| While I think there's a lot of interesting stuff in this essay, I can't help but notice everything in the article requires making new things. I often wonder how much of climate change is driven by our need for new things, to consume. I don't want to downplay the need for science in avoid climate disaster and I'm by no means a primitivist. but, and please inform me because I don't actually know: How much could we curb climate change if no one - produced and purchased a cell phone for a year - manufactured a laptop for a year - manufactured and launched rockets for a year - manufactured an automobile for a year - bought a smart watch - bought a new sound system - drove to work where possible - went snowmobiling - mowed their lawn - bought new skis - bought a brand new bike - flew across the country for a meeting and so on. I know a lot of stuff would simply halt, but haven't we seen coordinated national efforts on similar scales during war-time? I'm not proposing this as a solution, but more as a thought experiment and I recognize as with any thought experiment there are problems with it. But the underlying questions remains: What can we do today if we got serious about the problem? |
This is aimed at people in the tech industry, and is more about what you can do with your career than at a hackathon. I’m not going to discuss policy and regulation, although they’re no less important than technological innovation. A good way to think about it, via Saul Griffith, is that it’s the role of technologists to create options for policy-makers.
It’s about technological options rather than policy or social ones. In regards to wartime type effort, there is that quote at the top of the article from Saul Griffith:
People say “this is a Manhattan Project, this an Apollo Project”. Sorry, those are science projects. Fusion is a Manhattan Project or an Apollo Project... The rest of this is more like retooling for World War II, except with everyone playing on the same team.
I do agree though. Being serious about climate change is much more “war” scale than “Apollo” or “Tesla” scale.