Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen
Alex Steffen is an American futurist who writes and speaks about sustainability and the future of the planet...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
CountryUnited States of America
climate
The most climate friendly trip we are ever going to take is the trip we never had to take because we were close to what we wanted.
bad change changed climate continue less matter planet playing preventing rather
We unfortunately already live on a planet where the climate has changed and will continue to change no matter what we do now. We're playing a game of making the problem less bad rather than preventing it.
climate generations energy
By looking at climate change as a clean energy generation problem, we're setting ourselves up not to solve it.
cities climate use
Cities generate most of the global economy, and most of its energy use, resource demands and climate emissions. How we build cities over the next decades will largely determine whether we can deliver a bright green future.
change chewing climate collapse currently designed discrete environmental future larger planet problem society solve symptom tomorrow
Climate change is not a discrete issue; it's a symptom of larger problems. Fundamentally, our society as currently designed has no future. We're chewing up the planet so fast, in so many different ways, that we could solve the climate problem tomorrow and still find that environmental collapse is imminent.
bigger carbon change climate co2 court lens letting obsession tackling
Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO2 reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.
air believe centuries change climate dealing ethical hands pathway scenario throw whatever
There's no really rosy scenario ahead, where climate change just doesn't happen, but I believe we don't have the ethical right to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'Game over.' Whatever pathway we choose, our descendants will be dealing with that reality for centuries to come.
air climate meant outdated protecting thick time tough waste wealth worldview
In tough times, some of us see protecting the climate as a luxury, but that's an outdated 20th-century worldview from a time when we thought industrialization was the end goal, waste was growth, and wealth meant a thick haze of air pollution.
becoming carbon century civilization depends major planet power success thousand within zero
We're becoming a planet of a thousand new major cities. The economy of the 21st century is a city-building economy. It's within our power to make it a carbon zero one, too; and to be blunt, civilization depends on our success.
change currently energy entire simply society source works
The idea that we are going to be able to take our entire society as it currently works and simply change the source of energy and make it sustainable is not actually congruent with reality.
floor stuff
More is not better. Better is better. You don't need a bigger house; you need a different floor plan. You don't need more stuff; you need stuff you'll actually use.
decide paying people whether worth
If nothing else, the Internet allows people to put their ideas out there and let the world decide whether they're worth paying attention to.
chemical depend diversity ecological gas health including life limits multitude prosperity respecting shared toxic war water
We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits - not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.
created people
People - especially the geeks who created it - have tended to look at the Internet as something that's hermetically sealed: there's the Internet and the rest of the world. But that's not how people want to use the Internet. They want to use it as a way of better navigating the real world.