A confession: I have been too complacent about technological fixes for the twin problems of climate change and finite oil and gas reserves. Without looking very closely at the numbers, I figured that if politicians would finally get their act together, and if we avoided some of the more unlucky possibilities (such as the release of methane ice from the oceans), cheap, clean energy would be within our grasp, given suitable research incentives and some technological brilliance.
迄今我仍未放棄這種技術(shù)幻想，但閱讀了劍橋大學(xué)物理學(xué)家戴維?麥凱(David J.C. MacKay)的一本非凡之作（你可以從www.withouthotair.com下載該書）之后，我對依靠技術(shù)擺脫困境的可能性大為悲觀。在《可再生能源——拒絕空話》(我要懺悔：對于借助技術(shù)手段解決氣候變化和石油天然氣資源有限這個(gè)雙重難題, 我一直過于自滿。在沒有仔細(xì)研究數(shù)字的情況下，我以為如果政客們最終能采取一致行動，如果我們能夠避開一些更加不幸的可能性（比如海洋冰層甲烷氣的釋放），再加上適當(dāng)?shù)难芯考钍侄魏鸵恍┘夹g(shù)才能，廉價(jià)的清潔能源就將唾手可得。