Human 2.0: Homo-Petroleosus Becomes Homo-Solarus

Abstract

We have until 2025 to profoundly change the way we produce and use energy. We could hope that a confused array of carbon taxes, voluntary individual actions, hoped-for technological advances, or beneficent aliens saves us from some climate and environmental catastrophe, or, we could look at the challenge as an engineer would. Engineers use reductionist logic to make complex design problems manageable, so I’ll begin with that reductionist logic to create the background for our re-design.