How we deal with global warming closely resembles the way humanity typically handles major societal challenges. Broadly speaking, there are three strategies: denying the problem, cutting back on consumption, or innovating our way out. I’ll leave the first aside here, as I’m no supporter of risky chemical experiments involving our atmosphere. That leaves reducing consumption and innovating—and I’m increasingly convinced that the latter will be our main path forward.

For decades, we’ve heard calls to fly less, eat less meat, buy fewer goods, and use less energy. Degrowth may seem appealing to policymakers and activists, but it has no historical track record of success—except in cases where less production yields more quality. I myself have significantly cut back on buying encyclopedias, CDs, and rolls of film. Attempts to curb consumption on a large scale while permanently sacrificing comfort run into the same reality: since the beginning of our existence, people have wanted to move forward, not backward. It’s deeply rooted in our reptilian brain.

Technology, on the other hand, does have a track record. Thanks to innovation, we live cleaner, healthier, and more comfortably than ever before, despite population and economic growth. In many parts of the world, air and water are cleaner than they were fifty years ago, even as production and consumption increased. Yet that progress often comes at the cost of planetary boundaries. That’s why we need intervention—not to halt progress, but to keep it within the limits of our living environment.

I call this “sustainable hedonism”: continuing to pursue a good life, but doing so in a fully sustainable way. Not by suppressing desires, but by making it possible to fulfill them without harming the planet. Anyone who believes people will travel less underestimates our biology. Anyone who believes fossil fuels are needed for this underestimates technology. Anyone who believes people will eat less meat or dairy underestimates biology. Anyone who believes that requires living animals underestimates technology.

To stop or reverse global warming, we still need many building blocks: cheaper and scalable renewable energy, direct CO₂ capture, cultivated meat and precision fermentation, biodegradable materials, and synthetic biology. Achieving this requires scientific breakthroughs and large-scale deployment, accelerated by artificial intelligence and a fair CO₂ price. But for humanity—capable of producing 100 million cars, one and a half billion smartphones, and two billion tons of steel each year—this is far from unattainable.

It’s the only realistic path. The sobering truth is that humanity is more likely to let itself go extinct by choice than to fundamentally reduce its consumption. So we are left with a choice between innovation or a doom scenario. The remaining question: will we be on time?

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This article was translated using AI-assisted tools and reviewed by an editor.