"Mars is irrelevant to us now. We should of course concentrate on maintaining the habitability of the Earth" - Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson

We could heavily improve the future by making meaningful changes even if climate change isn't fully negated. And yeah, if we were willing to disrupt our lives we could save future generations way more than we lose.

Building high speed rail and just generally expanding/improving cargo/passenger rail networks doesn't even require recent technology and would make a massive difference for carbon emissions from transport and cargo. We invest an absurd amount of money into car infrastructure improvements for very little throughput that could be put into rail.

We could also be heavily investing in grid level storage technologies or just building big infrastructure to create pumped hydro systems where it is possible to do so. With current battery technology, we could brute force grid level storage using cheap, space inefficient batteries.

In the United States it seems like all we are willing to do is invest a little bit of subsidies into companies that are already building electric cars. Imagine if we took major steps towards reducing carbon emissions and if we even helped developing countries build sustainable energy systems.

If we just wait for future technology, it will be too late and even at that point people will be saying we should wait longer for technology that disrupts our lives even less.

/r/Futurology Thread Parent Link - farsight.cifs.dk