At a Time of Climate Crisis: We are not ‘all doomed’, there are plenty of reasons to be positive in the face of climate change

We already have technologies to stop using most fossil fuels and the solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions

In this month’s column for the Irish Times MaREI researcher Dr Hannah Daly at ERI, University College Cork writes ‘We are not ‘all doomed’, there are plenty of reasons to be positive in the face of climate change’. 

A great source of optimism and hope for me is the fact that we need no miracles to radically cut greenhouse gas emissions and halt climate change.

We already have the technologies necessary to stop using most fossil fuels. Those solutions – wind turbines, solar panels, electric vehicles, heat pumps, buses, bikes, insulation and so on – are already widely available on the market, are increasingly cheaper and more reliable than fossil fuels, and bring broader benefits, like cutting air pollution and making energy supply more secure and affordable.

We also have solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture and land use: dedicating more space to trees, peatlands, crops and nature requires no technological breakthroughs.

We can view climate change as a sociopolitical challenge, as much as a techno-economic one. This is another source of hope: history is full of examples of outlandish change in society.

Read the full article here.