Climate Solutions: The Techo-Optimist Path
The techno-optimist path is the only way
For some time I have been dooming about climate change and the collapse of civilisation that is already in progress. I’ve finally made up my mind about what the correct path for humanity is from this point: It is the techno-optimist path.
The thing is, the techno-optimist path is really the only effective choice we have. We’ve developed an intensely technological society and it cannot possibly prosper without its technology. We’ve made our choice. We’ve made our bed, now we have to sleep in it.
Currently, our civilisation and our technology rely on fossil fuels. Let’s face it: Fossil fuels are not going away overnight. There is no possibility of reaching Net Zero by 2040. What we need to do is to use our remaining years of fossil fuel usage to accelerate the transition to clean energy.
It doesn’t matter how much fossil fuel we burn to build solar arrays and windmills. Eventually we will have enough clean energy to stop using fossil fuels, almost completely, and that is where we need to get to. ASAP.
Even after we pass Net Zero and have an abundance of clean energy, we’ll still need to be using fossil fuels for some things. For example, as chemical inputs into manufacturing processes, such as for making plastics. Probably some for flying airplanes, because it will be a while before we can manage long-haul flights with other energy sources. And I do not think we are willing to give up long-haul flights. Nor should we. So don’t even think of eliminating fossil fuels completely.
You’ve seen these exponential, hockey-stick shaped graphs before: of atmospheric CO2 shooting into the stratosphere in the last few decades. Global temperatures shooting up similarly. Global sea level rise too. Well, that same graph can be used to show the progress of technology. It, too, has been accelerating.
Technologies that appear impossible today will be commonplace in a few short years and decades. Small modular nuclear fission reactors (SMRs) are coming, though it may take another decade or so. Nuclear fusion is coming, though still several decades away (my guess). And whether fusion will ever be commercially viable is a whole other question. (My guess is: No, it will not.)
Computers continue to get faster and larger. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already starting to work in meaningful, useful ways. Human-machine interfaces (HMIs) are already solving some problems for disabled folks, and will soon be useful in other fields as well. Satellite communications from your smart phone, while nascent, is already a reality.
The biological sciences are on rockets to Mars. (Unlike our actual rockets to Mars.)
Wind and solar are already the lower cost solution for building new electrical power generation plants. Ubiquitous deployment and grid improvements are sure to follow. We know how to do it; we just need to spend the money.
We have multiple solutions for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) systems. Today, they are very expensive. But if we have to spend the money on them, the money will be found. So what if it takes 1 million CCS plants? Let’s get going! The first ten thousand are the hardest!
Will techno solutions “fix” climate change? No, nothing will. We’re stuck with what we’ve wrought for the next several centuries at least. But techno is what our civilisation is good at. It is the muscle we have built up strongest over the last couple of centuries. So we need to use that muscle and go all out to develop and deploy further technologies to mitigate the climate change mess.
Frankly, man using his brains and technology to control nature has been working pretty darn well, except for this very recent climate change problem. Let’s not throw the baby out with the floodwaters. Let’s not totally restructure our lifestyles and society. Let’s just fix the problem at hand, and move past it.
So let’s double down on invention. Let’s double down on fossil fuels while they are still needed. Let’s double-down on dominating nature. Let’s double down on tech.
Domes over cities by the end of the century, I say! To protect them from severe weather events, you see.
— Lannie Rose, April 2023
preferred pronouns: she/her/hers
Written with NO HELP from ChatGTP or other AI resource (except for then graphics)
