storing Carbon in the air is a bad idea. Meanwhile it's also obvious that plants need CO2 for food, and some of them have been near starvation levels. Why? You reduce the pre-industrial levels of CO2 just a bit, and plants just die.
Do you have a source for that and that that is a relevant effect?
I mean, I can imagine that there are
some plants for which this is true, simply because there are all kinds of weird species that fill all kinds of weird niches on this planet, so, sure, probably that one exists, too.
But generally, evolution isn't that fast, so it would seem rather surprising to me that somehow any significant part of our global ecosystem could have evolved within 200 years or so to a point where it couldn't survive with the CO2 levels of 200 years ago anymore!?
edit: I just noticed that I got confused here. Whether slight reduction below pre-industrial CO2 levels would have such effects ... I have no idea. Also seems kinda unlikely to be a wide-spread phenomenon, but who knows?
But ... what is the relevance of this? I mean, if we somehow stopped emissions from fossil sources today, we wouldn't reach pre-industrial levels of CO2 for millenia, so what relevance do the risks of below-pre-industrial levels have for the foreseeable future?!
I can totally see a scenario where we burn all fossil fuels, and end up with similar global temperature, similar CO2 levels, and the Sahara desert covered with a paradise. That's why I totally believe net zero is not only a bad idea, it's an idea which is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality.
Now, I'll take your word for it that you can see that scenario. But do you have any evidence to back this up as an in any way likely outcome in reality, rather than just you being able to make up a story?
Also, can you back up your belief that net zero is a bad idea that is born out of incredibly narrow minded inspection of reality? Like, have you read up on how scientists have inspected reality to come to their consensus position? Can you show where their inspection of reality is narrow minded and why you think that?
Because, if I am being honest, this reads to me more like "I can easily make up some story where things turn out just fine, scientists disagree with that story, therefore, they must have inspected reality very narrow-mindedly". I.e., it seems to me like you have not actually done any work to find out how open-minded scientists are approaching the topic, how much of your ideas they have incorporated into their models, how many of your ideas they have rejected based on empirical evidence, and what that evidence is. I.e., it seems to me like you don't actually know whether they have never considered your ideas because they are too narrow-minded, or whether they have rejected your ideas out of hand because they are too narrow minded, or whether they maybe had the same idea you had, whether they maybe were hopeful that they were the ones who could once and for all prove that CO2 emissions are almost certainly a complete non-problem and we can finally ramp up coal power production as the sure-fire way to create prosperity for everyone, and so, they put in the hard work to test their hypothesis ... and failed.
So, I'd be curious to know what you have done to figure out whether scientists are saying what they are saying because they are narrow-minded, or because they have done the work to check whether your ideas would work out, and found that they don't.
edit: Also, if you are saying that rising CO2 levels could allow plants to grow in the Sahara ... how would that vegetation then stay alive once the CO2 levels are back down?!