I agree though it always annoys me when people claim we’ve done absolutely nothing - it’s an incredibly hard problem and people in and out of governments have been working on solutions and implementing them where possible. It takes time to develop workable technologies and to implement them efficiently but in a lot of places this is happening and we should highlight things that are working and showing promise so that good ideas spread, just saying ‘everything is bad and we’re going to die’ isn’t going to convince anyone to get on the right side of things but demonstrating we have lots of great ideas and emerging solutions which offer benefits even beyond climate protections just might.
Auke Hoekstra from the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands said: “Many young people are depressed because they feel climate change cannot be stopped. We want to offer them hope by showing that our world can get all its energy needs from renewables at a price below that of fossil fuels. When we first proposed this we were ridiculed, but this paper shows our ideas are now scientific mainstream.”.
from a study showing we can reach 100% renewable energy usable globally before 2050, and that’s just based on current rollout of existing technologies using existing methods and economies - automated construction tooling and fully-automated fabrication is going to greatly boost the rate at which adoption of new technologies can happen, and that’s without any black-swan developments which might come about especially through the use of AI r&d tools (such as those making huge leaps in chemistry and pharmacology currently) - though again as the study demonstrates we don’t even need these things to come about, and while our focus absolutely should be on protecting the ecology and climate of the planet we probably don’t even to have everyone onboard because transition to wind and solar is economically sensible too.
”Renewable energy technology is advancing rapidly, increasing the energy return on investment for renewable energy production; conversely, as fossil fuel reserves are depleted, they actually yield a decreasing return on investment as time goes by. Thus, if viewed in simple net energy terms, without even considering the climate change arguments for renewable energy, investing in renewable energy makes better physical and business sense than investing in fossil fuels.”
Dr Marco Raugei Senior Research Fellow at Oxford Brookes University
Albania, Iceland, and Paraguay already obtain all their electricity from Renewable sources (hydro mostly), Sweden is getting close to 70% and very much on track to reach it’s target of 100% before it’s 2040 goal, Costa Rica is up at about 98% Renewables, Scotland ~97% with them on track to generate 50% of overall energy consumption (transport, heat, electrical) from renewables - big industrial countries are making huge progress too, Germany is now over 50% renewable and heavily ramping up the rate of adoption, on par with China who are also just over 50% and increasing rapidly (after heavy investment in technology and infrastructure to facilitate this change) - even the united states now has [slightly] more generation from renewables than coal AND more nuclear than coal -
Calling this ‘jack shit’ is absurd, and it’s only one strand of all the things people and governments have been working on, we’re working hard to understand the problem, monitor it, develop and implement solutions which allow us to try and keep things working for everyone and keep everyone alive. It’s not like we can just turn off oil or something, not only would millions die but it would undoubtedly start endless wars which would result in even more widespread chaos and climate destruction while ending all the positive steps people are working on. It’s an incredibly difficult challenge but we’re equipped to deal with it and if everyone that cares tries to pitch in a bit and work towards a better world then it’s absolutely possible - defeatism and doomerism isn’t going to get us anywhere.
I agree though it always annoys me when people claim we’ve done absolutely nothing - it’s an incredibly hard problem and people in and out of governments have been working on solutions and implementing them where possible. It takes time to develop workable technologies and to implement them efficiently but in a lot of places this is happening and we should highlight things that are working and showing promise so that good ideas spread, just saying ‘everything is bad and we’re going to die’ isn’t going to convince anyone to get on the right side of things but demonstrating we have lots of great ideas and emerging solutions which offer benefits even beyond climate protections just might.
from a study showing we can reach 100% renewable energy usable globally before 2050, and that’s just based on current rollout of existing technologies using existing methods and economies - automated construction tooling and fully-automated fabrication is going to greatly boost the rate at which adoption of new technologies can happen, and that’s without any black-swan developments which might come about especially through the use of AI r&d tools (such as those making huge leaps in chemistry and pharmacology currently) - though again as the study demonstrates we don’t even need these things to come about, and while our focus absolutely should be on protecting the ecology and climate of the planet we probably don’t even to have everyone onboard because transition to wind and solar is economically sensible too.
Albania, Iceland, and Paraguay already obtain all their electricity from Renewable sources (hydro mostly), Sweden is getting close to 70% and very much on track to reach it’s target of 100% before it’s 2040 goal, Costa Rica is up at about 98% Renewables, Scotland ~97% with them on track to generate 50% of overall energy consumption (transport, heat, electrical) from renewables - big industrial countries are making huge progress too, Germany is now over 50% renewable and heavily ramping up the rate of adoption, on par with China who are also just over 50% and increasing rapidly (after heavy investment in technology and infrastructure to facilitate this change) - even the united states now has [slightly] more generation from renewables than coal AND more nuclear than coal -
Calling this ‘jack shit’ is absurd, and it’s only one strand of all the things people and governments have been working on, we’re working hard to understand the problem, monitor it, develop and implement solutions which allow us to try and keep things working for everyone and keep everyone alive. It’s not like we can just turn off oil or something, not only would millions die but it would undoubtedly start endless wars which would result in even more widespread chaos and climate destruction while ending all the positive steps people are working on. It’s an incredibly difficult challenge but we’re equipped to deal with it and if everyone that cares tries to pitch in a bit and work towards a better world then it’s absolutely possible - defeatism and doomerism isn’t going to get us anywhere.