I was all for going multi-planet until I realized the second part of the plan was “and fuck the planet we’re on now.” I’m afraid the second part is coming along much faster than the first.
TLDR in this hypothetical, it's just Xi on an 100 story podium, no one else is even in the building. Unless we eventually credit someone for portable fusion, i.e. 60% of global oil used in transport that can't be displaced at utility scale energy solutions, and one credits Xi for MIC2025/PRCEV/battery then no one will ever even dethrone Xi.
Ehhhh, I'd say he's not in some league of his own. Xi is also industrializing with fossil fuels and China became the planet's largest producer of CO2 under his leadership and he's been outsourcing dirty industries abroad, particularly to Africa. I'd give more credit to people lower-down the totem pole in China, who are leading the charge for clean energy such as Wang Chuanfu, but he's very explicitly following in Elon's footsteps.
It's also a little wild to discount pollution already produced in previously unseen amounts while crediting to them hypothetical future reductions. Last year China had it's highest CO2 emission ever, and even with solar it's possible that their CO2 output will increase.
> possible that their CO2 output will increase.
Immaterial if CO2 increases, only useful geopolitical metric is historic per capita emission relative to development level and PRC is low for country blasting through capex heavy capital accumulation phase, i.e. PRC setting standard for low relative per capita emission development. Xi 2012-2026 did ~30% global emissions, ~10-15% global historic for ~20% of population. As long as PRC stays under 20% global historic and maintains above 50th percentile development (use whatever proxy indicator, per capital income PPP etc), they are under emitting / developing efficiently relative to energy use. AKA PRC developing more for less unit of emission. The alternative is not developing which frankly stupid argument/position. For reference US/Europe ~45% historic emission for 10% of global pop. On balance PRC currently grossly under emitting vs historic developmental baseline.
The plan definitely does not call for inaction towards other issues.
Volkswagen has a market cap of 40B, why do they need to government subsidies to build a new car?
If you truly care about wide-scale EV adoption above all else, why not advocate for opening up western markets to Chinese EVs? The availability of a 10k EV would do far more for adoption than giving taxpayer money to billion dollar megacorps.
The "rocket CO2 doesn't matter" argument is based on the fact that nobody has reusable rockets right now, so the fuel expenditure is bounded by the cost of the rocket. Elon Musk wants to switch that equation on its head. Meaning e.g. $100 million launch costs no longer means $10 million fuel costs and $90 million rocket costs, it now means 5x $10 million rocket costs and 5x $10 million fuel costs, i.e. 5x more fuel used with the same budget and that fuel is going to emit CO2.
One Starship launch produces 3500 tons. Now repeat this to 1000 Earth to Mars launches. That includes at least 10 tanker launches per ship. Meaning at least 10000 launches per year. That equates to 35 million tons of CO2 for something that has no direct benefit to earth.
If he scaled down his Mars colony ambitions to 10 Earth to Mars launches per year people might turn a blind eye to it.