The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates we have twelve years to halt global warming at 1.5 degrees. Yet we already have the technology required to meet these challenges, and thanks to convergences, it will only continue to improve. Our innovations may have caught up with our problems. Collaboration is the missing piece of the puzzle. If we’re going to make the shift to sustainable at the speed required, then we the people are both the obstacle and the opportunity.

Ridley estimates that the number of people in the world living in “absolute poverty” will hit zero by 2035.

Clay Shirky uses the term “cognitive surplus” to describe this process. He defines it as “the ability of the world’s population to volunteer and to contribute and collaborate on large, sometimes global, projects.” “Wikipedia took one hundred million hours of volunteer time to create,” says Shirky.