I have a new column today on OnlySky. It’s about a better world that’s coming, and that may not be as far off as you’d guess. The technologies we need to create this world aren’t sci-fi; they all already exist. They just need to be put together in a single package. When they do, civilization is going to be radically transformed.
In the near future, ultra-cheap renewable energy is going to drive out expensive, polluting fossil fuel. Advanced agricultural robotics will take over the jobs that once required grueling human labor. Automated manufacturing will end sweatshops and allow every community to make the things it needs for itself. Electric mass transit and self-driving cars will bring about the end of car culture and suburban sprawl. When you put all these pieces together, what does the completed jigsaw look like?
Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full piece. This column is free to read, but paid members of OnlySky get some extra perks, like a subscriber-only newsletter and the ability to post comments.
At the top of the list is solar power. Solar (and renewable energy in general) has two crucial traits: it’s incredibly cheap—now far cheaper than fossil fuel—and it’s available everywhere, which makes it inherently decentralized. These facts point to a radically different future than the world we’re used to, where oil, gas and coal have to be transported over long distances from where they’re dug up to where they’re burned.
There are other transformative technologies in the pipeline as well. When you combine them with abundant clean energy, you can glimpse one possible future, like catching sight of a distant valley through a gap in the clouds. Call this possibility the solarpunk future, after the name coined by literary and artistic dreamers.
” self-driving cars will bring about the end of car culture”
You had me going there for a minute. Why not throw in transporters and lightsabers while you’re at it?