I’m not criticizing people working on the problem. I’m criticizing the viewpoint that we are right around the bend and the fight is almost over. This is an unrealistic viewpoint.

We aren’t right around the bend. There is no indication that governments will stop subsidizing oil. Personal transportation might be electrified, but it’ll take decades and meanwhile other pollution sources would have grown to eat out the progress gained.

It’s unknown how far we can reasonably advance solar and battery technologies. It’s likely that raising global wealth and raising global population will result in raising global consumption (and pollution). Electric airplanes are decades (centuries?) away from taking over significant portions of air traffic.

This is a hard problem. You’re patting yourself on the back and pretending that we’re almost done.

We don’t have the political or economic structures to solve this problem. We don’t have good enough science or engineering to compete against fossil fuels. We don’t have enough time to build either.