Alex Steffen of WorldChanging and TED talks has just published an ebook, available on Amazon now about what we need to do about climate change, which includes being optimistic. You can read Chapter 1 of Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities That Can Save the Planet now at Grist.
From the Treehugger interview.
There’s no really rosy scenario ahead, where climate change just doesn’t happen, but I believe we don’t have the ethical right to throw our hands up in the air and say “game over”. Whatever pathway we choose, our descendants will be dealing with that reality for centuries to come. Though we may feel discouraged, outraged or depressed about the options open to us, we have a duty to future generations to persevere and create the best future we can.
The second thing to remember is that acting boldly to meet the climate challenge gives us a giant opportunity to make things better. The future we create can in many ways be brighter than what we have now, even with all the consequences we’ve already set in motion.
You can’t fight that with despair and cynicism. You fight that with creativity and optimism. You fight that by showing we can do better and demanding it.
Alex has more on his website. I’ll have a review of the book coming soon.
Solutions abound. From cutting edge green buildings to more walkable neighborhoods, new “walkshed” technologies to green infrastructure, the sharing economy to the reconnection of urban places to rural nature, we have a tool chest of approaches that can make our lives energy-frugal but quality-rich. If we bring the best solutions together in our cities, they can lead us into the zero-carbon future.