man faces some big difficulties in the future. The technology to give us alternatives to burning hydrocarbons for energy just arent producing. For example, photovoltaic cells are little better today then decades ago. The quantum efficiency is still woeful ,<20% isnt it? and they are still expensive to make.
Wind power isnt 100% reliable, and wind farms costly to build and the noise causes problems if people live nearby.
We seem no closer to fusion power now, than the 1970's
Nuclear power costs twice as much as coal, asking everyone to pay 100% more for their electricity is untenable.
Our cities lack a proper integrated public transport system, and the cities themselves poorly designed for mass rapid transit. Remember the
Multifunction Polis. It never got off the ground.
Finally, we may have to consider technology may not be open ended. With a finite number of usable elements, and thus a finite number of chemical compounds that can be made from them, we may hit a wall where no great new inventions may be made, kinda like when silicon chip circuitry cannot be made any smaller. This is talked about in the book
The Life and Death of Planet Earth, it used an example of the bicycle will not be ridden much faster than it is now, and there may be no great technological breakthroughs that will help us through the future. The book is a very good read. Also, note the name of one of the authors. Coincidently the same name as who started the thread
My own opinion of climate change is, well Earth has never had a species intent on burning up a sizable portion of the planets hydrocarbons before. Also, despite the Sun being in one of the deepest solar minimums in modern times and the corresponding drop in irradiance, we had the
2009 southeastern Australia heat wave, record temps and the resulting worst bushfire deathtoll in Australias recorded history. Yep, we are to blame.