In the 19th century internal combustion engines commonly ran on grain alcohol, but it was too expensive and too hard to mass produce so they went to petroleum based fuels. Electric cars have existed since the invention of the electric motor, but they’ve always been held back by battery technology. An electric car that uses hydrogen fuel cells in conjunction with batteries would be more environmentally neutral while improving usability, but the cost of fuel cells and logistics of hydrogen fuel makes it infeasible.

Advancement in our way of life has always been driven by profit. If it’s not profitable, forget it. Advancement may even be held back by companies that see it as a threat to profit. Environmental impact has historically been a background concern. It’s not until the damage has become an actual threat has it moved to a forefront consideration. And solutions are mostly driven by government, not the responsible profiteers.

Tech is now pushing toward sustainable solutions, but it’s still profit driven. Business is looking to capitalize on new markets that have been opened up by government subsidy and popular opinion. It should have been there from the start, but the desire was never there. The attitude of government and big business in the first half of the 20th century was destructive. They felt the Earth was a resource to be plundered without regard for anything but profit.

We have to turn around over a century of damaging industry and way of life. It’s got a lot of inertia and it’s going to be hard to do. I think the human race is going to have to reap what it has sown and it could get pretty bad. We’ll have to get through it and change our way of life so it doesn’t happen again. If we become caretakers instead of destroyers the Earth can survive this era of human impact and heal much like it has for natural calamities in the distant past.