Decarbonizing Asia: Innovation, Investment and Opportunities by Tony A Verb

Section 1
HUMANS

INTRODUCTION
by Roman Y. Shemakov
In just 200 years, humans have reversed a 50-million-year climate cycle. If
unchecked, our Earth in 2050 will be its version from three million years
ago — sea levels will be 20 m higher and temperatures 3°C hotter.
In a
way, the industrial revolution and its aftermath ushered the greatest feat of
engineering known in cosmic history: a geological time machine. In
accelerating the passage of planetary time, humanity has not endangered the
planet; life on the “blue marble” has disappeared and reappeared for
millions of years. We have mostly endangered ourselves.
The past 150 years have been an experiment in pollution. We, as a
species, have been in a feedback loop of technological invention and
corollary by-products. The invention of the factory invented the modern
city, which welcomed the automobile, and thus the links of the modern
world leapt forward through the chain of time. In the process, varieties of
biophenomena have been eradicated, unpredictable climate disasters
unleashed, and waters poisoned.
We have locked the planet into a poignant state of learned helplessness.
The domestication and caricature of the environment came with an obvious
pushback. But while back to the land — mid-20th century trend of escaping
consumerism and corporatism via organic farming and homesteading —
might have seemed like a viable option in the 1960s, we have terraformed
our planet too much to simply step away. The artificial problems we have
created will also need to be solved through an equally artificial plan.
Technological innovation that used to be directed towards optimizing
machines must now be directed towards optimizing ecosystems. A focus on
by-products and externalities must move from an afterthought to the
starting point. The incentive systems and consumer choices must be wholly

Decarbonizing Asia: Innovation, Investment and Opportunities by Tony A Verb