Will the techno-optimists save the world?

While I would never deny that the climate is changing, I think you do see an intellectually dishonest approach used by the climate change-focused community: and that is to frame the coming challenge as a point of no return wall that we're quickly approaching.

I understand why this technique is used: it compels action now, because when problems only get worse over time, and there's little short-term gain to taking painful action in the short term, you need to compel it through some kind of strategy. However sometimes I think this approach backfires, because people can feel that the world they live in does not behave in this way. People see rapid change all the time, and the pace of change may increase. But this is not the same as a sudden earth death scenario.

I think this is where techno-optimists come in as necessary reminders that no if we don't do something to stop climate change today, we will somehow survive. Maybe we'll survive with a lot more deserts or a lot more flooding, and a lot more extinctions. But we will find a way to survive.

I think a good thought experiment is climate change adaptation. Let's say we see active flooding happening in a place: would we be better served to use the tool we have today --- fossil-fueled machines --- to terra-form, build levvies, save people, etc?

I recognize the thought experiment above is misleading in that it's not an either or --- we can reduce emissions and still use fuels in life/death situations etc. But if the thought experiment becomes an allegory for the world of today: that is a place where we're working hard to keep 7 billion people alive, through a global infrastructure that today requires fossil to function. Aren't we using fossil just to fuel our own survival right now? Even the developing world is (I'm sitting here in Bangladesh right now where they use petro-ferts and rely on trucking and shipping like everyone else).

Technologies will change when economics make sense, governments can help and probably should help more. But we need to be intellectually honest to be taken seriously by the masses.