Insightful analysis and strategies catalog for a greener, eco-friendlier world, leveraging the use of science and engineering. I learned some of the less obvious options to achieve it: cities, nuclear energy and genetic engineering.

Population scattered in the countryside, away from centralized distribution of energy and collection of garbage, is suboptimal. Cities are far more efficient in the use of resources and services for the very real large populations that inhabit greenhouse-effect-producing countries.

Nuclear energy is, within the measure of our current technological capabilities, the greenest source of energy at scale. It can efficiently and cleanly provide energy to very large populations.

Also at scale, genetically engineered organisms (GMOs) allow for more efficiently dealing with food demand. Food waste, in the form of a crop lost to bad weather or plague, is one of the largest contributors to the greenhouse effect.

As produced nowadays, crops no longer resemble an “organic”, “original” breed. They have been modified across generations through artificial selection so they’re more resilient to destructive events. GMO practices simply accelerate and improve the efficiency of such modifications.

These areas allow human’s footprint on the Earth to be engineered, providing control on our impact and prolonging inhabitance. It takes a properly informed society and investment into improving the technology behind each.

What’s stopping us?

Ignorance and misinformation.

Politics and short-term thinking.

Hypocritical guardrails and illogical ethics.

Tribalism.

The book is summarized by the author in a beautiful, concise paragraph:

Ecological imbalance is too important for sentiment. It requires science. The health of natural infrastructure is too compromised for passivity. It requires engineering. What we call natural and what we call human are inseparable. We live one life.