Introduction

​

In the early twenty-first century, civilization's relationship with the natural world is at a crossroads. In 2020, Professor Johan Rockström, Director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and  a Professor in Earth System Science at the University of Potsdam, summarized the outlook:

​

...as far as we know, today—it’s over the next 10-20 years that we determine together—we who live here now—whether or not we press the on button of irreversible changes.... it is during that time that we determine whether or not we will be able to handle what happens beyond those 20 years. (19)

​

​

The creation, distribution and exercise of economic power has played a major role in bringing civilization to a crisis point. The basic creation of money and the functioning of large business entities in the capitalist-market system,including manufacturing, distribution and the performance of many services is usually based on profit maximization, consumerism and market force manipulation and exploitation, with little or no regard for any kind of justice, kindness, sustainability or negative social and environmental consequences. Thus for one thing, dependence on fossil fuels persists despite their damaging effect.

 

Economic and population growth without limits are considered desirable in the culture of the system, but a simple analysis shows that they are very undesirable and not sustainable. Some business entities in the system, such as residential tract developers, need population growth to survive, which is not compatible with sustainability. The monetary system, the fundamental component for creating and distributing fundamental economic power (money)  needs population growth. For jobs, many people are at the mercy of an oversupply of workers related to population growth.

​

Some regulations to protect the environment and people are imposed by government policy but policy has not been adequate. Government policy and action is inhibited,  compromised and manipulated by various narrow-minded forces in the system with massive levels of economic power behind their lobbying, who's mode of profiteering and income would be diminished by better policy. Many major fossil fuel investors and companies have waged disinformation campaigns to prevent policies to accelerate technological transition away from fossil fuels. (20 -22) 

​

​

Analysis of Environmental Effects of Human Civilization and Economic Growth

​

A basic analysis of the interactions of human civilization with the environment is useful for identifying the forces and motivations in the investor-capitalist market systems and roughly evaluating expectations for the future progression of climate change under these systems. Just why are these systems so unlikely to do what is needed?

 

A desire for and belief in a need for never-ending economic growth is one of the worst forces in the investor-capitalist-market economic and political systems. In the 20th and early 21st century context, dominant economic and political entities in the irresponsible system consider economic growth, fueled largely by human population growth, to be beneficial and necessary and promote it as such. This growth mania is part of the governing faith that capitalistic market consumerism is the ultimate operating principle for society. In this faith, the best thing for society is for wealthy investors to support and invest in producing whatever things or services that a lot of people can be induced to pay for, then sell them at prices set to make as much profit as possible. The more growth of the human population, the better because it increases the the potential amount of annual sales revenue and profit. With more people in the market each year, the greater the potential annual sales. Some businesses, like residential tract developers, and banks (as they operate currently) can't even survive at any where near their current size without population growth and these entities have a lot of money which translates into political influence. The increasing consumption and corresponding waste deposition due to the increasing population and assimilation of more people into the high consuming middle class causes increasing environmental damage and resource problems.

 

As far as the investors and executives in any particular company in the system are concerned, the environmental damage they cause and any hardships  or difficulties or unfairness to be endured by the people that do the work are "externalities." Society-wide problems produced by the externalities, which may increase as the market increases, will be taken care of by future technological advancement in the capitalist dominated context or the effects can just be disregarded because there will be no negative feed-backs from the environment that matter or they are just somebody else's problem. Of course the  growth mania and the dubious philosophy that environmental and social damage are externalities to be taken care of by technology or to be ignored not only decrease the chances of near-term progress in reducing environmental impact, but would make sustainability ultimately impossible on a fine planet.

​

Both environmental impact and economic activity are related to population and per-capita activity. For any given geographical area, such as a country or the entire earth, the environmental impact I of any kind on the earth (not necessarily limited to the area) produced during a given year by human activities in the area, such as annual greenhouse gas emissions or the future warming that will result from the annual emissions, are or will be a product of population P in the area (average for a given year) and per-capita activity for the year in the area. Similarly, the amount of economic activity in the area, as measured by say GDP, is the product of population P and per-capita economic activity.

 

For the environmental equation, the impact I, depending how it is defined,  may include inevitable future effects beyond the period in which the damage is done. For example, suppose that I is warming effect over an indefinite period due to anthropogenic emissions in a year considered. The carbon dioxide emitted in any given year during the decade from end of 2020 through the end of 2030 will contribute to warming during the year and the rest of the decade and beyond the decade because atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations may take a long time to trend sufficiently downward. So I will then include the contribution to warming over all of the subsequent years from emissions in just the one specified year. On the other hand, if we wanted to consider just the annual emissions as impact, then I would just be emissions for the year.

 

The per-capita effect and activity involves consumption of materials from the earth, e.g. fossil fuels, metal ores, food etc.  and associated waste deposition into the environment, e.g. greenhouse gas emissions, and other alteration of natural systems, such as deforestation. The per-capita effects are represented by a product AT, where A is the per-capita effect under a reference mix of technologies and T is an adjustment factor to account for a change in the mix of technologies. So environmental impact resulting from the year's activities in the area considered is

                      

                                      I = PAT

 

The per-capita environmental effect A with the reference technologies used in the various human activities is determined by the per-capita amount of each activity. We denote the set of per-capita amounts of activities in the geographic area considered with the symbol S. For example S would include the per-capita commuting miles driven in the area and year considered, the per-capita hours that air-conditioners are turned on in the year, the per-capita vacation travel, etc.  We denote the dependence of A on S as A = A(S). The reference set of technologies used for doing and manufacturing things includes such things as the mixture of technologies and energy sources (e.g. solar or fossil fuel) used for generating electricity,  technologies and energy sources for transportation etc. The dependence of A on the reference set is not explicitly represented in the notation used here. 

T is a correction factor if different technology is deployed in the geographic area, changing the set of mixtures Q of technologies in use for the various activities of society listed in S. In general, T also depends on S as in the example below, but not in all cases. We denote the dependence of T on Q and S by T = T(Q,S).

​

Consider an example in which the change in T would depend on S as well as the change in Q. Suppose that I is emissions or warming from emissions due to all energy use in the US in a given year. Suppose that people do a lot of commuting in the initial set S0 because companies demand it, even though the technology for remote working is in the reference set of technologies. Then suppose that companies change their policies and allow much more remote working than for the reference set S of activities and so there is a lot less commuting than in the standard set and S changes. This change decreases fossil fuel use since transportation at the time is powered almost entirely by fossil fuels and so it decreases per-capita emissions. This is represented by a decrease of A(S). (This happened in the pandemic but commuting is re surging.) Suppose also that there is very little vacation travel and other recreational travel and this decreases A(S) even more compared to the value for the reference S0. These conditions, in which there is a lot less transportation, which uses fossil fuels without electricity generation under the current technology mix Q, makes the percentage of energy used by society that is electrical considerably higher. Then if the technology mix for generating electricity were to have a higher percentage of solar, which has zero operational emissions, Q would change and T would decrease very substantially below one. However, suppose that commuting and vacation travel were to make a major comeback so that S would change back to what it was, making A(S) increase because back to what it was. Furthermore, since the emissions from transportation would not be affected by the improved electricity generation mix, the better technology for generating electricity would not matter as much and so the factor T would not be as low as if nearly all of the energy used by society were electrical. When society goes transportation crazy, with transportation using almost entirely fossil fuels, it matters but not as much that electricity generation technology is cleaner.

​

The other way that both current and future environmental impact of a society and economic activity during a period can be changed other than by per-capita changes is through a change in population size P. While a population grows, the per-capita environmental effects tend to remain high unless accompanied by impoverishment because people need housing, need food, want cars, etc. need more infrastructure etc., all of which makes for high per-capita impact. Population growth is physical growth. 

​

As an example, consider annual US greenhouse gas emissions during the years from the end of 2005 through 2020. Then I in the above equation is the annual US emissions for whatever year is considered (not future warming effect) and AT is per-capita annual emissions in the specified year. In this example, the change in I and in the individual annual factors is considered  between 2005 and the end of 2020. Over this period, the annual per-capita emissions (AT) decreased by about 29.6% of the 2005 value.  As noted above, this was due to a transition away from the use of coal toward natural gas and solar and wind, and this decreased the T factor, but also due to the 2020 coronavirus recession, which dewcreased A. But population P increased by about 12.2%. As a result,  the percent decrease in I  relative to 2005 was only about 21%. (Multiply P by 1.122 and multiply AT by (1 - 0.296) to get the factor 0.79 by which I changes. This represents a decrease by a fraction 1 - 0.79 = 0.21 of the 2005 value.

 

Note that if P had not changed, there would have been a decrease in emissions of 29.6% relative to 2005 instead of only 21%. (In the above calculation, just multiply T by the given factor to account for the technological improvement and leave P alone.) Recall that the NDC made by the US was a 26% decrease relative to 2005 by 2025. So without population growth, the US in 2020 would already have met its NDC, (provided that at least there would be no reversal that would produce an increase back up to above 26% relative to 2025). As it is, the US still has to reduced emissions further just to meet its NDC, which is actually inadequate like the NDCs many other countries originally made. Recall that, as stated above, the world should decrease emissions by 36.6% by 2030 just to be in line with the median of the target range recommended by the IPCC in 2018. To achieve the decrease it should make, the US has much more to go, and probable population growth will make it more difficult. 

 

Meanwhile, in the economic equation, the per-capita effect comes from doing various tasks and making transactions, including doing research and development, manufacturing the things developed, transporting things and providing other services. All of these activities to varying degrees involve consumption, associated waste deposition and other environmental alteration. So in general the per-capita environmental impact AT increases as per-capita economic activity increases. This happens when a society becomes more affluent, e.g. has people buying more cars or more stuff they don't really need under the influence of marketing, or doing more vacation travel, but also when it becomes more senselessly wasteful, e.g. has people doing more long-distance commuting to sit in front of computers five days a week rather than working a large portion of the time from home, or has people just throwing more good stuff away and buying new.  So in general, per-capita environmental impact and per-capita economic activity are coupled. Doing and manufacturing and building more and using more stuff per-capita increases the A factor and so has more environmental impact per-capita, unless new technology deployed  during the period decreases T enough to compensate. Shifting the mix of activities to toward less emission intensity could decrease A, and might occur along with some economic growth.

 

Such total compensation, in which environmental impact is reduced but economic growth is positive, sometimes called decoupling,  is an idealization that would be very difficult to achieve in all areas. Decoupling for a year might be approached if all of the economic growth were say, exclusively in software development or telecommunications. It might be approached over time by permanently decreasing some high emitting activities, like commuting while  transitioning to less emission intensity to technology and reducing or at least restraining P. Such shifts decrease the carbon intensity of an economy. T would be reduced for the year and in future years because of the PV deployment. But that has not been the case. Economic growth per-capita has been broad spectrum under the investor capitalist system and if it continues on track therefore can be expected to cause per-capita growth in net environmental damage.

​

​

​

Global Warming and Climate Change

​

The climate change produced by global warming is the most widely acknowledged harmful feedback from nature already being strongly experienced. Global warming results from civilizations' dumping of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, mainly from combustion of carbon-containing fossil fuels. The problem being global, a series of international conferences on it has been held over about the past 50 years and scientists have issued a number of warnings, but CO2 emissions from civilization have continued to be on the increase. (28-30, 34) Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration has accordingly continued its upward trend without any apparent abatement, as has global average temperature. (35, 36) This poor track record of the global capitalist-market-financial-political system, despite the progression of greenhouse gas concentration, warming and associated extreme weather events, policy advocacy from civil society and scientists' warnings, warrants no more than low confidence in the system's ability and willingness to sufficiently reduce emissions going forward. 

​

In the Paris Accord of 2015, 185 countries, including the US and China, agreed to reduce or limit their GHG emissions according to individual Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs), with the goal of keeping global warming relative to preindustrial temperature below 2°C and aiming for 1.5°C.  For example, the US pledged to reduce its annual emissions 26% relative to 2005 by 2025. Many other countries referenced their commitments to 2030. (37, 38) However, a recent study published in 2021, applying a probabilistic model, found that the major emitters including the US and China have low probabilities of meeting their NDCs; for the US only 2% and for China only 16%. A higher probability of meeting its NDC does not mean a better job of reducing emissions because the NDCs were nonuniform, with some countries making easier-to-reach commitments. A few countries are on track, but some of these may have made only weak commitments. (38)

 

Further, even if all countries meet their NDCs and continue reducing the carbon intensity of their economies (GHG emissions per unit of GDP) at a high rate beyond 2030, the probability of  staying below 2°C, a possibly catastrophic  level of warming, within the time until 2100 is only 26%. If all countries except the US were to succeed, the probability  drops to 18%. Under current trends, a number of countries will fail and the probability of even staying below 2°C is only 5% and warming of 2°C will probably be reached around mid century. Even if all countries meet their NDCs, the probability of staying below 1.5 °C is no more then 2%. (38)

 

Since the Paris Accord, the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 2018 issued a report on what needs to be accomplished to have various probabilities of keeping warming below the 1.5°C and 2°C levels. To aim for at least an estimated 50% probability that global warming will not exceed 1.5°C or return to 1.5°C by 2100 after a low overshoot, global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions should be no more than 25 – 30 billion tons CO2e/yr in 2030 and then further reduced down toward near net zero around 2050. The median of the 2030 target range is 36.6% lower than the global 2005 level. In reality, emissions in 2030 should be even lower because the scenarios considered for the report included subsequent deployment of highly problematic schemes and technologies for removing carbon from the atmosphere and these should not be relied upon.  (39)

 

US GHG emissions in 2005 were 7392 million tons (Mt) CO2e/yr. In 2020 they were down to about 5823 million tons CO2e/yr, 21% down from the 2005 level. (31) (This was mainly due to recessions and the replacement of coal with natural gas and solar and wind for electricity generation. Natural gas power plants emit roughly half of the greenhouse gas emissions per kWHr of energy output than coal plants and solar and wind have no operational emissions.) So to be in line with the median of the global target range for 2030, which is 36.6% down from the global 2005 level, (see above), the US must decrease it annual emissions by another 15.6% of its 2005 level by the end of 2030, which would bring them down to 4670 Mt CO2e/yr. Relative to 2020, this would be a 19.8 % drop. This would be after a sharp drop already has occurred in 2020 due to recession. Previously, after a sharp drop in emissions in the early years of a recession, in 2008 through 2009, it then took ten years to go down just 3.1%. So the percent decrease needed in the ten years from the end of 2020 through the end of 2030 is over six times greater than what occurred in the decade after the previous recession drop. Consequently it is questionable whether the US, the world's second largest emitter as of 2019, will be in line with recommendations for keeping global warming below 1.5 °C or returning to 1.5 °C after a low overshoot.

 

For China, with annual emissions higher by the end of 2020 than in 2005 and the largest emitter as of 2019, the necessary percent reduction from 2020 is even greater. China's emissions actually went up in 2020 from 2019, while the global amount went down. The 2020 emissions for China may be obtained by adding the 2019 amount given in reference 33 to the change given in reference 30. (30, 33) Since global emissions are also up since 2005, emissions globally must go down by a greater percentage also. The 2020 global level may be obtained by adding the 2019 level given in 29 to the change given in 30. The global 2005 level is given in 40. (29, 30 40)

​

The emission of carbon-containing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by human activities, mainly by fossil fuel combustion, not only directly increases greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, but also indirectly through changes in natural carbon flows in response to the increased greenhouse gas concentrations and warming. For example, warmer conditions increase the rate of release of carbon from the ground and it emerges in carbon dioxide and methane. This includes the release of carbon dioxide and methane from thawing permafrost (frozen organic material beneath the surface in some northern and southern latitudes). Warming also affects and contributes to the destruction of forests in a way that decreases or eliminates their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide. This includes die-off due to heat stress and worsening of fires due to hot, dry conditions. These effects are referred to as carbon-cycle feed-backs. Not all feed-backs increase atmospheric carbon. For example, increased carbon dioxide concentration increases plant growth at least in some areas for some plants and the plants absorb more carbon dioxide. However, the net effect of carbon cycle feed-backs is expected to seriously increase greenhouse gas concentration in the atmosphere above what just what would result directly from human-caused emissions, and so increase warming. This decreases the additional amount of carbon that civilization can get away with emitting in order to have at least a 50% chance to keep warming below 2°C (relative to preindustrial global average temperature) and so reduces the time remaining for civilization to approach net zero emissions .

​

A single feed-back, such as release of carbon from the ground in response to warming can accelerate warming and so accelerate other feed-backs, such as damage to forests that reduces carbon absorption, resulting in interacting feed-back accelerations. If the net rate of release from the temperature dependent feed-backs were to get so high that even if human civilization suddenly stopped its emissions, atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations would not decrease fast enough or at all, warming would run away, out of control for a period, toward a hotter state of the earth. So a stability limit, or global tipping point of the earth would be crossed if feed-backs were to get that severe. Warming must be stopped before that happens.

The existence of stability limits or tipping points for individual earth systems, such as permafrost, forests or ice sheets, increases the chance of runaway warming. As feed-backs from the earth's systems in response to warming progress, their stability limits, (also called tipping points) are expected to be crossed, meaning that they would undergo spontaneous irreversible change that would accelerate their net release of carbon or other warming effects, which could not be stopped by human intervention.   The feedback interactions would become more rapid and a cascade of tipping point crossings could result.

​

As global average temperature increases the direct consequences become more damaging, but also, the chance of triggering a cascade of tipping point crossings increases. It is now thought that there is a substantial probability that the triggering could occur around 2°C or even lower. So, as recommended by the IPCC, it is very preferable to stay below 1.5°C. However as things stand, there is even a high risk of exceeding 2°C, which could occur as early as mid century. Even if civilization were to suddenly and completely stop its emissions, there could be continued warming for a time because the temperature corresponding with the concentration at cut-off may not have been reached and greenhouse gas concentrations would only decrease gradually. So without sufficient reductions in emissions, at some point atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations and temperature would get so high that it would be too late to avoid 2°C even with a sudden cessation of emissions. As such a time is approached without sufficient reductions of emissions, the rate at which emissions must be reduced increases toward a level of practical impossibility and the world is headed in that direction. Given the track record of the basic status quo political and economic systems and culture in some major countries, which have caused the ongoing damage, the outlook is bleak and the situation is becoming more dangerous as time goes on.

​

Energy related economic problems

​

An increase in resource constraints, such as the increase of energy and capital costs of extracting fossil fuels per unit of energy obtained may make it increasingly difficult to change course. A trend of decreasing accessibility of fossil fuels has been reducing the ratio of energy available from fossil fuels produced to the energy required to extract, transport and process. (23) Since advances in extraction technology cannot maintain the rate of supply against this trend indefinitely, a downward trend in annual net fossil energy supplied is inevitable. With transition to nonfossil sources lagging, net energy from the entire energy sector available for other things beyond providing energy will be substantially less than it otherwise would be and society will have increasing difficulty transitioning to non-fossil energy.

 

The annual installation of solar and wind electrical generation capacity has been growing, but the use of fossil fuels has also been growing.   Growth in global primary energy supplied by fossil fuels exceeded the growth in energy supplied by all non-fossil sources from 2005 through 2019. This includes growth in recent years, and higher relative growth in fossil fuel use is seen in recent periods such as 2015 through 2019 and so the trend has not gone away. (24) Globally, electricity generation from fossil fuels as of 2020 was about 50% greater than the contribution from all other sources combined, including nuclear, hydro-power, wind and solar. (25) In the US, electricity generation from fossil fuels was also roughly 50% greater than the combined contribution from all other sources. (26) Outside of electricity generation, the disparity is much greater. (27) 

 

With available energy decreasing, there would be more competition for energy among different things such as growing and distributing food, just running refrigerators and other appliances,  new infrastructure projects to supply adequate water because of droughts, building big screen TVs, unnecessary long-distance commuting, manufacturing and operation of private jets, and launching billionaires into space.  Overall, these activities would have to decrease. In the irresponsible system, they would not be properly prioritized. The high costs of food and water, running appliances and commuting to work would hit ordinary people while billionaires would continue going to space, undaunted by the increase, which they could handle.

 

The cost of new solar, wind and nuclear would be going up, which could slow the already slow energy  and transportation transition. Without major focus on an energy transition, fossil fuel use could continue at higher cost, with more energy from fossil sources going back into producing fossil fuels, and emissions would increase or at least not decrease. An earth system threshold could be crossed despite fossil depletion. In such a scenario the irresponsible system squanders the benefit of sufficiently high global fossil fuel energy profit ratios rather than focusing on a fast enough transition. (17, 18)

​

​

Increasing the scope of action

 

To maximize the chances of reversing the multiyear trend, a broader scope of action than political activism may be helpful. A simple analysis (see Analysis of Environmental Effects of Human Civilization below) shows that even if technological improvement within the capitalist-market-financial-political system were accelerated, population growth encouraged by the system and other opposing processes would partially negate or prevent reductions in environmental damage. Even without population growth, it would be far from certain that the system could be forced to make a technological transition in time to avert disaster. The status quo system also will not support transition to a more humane and just society. So just advocating policies to support technological change within the system is not adequate. It would be helpful therefore if technology could support transition to better systems that would both accelerate technological improvement and deployment and also support a broader scope of improvement, such as humane reversal of human population growth.

​

To make this happen, the Discovery Solar Transition Project aims to enable advancement in solar energy and transportation technology and existing technology to help develop a supplemental electronic currency system for creating, distributing and allocating economic power for what needs to be done. This includes further and faster development and deployment of the technology and also work to make society overall sustainable, more humane and just. For example, members in the Transition Project community would receive currency that they could use to help pay for solar installations with energy storage from participating companies. Contributors to environmental and humane causes would receive bonus currency to empower more contributions.

​

The currency system can be developed and produce results in the US without approval from the US Senate, with its over-representation of climate deniers and the fossil fuel industry. Development of a large base of membership is key to success but majority support is not needed for a currency system to develop and function: the system could produce results without majority support in any particular geographic region, unlike what political action usually needs to get results. Furthermore, even if and where some political action succeeds in getting better government policy, a currency system can further accelerate progress, and help overcome deficiencies, loopholes, perversions and deceptions in the policy. Thus the Transition Project adds a new dimension to civil society in addition to just political action for better government policy against powerful, wealthy stubborn forces. 

​

The objective of the transition project to establish a more ecologically sound system for creating and distributing fundamental economic power must be achieved in some way, whether by the transition Project or through other means, if civilization is to survive.  There is substantial chance that in the remaining time until the middle of the 21st century,  the long-term habitability of the earth for contemporary species, including humans, will be decided. During this time, the irresponsible status quo world system of the past might finish driving the world to disaster or inevitability of disaster. On the other hand, forces of revolutionary change could create and establish new systems and strategies that will oppose, modify, supplement, replace or overcome the old system in a transition to a more humane, just and sustainable society. One of the fundamental changes during the period will likely be the development and implementation of systems for creation and distribution of fundamental economic power that will supplement, modify or replace the old ones. We hope that the Transition Project, humbly started in an enlightened spirit, will be one such project that will help launch a new movement toward an ecologically sound, just and humane way of creating and distributing economic power. People that become members and support the Transition Project will receive authorization for its supplemental currency.

​

​

END

​

​

Need for Maximum Effort, a Broad Scope of Improvement and the Transition Project

​

Given the high expected costs of more emissions and more damage to natural carbon sinks, especially with the probability of a tipping point cascade beyond 1.5°C if not enough is done, society should maximize it efforts within limits of feasibility to reduce the uncertainty and increase the probability of staying below 1.5°C. However, because building and installing the new technology in a technological transition takes energy to power machines and devices, like anything technological does, and also takes work from humans to operate and monitor the machines and devices and do manual labor, a rapid transition will compete with other things for energy and people power if the transition is overly reliant on unmodified market forces. So-called renewable and clean technology requires a lot of up-front investment. So side effects of the transition could then possibly be felt through higher prices across the board unless some things are subsidized and/or others inhibited. It would be ethically imperative for, say, to keep food prices low and let the competition for energy and workers be diverted to the manufacturing of big-screen TVs, private jets and their operation and self-driving cars, so that energy consumption for those things would decline. It would be helpful to minimize long-distance commuting, which few people even like to do on a regular basis. Reducing the growth of P would put less pressure on reducing AT. The higher P, the greater per-capita sacrifice will be required to make the needed investments to reduce emissions and other impacts.

​

The requirements for reducing energy consumption outside of what is required for technological transition could be moderate if technological transition is accelerated in the early part of the 2020 - 2030 decade but as time goes on and 2030 is approached without significantly increased action, the requirements would become very severe  fast. The situation could be similar to WW 2, when consumption and production of things in the US other than war materials was severely limited by government regulation. WW 2  was not won by letting market forces rule.

​

​

So to achieve a humane and just transition that is sufficiently rapid, not only must there be support for building and installing  new technology, and developing better technology,  but there must also be a broad range of support for things deemed essential. Of course issues could arise as to what is essential, and a broad politically correct approach at the federal level would almost certainly omit important things. Thus there is a need for more support from civil society. The need is heightened but not new. Even if there were no need for an energy technology transition, there would be a dire continuing need for society to become more humane and just. The environmental crisis may require and open the door to a broad scope of improvement but the opportunities for it must be taken, or else the response of the dominant system could make some things worse.  

​

Therefore, trying for more technology in a continuation of the current economic and political context would not be as effective and beneficial as concurrently working to build economic systems that would help accelerate both the development and distribution of the technology, and also help shift productive capacity, and human activity in general, toward what should be done to realize a better world in a broad sense.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​