Erik Nordeus - The Engineer

Before we run out of oil, we have to save at least some of it. “I think we should be saving our oil resources for the future when we really need it and make sure that it’s applied for the highest use in the economy, which would be things like pharmaceuticals and plastics production,” Elon said. “We shouldn’t really be burning the stuff in our cars. It’s pretty valuable as an industrial ingredient.” 433

So the first reason why we need a sustainable energy economy is peak oil. The second reason is environmental reasons. A world without oil will be cleaner than a world with oil, but a world without any fossil fuels is the best alternative. Elon is not a fan of global warming since it’s a dumb experiment. “They often say ‘How do we know for certain that CO 2emissions cause global warming?’” Elon asked. “If you ask a scientist ‘Do you know anything for certain?’ they generally say ‘No we don’t know for certain, we don’t know anything for certain’ But the overwhelming opinion of the scientific community is that the CO 2is causing global warming. Given that we will run out of oil anyway, it doesn’t make any sense to put trillions of tonnes of CO 2in the atmosphere and see what happens, which could be catastrophic. It’s just a dumb experiment.” 341

The CO 2experiment is comparable to the cigarette experiment. It was popular on Earth several years ago, and some are still participating in it. “In the early days of smoking they used to think that smoking was fine,” Elon said. “This link between lung cancer and smoking was completely ridiculous. They had like pregnant women in ads smoking. It was difficult to prove an exact link. Everyone that smoked didn’t get lung cancer. 99 percent of the scientists thought that smoking is bad for your health. The smoking lobby would say ‘Scientists disagree.’”

To accelerate the transition from a society dependent on fossil fuels, Europe has a tax on petrol that favors fuel-efficient vehicles. Elon wished the US had a similar tax. 66“Even though I’ve got companies trying to address the problem, I drive cars, I use more electricity than I should,” Elon said. “It’s tough to tell people you’re causing long-term harm to the world, and even if you don’t pay the penalty, your children or grandchildren will. So essentially we need to tax it, the way we tax cigarettes and alcohol, for the public good.” 316

Another way to accelerate the transition from a society dependent on fossil fuels is to have stronger incentives for solar, wind, geothermal, and hydro energy. Nuclear power, which is a cleaner alternative than coal or gas, can be an alternative. “It’s [nuclear] the lesser of the evils – not ultimately the best. But not wise for California,” Elon said. Because California is in an earthquake zone, it’s a less good area for the construction of nuclear power plants. 66

What we need is a complete system of both sustainable power generation and consumption. But we tend to prioritize smaller solutions, such as recycling of garbage. “Recycling of garbage and stuff like that is important but pales in significance to having sustainable clean power generation and consumption,” Elon said. “The world is not going to die because of Coke bottles.” 452

Largely because of the financial crisis that began in 2008, several concerned citizens have begun to prepare for a collapse of our society. This is not something new as it has happened several times before. The investor Warren Buffett’s father, Howard Buffett, lost faith in the US dollar and bought gold and a farm to prepare for a collapse of the financial markets. 65

Buffett is a person Elon admires. 326The Giving Pledge is a philanthropic campaign by Buffett and Bill Gates, and Elon is one of twelve billionaires who has signed it and will give at least half of his wealth to charity. “Just signed giving pledge with eleven others. I hope this announcement convinces others to do the same,” Elon said. 56

Preparing for unexpected events is generally a good idea. After the Hurricane Katrina in 2005, everyone saw how difficult it was for a government to help a large amount of people in need. But some take this preparation to the extreme, and the reality series Doomsday Preppers popularized it. The series shows US citizens who are preparing for everything between heaven and earth, including a collapse of the financial market, a nuclear war, and a worldwide pandemic. 64

The preppers, as they call themselves, buy large amounts of weapons and food. While some preppers construct large underground bunkers and defenses, others rebuild old military trucks to be able to escape into the wilderness. Some believe hiding out in the middle of the ocean is the only way to survive, so they prepare large boats. One planned to escape from the US to safety in the jungles of Costa Rica.

Entire industries have grown up to help people prepare. One company specialized in building bunkers with flushing toilets, hot water, and surveillance cameras. To build these bunkers, that could be hidden four floors below the ground, they hire workers from another area to make sure no one except the owner of the bunker will get to it if something happens. Another company specialized in training people how to escape by foot from New York to a safer place.

But no one in the television show is as extreme as Elon, who want to escape to other planets. “I really believe it is a matter of when and not if, and that when is probably a lot sooner than most of us are comfortable thinking about,” Elon said. “Things have happened quickly. It took us millions of years to evolve into what we are, but in the last 60 years, with atomic weaponry, we’ve created the potential to extinguish ourselves. And if it’s not us, it will inevitably be something else. If not a meteorite in the relative short term, then the expansion of the Sun’s corona. It will happen.” 49He added a number of other threats with the ability to extinct life on Earth. They include an engineered virus unleashed by terrorists, an inadvertent creation of a micro black hole, or a yet unknown technology. 61To save mankind from these catastrophes, we need to begin living on other planets.

When we have begun living on other planets, it will be a so-called “epochal moment.” These are not moments in the history of mankind, these are the life’s turning points. Curing cancer will be a moment in the history of mankind, but from a broader perspective, no one will remember when we found the cure for cancer. “People think of curing AIDS or cancer as being very important, and they are – within the context of humanity,” Elon said. “But curing all forms of cancer would improve the average life span by only two to three years. That’s it.”

The first epochal moment was the advent of the single-celled organism, the second was the emergence of multi-celled life, the third was plants and animals, the fourth was the move onto land, the fifth was the mammals, and the sixth was the consciousness. The seventh epochal moment will happen when we begin living on other planets. “A million years from now, when most of what we see is forgotten, the point at which humans were no longer limited to one planet will be remembered,” Elon said. “It’s important enough to be on the scale of life itself, and therefore goes beyond the parochial concerns of humanity. We’re all focused on our little things that are of concern to humanity itself.” 49,287

Isaac Asimov, who said, “I definitely believe that humanity’s destiny will be found in expansion beyond our planet’s surface,” shares these ideas. Asimov also talked about what he called real changes, like nuclear power and the jet plane, and compared it with changes that are more trivial. “What difference did it make to the people of the ancient world that Alexander the Great conquered the Persian Empire?” he asked. “Obviously, that event made some difference to a lot of individuals. But if you look at humanity in general, you’ll see that life went on pretty much as it had before the conquest.” 455