Good question, but one without a good answer. This is just my personal POV, but I think some of the truly ultra-environmentalist granola types just want the oil gone and don't think for a second about what to replace it with. Solar, Geothermal, Wind, all that works on a local scale. The idea of how those people would keep up global trade and avoid the problems of the first gigantic famines in a modern society since the 1930s produced by deliberate modernization, however, doesn't occur to them. In a way it's just like the oil companies that focus on the immediate future and deliberately try to squelch any competition, long-term reality be damned, though the latter have a shitload of money and loyal followers in two political parties and the former don't. Which is also IMHO one reason why even the Kyoto Protocol's signatories like Canada didn't bother adhering to it and blamed the non-signatories for not wanting to sign a worthless scrap of paper.
Climate change is a complicated thing, its solutions will also be complicated and require policies, not sound bites. Unfortunately I'm not sure the advocates for these solutions have any idea what they are and I'm quite sure that the advocates for the status quo don't care themselves.
I think the solution to plane fuel etc will have to lie with hydrogen fuel cell like technologies. Collect the energy from renewables, store it, use it on the go. However, I think hydrogen on planes sounds a little dangerous. ;) we'll see. And there isn't one renewable that can replace everything right now. Solar cells will probably play a large role as new types are invented and perfected. But each "slice" of the solution will have to be worked on. There likely isn't going to be one simple solution. Also, energy saving technologies too, things like that. Better windows. Lots of little and big inventions will have to be applied together.
Better batteries are definitely a part--an airplane's engine can be electric, but how do we keep enough power on the plane to keep that engine going? Unfortunately, from what I understand we're already nearing the physical limits of what batteries are capable (I'm not good at the natural sciences though, so someone correct me if I'm wrong).
Part of it might too be a reduction of globalization--more local food production, more local goods production (if 3D printing really takes off, stuff could be made locally on an as-needed basis). We don't strictly need to import our food from another continent.
Once upon a time, they didn't. And the US can't support itself on its own agriculture right now either, but it will need to change. It's probably impossible for Japan or similar nations to become completely food self-sufficient again at their current population, but they can definitely improve. There are all sorts of small-scale agriculture experiments going on around the world. Plus, while I know nothing of Japan's imports, there is a big difference between importing something from Korea or China, versus Argentina. Even importing exclusively from nearby countries would cut down on the technical difficulties of moving food around, because the distances wouldn't be so far.
Agriculture doesn't quite work that way. Japan's a mostly mountainous country with very limited room to grow crops. For it to become truly sufficient in a way that would erase reliance on agriculture, it would have to undergo a demographic collapse on a staggering scale. Importing food from equally densely populated countries like Korea and the PRC isn't exactly a solution to this problem.
An airplane's engine cannot be electric because it will required LOTS of energy that we physically don't have now. And that will be huge overhaul since we had to build the whole airplane (and technology) from scratch. Right now, we are making better efficient airplanes by using composite materials as in the Boeing's Dreamliner, this reduces the cost of fuel consumed as is reduces air drag and so on. (Source: friends that work in Boeing and I'm an aerospace engineer :P)
That's why I mentioned multiple forms in the same sentence. In terms of any local adoption of these energies, multiple ones per different geographical regions are required by definition as what will work in one place isn't guaranteed to work in other places. The big issue is that modern societies remain dependent on importing food by air and sea, and there really isn't any alternative to petroleum here. Replacing plastics is more potentially feasible.
Climate change is a complicated thing, its solutions will also be complicated and require policies, not sound bites. Unfortunately I'm not sure the advocates for these solutions have any idea what they are and I'm quite sure that the advocates for the status quo don't care themselves.
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Part of it might too be a reduction of globalization--more local food production, more local goods production (if 3D printing really takes off, stuff could be made locally on an as-needed basis). We don't strictly need to import our food from another continent.
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Glad to hear more efficient planes are in the works though.
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