I used to think that CO₂ capture and traditional renewable energy sources were enough to stop climate change, and we shouldn’t use nuclear energy in any form. Now I know we need cold fusion too. As a 13 year old I am really concerned about climate change since I will have to live with the consequences of it. Cold fusion will replace all need for fossil fuels but it is still theoretical. I believe that cold fusion must and should be created and adopted for the amount of clean energy it produces.

I was alive for several of the catastrophes caused by climate change. The LA wild fires, extreme summers, Texas floods, and too many hurricanes to name were caused by the warming of our earth. Because of my concerns I made the choice to take matters into my own hands and contacted a Caltech professor on CO₂ capture and renewable energy sources. In the process I learned about fusion and how it can produce a large amount of clean energy but needed extreme star like conditions. The extreme conditions crushed my hopes but they were rebuilt when I learned about cold fusion.

This is only superficially about cold fusion; it is about how we must embrace facts that make us afraid and uncomfortable. Instead of ignoring them, we must be innovative and solve the problem they are warning us about. However it is important that I not let fear stop me from solving the problem the fact is warning us about. If we let voices of doubt, whether internal or external, tamp our ambition then problems, some of great magnitude, may never be solved. As Einstein once said, “We can not solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.”

Humans have embraced facts that made us afraid and solved the problem. For instance, the Cold War was a very dangerous time. The world realized that we were in a position of mutually assured destruction. The Soviet Union and the United States had the capacity to destroy all life on earth if a nuclear war started. Leaders understood that this was untenable so they signed the The Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. This initial treaty paved the way for many more of its kind that limited the use, creation and testing of nuclear weapons. This eventually led to us using nuclear energy for the greater good. The world must use this time as an example to continue to embrace facts that make us afraid and take action. Can humanity survive without embracing facts that make us afraid?