Dave Borlace cuts through the usual climate doom to present a startlingly optimistic thesis: we don't need to wait for new miracles or impose draconian restrictions to slash emissions by 90% by 2035. The most distinctive claim here is that the solution lies not in slowing down, but in accelerating the non-linear economic collapse of fossil fuels, livestock, and private car ownership through technologies that are already cheaper than the status quo.
The Non-Linear Trap
Borlace begins by challenging the linear mindset that plagues both policymakers and the public. "We're conditioned to tackle problems as linear processes that we can set up nicely in an excel spreadsheet," he writes, noting that this approach fails to capture the explosive nature of technological disruption. He points to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's own past failures, where models predicted renewables would take until 2100 to reach current capacity levels, only for wind and solar to hit those targets decades early. This framing is effective because it shifts the burden of proof from "can we afford to change?" to "why are we ignoring the math that says change is inevitable?"
The core of the argument rests on the concept of "virtuous and vicious cycles." As new technologies drop in cost, they gain acceptance, driving demand and further investment, while old technologies face a reverse economy of scale. Borlace illustrates this with the example of Kodak, an incumbent that failed to understand the speed of digital disruption. "Those two cycles are feedback loops and they're not linear they're exponential," he asserts. This is a crucial distinction; it suggests that the transition won't be a slow, managed slide but a rapid, market-driven avalanche.
Critics might note that assuming market forces alone will solve a crisis with such profound externalities risks underestimating the political power of entrenched fossil fuel lobbies. While the economics are compelling, the transition requires a political will to manage the social fallout of these "vicious cycles" for workers in declining industries.
"The most urgent question now at least for any rational person is not whether climate change is a real phenomenon that debate is long since settled except in the minds of a delusional minority no the most urgent question is what exactly can we do to wrestle back some semblance of equilibrium in our earth systems."
The Three Pillars of Disruption
Borlace structures the path to a 90% reduction around three foundational sectors: energy, transport, and food. In energy, he argues that solar, wind, and batteries (SWB) will not just compete but dominate, creating a phenomenon he calls "clean energy superpower." The argument is that because renewable capacity must be built to survive winter lows, it will massively over-produce during other seasons. "When things get that cheap people start finding ways to use them more and more," Borlace explains, suggesting this surplus will decarbonize everything from desalination to industrial heating.
This logic holds up well against the common counter-argument that renewables are too intermittent. By reframing the issue as one of abundance rather than scarcity, Borlace makes a persuasive case for why we don't need weeks of battery storage, but rather a grid that is so over-capacitated it becomes a utility for everything.
In transport, the disruption goes beyond simple electrification. Borlace predicts a shift from ownership to "transportation as a service" (TaaS) via autonomous vehicles. "Once autonomous technology removes the labor cost of the ride services the cost per mile for tas will be 10 times cheaper than privately owned vehicles today," he writes. This economic inevitability, he argues, will render private car ownership obsolete, not by regulation, but by simple arithmetic. The implication for freight and shipping is equally profound, with demand for commodities like oil and coal plummeting as the need to move physical goods shrinks.
The third sector, food, is perhaps the most contentious. Borlace highlights precision fermentation and cellular agriculture, technologies that produce proteins without animals. "The trajectory of the cost curve shows that pfca will be making protein products five times cheaper than existing animal protein by 2030 and 10 times cheaper by 2035," he notes. The efficiency gains are staggering: "100 times more land efficient, 10 to 25 times more feedstock efficient." This isn't just about burgers; it's about the economic death spiral of the livestock industry.
Critics might argue that cultural attachment to traditional farming and the complexity of global food supply chains could slow this adoption. However, Borlace's reliance on historical precedents—from the automobile replacing the horse to the internet disrupting media—suggests that consumer behavior shifts faster than we anticipate when the price and quality differential becomes this wide.
The Cascading Effect and Rewilding
The most surprising element of Borlace's analysis is the "cascading effect." By disrupting food production, we free up 80% of the land currently used for pasture and feed crops. "Essentially just by doing nothing and letting nature regenerate the land on its own it's just one example of what the research team refer to as the cascading effects of disruptive technologies," he writes. This passive reforestation is projected to be the single biggest decarbonization factor, accounting for a 20% reduction in emissions.
This reframing is brilliant. It moves the conversation away from the idea that humans must constantly intervene with complex geoengineering or carbon capture machines. Instead, the solution involves stepping back and allowing market-driven changes in energy and food to create the conditions for nature to heal itself. "Governments communities and interest groups must therefore begin planning today to take advantage of the enormous opportunities for conservation rewilding and ecological restoration that will emerge in the 2020s and 2030s," Borlace urges.
The argument suggests that the path to a sustainable future is not a sacrifice of modern comforts, but an acceleration of them. "With just three disruptions in key sectors we think x project that we humans can eliminate 90 percent of net greenhouse gas emissions globally by 2035 largely because the technologies we need to achieve that goal all exist today," he concludes. The only barrier, he implies, is our own linear thinking.
"This isn't some pseudoscience dreamt up by the authors of the report either it's based on solid data derived from multiple historical examples."
Bottom Line
Borlace's strongest asset is his refusal to treat climate change as a problem of scarcity, instead framing it as a problem of abundance and market dynamics that are already in motion. The argument's biggest vulnerability is its reliance on the assumption that the social and political disruptions caused by the collapse of the fossil fuel and livestock industries will be managed smoothly without significant backlash. Readers should watch for how the administration and global bodies respond to these rapid economic shifts, particularly regarding the workforce displaced by autonomous transport and precision fermentation.