Last week, GenConnect posted its interview with Hal Harvey at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June 2013. GenConnect, an online platform that provides expert recommendations on current events, asked Hal about the biggest environmental challenges and what today’s young adult generation can do to improve the world’s future.

Hal mentions the world’s enormous untapped fossil fuel reserves as the largest threat to the planet. “We have far more carbon available in fossil fuels than the atmosphere can handle… If we continue to extract, we continue, in effect, to poison the earth.” Increasing atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide through the burning of fossil fuels has brought several of Earth’s fragile natural systems past their tipping points, resulting in irreversible change. Rising sea levels, warmer global temperatures, and more extreme weather are all examples of systems experiencing these changes, also known as runaway feedback loops. “If we don’t bend the curve on CO2 emissions, we really will render much of this planet uninhabitable.”

Despite this ominous outlook, Hal offers recommendations to how today’s young adult generation can protect the future health of the planet. Hal notes that the young adult population in the United States is especially receptive to the scientific truths of human’s impact on climate change, and are ready and willing to take action. Modifying personal behaviors, such as purchasing more energy-efficient products and switching to zero- or low-carbon modes of transportation, are small actions that can cumulate to make a real impact. People can also make a difference by influencing others to take action. Today’s connected society allows people to spread messages and reach out across several networks to share ways to ensure a healthy future.

In many cases, new energy technologies can speak for themselves in proving that a low-carbon future is possible. Prices for solar and wind technologies have dropped drastically in the last few years, and are continuing to decline. Countries around the world are noticing the promise of these technologies, and in 2011, global investments in renewable energy exceeded that of fossil fuels for the first time ever. Given this, the future of renewable energy and a clean environment is bright. “By 2050, we can kick the fossil fuel habit, but only if we really push hard now.”

For more information about the impacts of global warming and clean energy prospects for the future, check out Hal’s Aspen Ideas Festival presentation, titled “Fear and Hope.”