Opinion: Climate change + definite optimists = cool Earth
Why am I optimistic about the future of climate change?
We’re at post #13 today. Given the perceived speciality of this number, I’m using it to mark a new beginning…
Presenting the first opinion piece of Anticlimatic.
Let me know what you think about it through ♥️, comments or email response🙂
Explain like I’m a memer
Quite often, I’m asked about what makes me so optimistic about the future of climate change when all there is to hear and read is devastation. The recurring question set me thinking…
Let’s unpack ‘optimism’ first.
Sure, optimism is about looking at the bright side and welcoming the future, but through what lens?
Let’s understand this through two 2x2s.
Rational optimism - optimism with a healthy filling of logic and reality.
For example, the hope for finding a cure for cancer is rooted in the annual advancements being witnessed in oncology research and technology.
Irrational optimism - being an optimist just for the sake of it, hoping things will miraculously shape for the good.
Hoping there will be no cultural or geopolitical conflicts, in any form whatsoever, despite knowing the complexity of human psychology and motivations would be a belief constructed in thin air.
Within the realm of rational optimism exist definite and indefinite optimism.
As Peter Thiel puts it in his book, Zero to One,
Indefinite optimism is a bright view of the future but without a specific plan.
To an indefinite optimist, the future will be better, but he doesn’t know how exactly…Instead of working for years to build a new product, indefinite optimists rearrange already-invented ones. Bankers make money by rearranging the capital structures of already existing companies... And private equity investors and management consultants don’t start new businesses; they squeeze extra efficiency from old ones...
Definite optimism welcomes the future with a plan to make it better.
From the 17th century through the 1950s and ’60s, definite optimists led the Western world. Scientists, engineers, doctors, and businessmen made the world richer, healthier, and more long-lived than previously imaginable.
Which quadrant does climate change’s future fit?
Definite optimism, undoubtedly.
Why do I think so?
As we evolved from apes to humans over multi-millennia, many things changed but what still remains is the survival instinct. Death, though, considered inevitable (at this point) is not palatable to us. Our natural response is to fight death until the last breath.
Sample the global average life expectancy through three years:
1800 - 29 years
1950 - 46 years
2015 - 71 years
Our average lifespan has more than doubled in two centuries. If that sounds just okayish, our life currently is ~55% longer than it was just 60 years ago1. These are insane leaps in short periods. All of this, when multiple inefficiencies exist in the healthcare systems across the world. Is it, now, really hard to believe that the concept of mortality, as we know it, may eventually just become an obsolete understanding of the past?
Development of modern vaccines, from polio to COVID, have endeavoured to do the same - prevent death.
As the survival game kept improving, a parallel pursuit of enhancing the experience of life began. From the invention of the light bulb to exploring resources on Mars, it’s been about making life better, for ourselves and for our descendants.
If humans have always been motivated by the idea of enhancing the quality and quantity of life, why will they not pursue it now? Climate change, as we foresee it, is a direct challenge to the quality of life. There is, hence, a solid incentive to arrest climate change.
What makes my hope for a bright climate change outcome definite is the scale of solutions being built and the growing (though gradual) policy measures which are encouraging commercial deployment of solutions. The International Energy Agency (IEA) reported last month that the world’s total renewable electricity capacity is set to rise to 4,500 gigawatts by next year. This is equal to the current combined China & USA power output2. With Europe at the forefront, USA and India are on their way to significantly increase deployment in the next two years.
With the IPCC report making it clear that reducing emissions would not be enough to arrest climate change within this century, the pace at which carbon removal technologies are being successfully tested for commercial use is commendable. In an earlier post, I had cited examples of a few startups which piloted removal and storage of CO2 from the atmosphere using the Direct Air Capture technology. Since then I have come across three more startups, just in India, which are attempting to remove CO2 using a different technology. It is exciting to witness the pace at which attempts are being made, even though many of them may end up failing. It is even more encouraging to see magnanimous advance market commitments (AMC), like Frontier, which have been put together to help solve the chicken and egg problem by offering to fund more such capital intensive solutions for which an immediate demand may not exist. This model of AMC has been emulated from the world of vaccines.
Since climate change is not just mitigation but also adaptation to the imminent changes, it is convincing to see data being leveraged to build disaster warning systems and other climate intelligence in vulnerable areas. The Global Center on Adaptation has even identified some great examples of how countries are adapting to climate change.
Why should you think so too?
In the last few years, my perspective on optimism has been incremented by the ideas of Kevin Kelly, Paul Graham, Morgan Housel and Peter Thiel, who all seem to reverberate the same thought - progress needs optimism.
If you treat the future as something definite, it makes sense to understand it in advance and to work to shape it. But if you expect an indefinite future ruled by randomness, you’ll give up on trying to master it - Peter Thiel in Zero to One
Historically, progress has been achieved on the shoulders of solving local problems in the hope for a better future. Serendipitous (and some planned) cross connections of solutions to different local problems have led to great innovations, modern computers being the most tangible and relatable one. What began as an attempt to precisely estimate missile landing points during the World War (around 1945) resulted in building one of the most valuable assets in the world about 50 years later - semiconductors (chips). They are the foundation of all computers and computing power that exists. However, this advancement only occurred with multiple iterations of exceptional work and people incrementally building on one-another’s ideas over many years. As Paul Graham suggests, optimism is an essential input for doing great work. It helps discover new ideas as a result of open frontiers of the mind.
In addition to existing technologies, climate change solutions do require tech innovation to fulfill the hefty goal of arresting the increase in global temperature to 1.5C - 2C within this century. Can’t do without a shot of optimism, can we? Just gotta hang in tight and keep doing our bit. Progress will accumulate through compounding and be identified in hindsight!
Suggested related read:
Compounding Optimism by Morgan Housel
“I think part of the reason pessimism is so much easier and more common than optimism is that compound growth is not intuitive.”