Does the climate crisis fill you with dread? It doesn’t have to

Does the discussion around the climate crisis fill you with dread? Let’s face it, it’s not exactly an uplifting topic, is it – there’s the word “crisis” in there, for one.

The whole thing sounds terrible: heatwaves, floods, droughts and hurricanes – and they’re getting larger and worse all the time. Reports of the danger our planet is facing are not meant to be lighthearted. They’re there to alarm, shame or cajole us. But the problem is, this can also have the opposite effect.

Most people don’t want to read depressing news all the time, according to research – they just switch to reading something more fun. Or they change the subject. Authoritative warnings about climate future rarely make front pages, and even at outlets that do give them prominence, they are rarely the most read articles. But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can flip the script.

Firstly, the climate crisis isn’t a massive, impossible problem that will cost us trillions to deal with. This narrative is out of date. Most of the technology needed to stop this crisis is now available, and it’s far cheaper than burning oil or gas. It would actually save us a lot of money.

More importantly, our future isn’t destined to be all wildfires and unprecedented floods, even though this week we have undoubtedly seen the devastation extreme weather events can cause. But we can switch the focus: there are exciting and innovative possibilities that will come with clean energy that hardly anyone talks about. And it’s those possibilities that can excite people and encourage them to take action faster.

Let me explain what I mean.

Human progress has always depended on exploiting more energy. The discovery of wood, coal, oil and natural gas each unleashed a torrent of innovation and progress – for example, we can easily travel across our beautiful planet in ways impossible to imagine just a hundred years ago. Modern life would have been impossible without using vast amounts of energy. But we are also constrained by it, because it’s expensive, polluting and finite.

And this is the beauty of clean renewable energy: it can be produced surprisingly cheaply, it doesn’t pollute anything and it doesn’t run out.

Hold on a second, you might say at this point – people keep saying this climate change stuff is going to be super expensive, and that you should cut back on everything and live like a caveman. Right? Well, some do say that, but in my opinion they‘re both wrong and late to the party.

The price of clean energy has fallen by 90 per cent since 2010, and that trend is set to continue. Never in human history have we had access to so much cheap and plentiful energy. Companies in the North Sea are producing electricity from offshore wind farms at a quarter of the price of gas. Solar panels and land-based wind farms are even cheaper than that. China is building vast energy farms in the desert.

This is the future we don’t talk about enough. With almost unlimited amounts of cheap, clean energy, we can make unimaginable progress. We could wipe out world hunger and end water shortages by growing food far more cheaply and efficiently under solar-powered LED lights. It is my belief that we will be able to travel to Australia in a quarter of the time for a tenth of the price; that billions of people in developing countries would no longer need to rely on solitary lightbulbs or charcoal to live and make food. And yes, flying into space – to my mind – will become the next frontier for carbon-free travel.

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Obviously, there are caveats. We have to replace our entire energy and food-making systems, and that will take time and investment. And yes, we will inevitably produce more pollution to manufacture vast numbers of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, but I believe the net effect will be vastly better.

Some people think this won’t work because the wind doesn’t blow and sun doesn’t shine all the time, but this, again, feels to me like an outdated view. The answer could be: batteries and backup nuclear power. And don’t forget – solar panels and wind turbines can produce clean energy for decades without ongoing costs! You don’t have to keep replacing them every few years.

In summary, I wholeheartedly believe that cheap, clean energy will bring us a world we can scarcely imagine right now. I am genuinely excited about it, and I think others should be too. Perhaps I’m too much of an optimist, but I’ve imagined the future and I’m telling you it could be amazing. Clean energy will unleash the kind of progress that will make the last 250 years feel like child’s play.

I think an optimistic vision of the future – talking about the benefits of shifting to cheap, abundant clean energy – won’t just be more interesting to read about, but more likely to encourage people to make the changes we need to combat the climate crisis. It starts here.