Immediate action is needed to save the long-term future

If you turn on your television set, the vast majority of the programs thatyou will be offered give no hint at all of the true state of the world or of the dangers which we will face in the future. Part of the reason for this willful blindness is that no one wants to damage consumer confidence. No one wants to bring on a recession. No one wants to shoot Santa Claus.

But sooner or later a severe recession will come, despite our unwillingness to recognize this fact. Perhaps we should prepare for it by reordering the world's economy and infrastructure to achieve long-term sustainability, ie steady-state economics, population stabilization, and renewable energy.

Our responsibility to future generations and the biosphere

All of the technology needed for the replacement of fossil fuels by renewable energy is already in place. Although renewable sources supplied only 9 percent of the world's total energy requirements in 2015 , they supplied 23 percent of ekectrical generation energy in 2016, and they are growing rapidly. Becauseof the remarkable properties of exponential growth, this will mean that renewables will soon become a major supplier of the world's energy requirements, despite bitter opposition from the fossil fuel industry.

Both wind and solar energy can now compete economically with fossil fuels, and this situation will become even more pronounced if more countries put a tax on carbon emissions, as Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Costa Rica, the United Kingdom and Ireland already have done.

Much research and thought have also been devoted to the concept of a steady-state economy. The only thing that is lacking is political will. It is up to the people of the world to make their collective will felt.

History has given to our generation an enormous responsibility towards future generations. We must achieve a new kind of economy, a steady-state economy. We must stabilize global population. We must replace fossil fuels by renewable energy. We must abolish nuclear weapons. We must end the institution of war. We must reclaim democracy in our own countries when it has been lost. We must replace nationalism by a just system of international law. We must prevent degradation of the earth's environment. We must act with dedication and fearlessness to save the future of the earth for human civilization and for the plants and animals with which we share the gift of life.

Hope

Here is what Greta Thunberg says about hope:

And yes, we do need hope. Of course, we do. But the one thing we need more than hope is action. Once we start to act, hope iseverywhere. So instead of looking for hope, look for action. Thenand only then, hope will come today.