The Crash Course, Revised Edition

CHAPTER 28The Good News: We Already Have Everything We Need

The good news is that we already have everything we need to create a better future. All of the understanding, resources, technology, ideas, systems, institutions, materials, and concepts are already available, invented, in place, and ready to be deployed in service of a better future.

We could do a lot better if we just decided to deploy our remaining energy and resources smartly. Whether we will or not is the open question. We might decide to be dummies instead of using common sense. When it comes to groups of people choosing the wrong path, well, that's something of a tradition.

Fundamentally, this book and my work are about exposing the choices and options we have. As dire as things seem, the future has not yet happened. Hope remains that we can respond intelligently to the current predicaments, and even create something better for ourselves along the way.

Yet, it's also true that our stadium is rapidly filling with water, time is running short, events are speeding up, and the mistakes we make going forward are going to be irreversible and costly. There's a lot less room for error than there was a few decades back, when we had plenty of time and surplus net energy to make mistakes and fumble around with our handcuffs. But now that the water is swirling up the last row of stairs to the upper bleachers, our choices matter a great deal more and will have to be made quickly with imperfect information.

There's no time ...