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Our Sustainable Future
Progress depends on unreasonable people.
Growing up in the 1970s, the year 2000 was far in the future. It seemed not only possible, but likely, that we’d have a lunar base and sentient robots as depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey. But by the end of the aughts, the decade after the world held its breath to see if Y2K would end civilization, the idea that we’d soon have reusable rockets and artificial intelligence — or even electric cars — seemed far-fetched.
Our attitude toward our environmental challenges is following a similar trajectory. In the 1970s, after the first Earth Day, the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, and the passage of federal environmental legislation, it seemed not only possible but likely that we’d prevent pollution and widely deploy sustainable technology by 2000. Now, after decades of slow progress, hope seemed to be fading, and solutions seemed out of reach.
But here we are in 2024, planning to return to our moon and beyond, chatting with artificial intelligence, and driving millions of electric cars. Nissan launched the Leaf, the world’s first mass-market electric car, in 2010. Tesla soon followed with the Model S in 2012, then the Model 3 in 2017, and then the Model Y in 2019, which became the world’s best-selling car in 2023. SpaceX failed three times to launch a rocket, then finally…
