Could a Technological Miracle Save the Day Re: Climate Change?

Senior energy analyst Glenn Doty commented on my post Explaining Humankind’s Blase’ Response to Climate Change:

“The reason that people aren’t frantic about it: Since 1910, the planet has warmed roughly 1 degree C, and very few people would say that life is worse now than it was 100 years ago. They believe we’ll see technology continue to improve at a greater rate than the change in climate could make things worse.”

He then goes on to note:

“Good things abound, but there’s no way we aren’t going to have to pay some significant accommodation costs as the climate changes.”

It seems to me that the people betting on technology may ultimately be right.  I believe there is a good chance that a breakthrough will save the day here; it could be fusion, or even fission (thorium).  It could also be the simple evolution of what we have now, i.e., solar and wind, combined with smart-grid, high-voltage transmission, storage, etc. — all developing and becoming increasingly affordable at a rate much faster than we currently predict.

But, as I told the fellow from the Cato Institute who argued against an active strategy for climate change remediation on the basis of some new as-yet-unknown technology, “Responsible people don’t bet their survival on the possible occurrence of a miracle.” We didn’t agree on much… 🙂