We Already Have The Technology To Prevent A Climate Disaster

When it comes to climate change, it is easy to feel hopeless. As several areas around the world deal with devastating wildfires and soaring temperatures, we are getting one report after another warning that we may be reaching (or already passing) a tipping point beyond which it will be impossible to save the Earth from humanity. It's a scary time.

One report that offers a different take is this climate report from think tank RethinkX. It shares this powerful thought:

"More than three quarters of global GHG emissions can be mitigated by just eight key technologies that are either already at market and able to scale immediately, or ready to begin deploying to market. We no longer need to trade off the environment and the economy against each other. Decarbonizing the global economy will not be costly, it will instead save trillions of dollars."

In other words, we have already invented the technology that is required to reverse this process and save the environment. What we lack is the widespread political commitment and public support to use all of them.

The entire report is optimistic, but sobering. The good news is, we are already smart enough to have built the solutions to this global issue. The bad news is, the people in charge of setting policies, and the people who put them there, are regularly too complacent or cowardly to implement these solutions.