Chapter 2 - Charting the Course: Toward a Cleaner, Richer Hydrogen Age

Two specters threaten civilization.

First is the prospect of environmental and economic devastation caused by unprecedented climate volatility and change. Until the 20th century, for more than 600,000 years the carbon dioxide (CO2) content of Earth’s atmosphere had never gone above 300 parts per million by volume (ppmv). Throughout this enormous stretch of time, carbon dioxide and Earth’s temperature have tracked each other like two dogs on a leash. As CO2 levels rose or fell, so have global temperatures, through both ice ages and times when we would have been basking at the poles. Now human activity has pushed atmospheric CO2 to more than 380 ppmv. Moreover, no matter what we do, it is sure to reach at least 450 ppmv, which will be 45% higher than at any time during those 600,000 years. We are in trouble, the severity of which is impossible to overstate.

The second threat is a panorama of collapsing nations, caused by the local depletion and global maldistribution of quality fossil fuels, especially oil.
Because at any moment, exploding geopolitics could shatter international oil trade and strangle industrialized nations.

If we remain tethered to fossil fuels, the first peril will become reality and the second might.

 

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