Plan B

And so, instead of reciting figures and spewing forth yet more apocalyptic forecasts, Matjaž and I decided to highlight the communities and individuals who are bravely taking on the calamity. It is high time to add them all up, the members of the homo sapiens true elite who have chosen not to be swept away in the tide of indifference and arrogance, the visionary women and men who are not banking on miraculous salvation from elsewhere. Our ambition has been to turn this book into a monument for these intrepid foot-soldiers on humanity’s key front line, the ones who are amassing the knowledge, experience and technology that we will need if we are to have a prayer at all. From Tilos, the first energy self-sufficient island in the Mediterranean, to the geothermal and thoroughly future-oriented Iceland. From the promising sea-power developments on the Orkney Islands in the north-east of Scotland, where surplus energy is already being converted into ‘green’ hydrogen, to the biomass-centred Austrian townlet of Güssing, whose inhabitants have taken the progressive route as far back as a quarter of a century ago, and who have by now managed to reinvent themselves as a key hub for the development and production of renewable-energy technology. So here they all are, humbly requesting your consideration. From the Swiss-based Climeworks company, capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air to inject it into Iceland’s underworld, to a number of self-sufficient Scandinavian villages and Iceland’s holistic transformation. From the lithium constantly travelling between Bolivian salt flats and Chinese electric-car factories to the electric-mobility revolution in Norway. From the waste-incineration plant in Norway that plans to store the captured CO₂ in underwater caves, to all of the individuals and communities who are standing behind these projects, raising their voices to remind us that we must hold on to our hopes at all costs.