Reasons For Optimism About the Climate

There's no pressing need to convince people that the Earth is round, not flat. There actually are a few people who still believe it's flat, and Lord knows, they're hard to reason with, since they're very stupid -- but their numbers have become so few that they barely matter any more.

Similarly, the general public has become better educated about the climate, and the effect of human activity upon the climate. Soon, there may be no more real need to debate climate change deniers anymore, since we will be able to easily out-vote them. It's becoming more and more unusual for someone to flat-out deny that global warming is happening. People who used to deny it are now saying that, yes, the Earth is getting warmer, but that humans aren't causing it. And people who used to say that are now saying that th dang environmentalists don't know how to fix it and are just making things worse. And people who used to say that have shut up and started buying electricity generated from solar and wind, and even driving electric cars, because it's cheaper. Because of good old fashioned greed. Boy, wouldn't it be ironic if Gordon Gekko was right about greed all along?

I'm not going that far -- but: environmentally-friendly human behavior is becoming more widespread, for a variety of reasons, including greed. What just a few decades ago was called the environmental movement, and was regarded by many as fringe lunacy, is now mainstream, and growing fast, and getting laughed at less and less often.

This video is delightful:



Yes, it focuses on a list of 10 commonly-given reasons for not buying an electric car, soundly debunking all 10, but in the process it gives a lot of information about much more broad topics of green power and green technology. And it's also very witty and fun to watch.

I'm feeling optimistic about the climate today, because there are so many different ways in which human behavior is changing, each one helping the climate: more and more people are buying electric vehicles instead of vehicles with internal-combustion engines. More and more people are ceasing to drive at all: instead, they take the train or the bus or they walk or bike. And if they really, really need a car, there's cabs and Uber and Lyft, and soon there will be robot cars. Yes, robot cars. Yes, soon. Google it if you don't believe me. And most, or, probably, all of those robot cars will be electric, and will get their juice from solar and wind and other green sources.

And the price of electricity from solar and wind and those other green sources is already lower than the price of electricity from coal or gas in many places, and it just keeps getting less expensive as the green technology becomes more large scale and more efficient. And coal and gas and oil and gasoline are not getting cheaper.

And rooftop gardens keep popping up in cities, and forests keep getting planted along the edges of deserts, turning the deserts green.

And more and more people stop using plastic water bottles, and start using re-usable cloth shopping bags.

And paying attention to the behavior of individual corporations and politicians, and shopping and voting accordingly. And so forth and so on. So many different reasons to be optimistic. They add up.