Responding to Climate Change: What's the worst that would happen? The best!

I am surrounded by people who have viewpoints and opinions on both sides of the climate issue spectrum, and when they become set in their viewpoint, they usually tend to forget to look at what would be the probable outcome in 30 years if we transformed our culture in response to the issue, intelligently and with purpose.

Or better yet, let's put aside all the controversial issues that keep up distracted from the real issue: what if we can transform our culture and society into a system where we maintain a high quality lifestyle, live healthfully, and have clean water, soil and air. Overall, I am more concerned about reducing our production of material to the point that it can either be reused, recylcled, reprocessed, or redesigned so that there is no such thing as pollution or waste that would lower the quality of our natural environment, even when we have paved and built over it.

What's the worst that would probably happen in 30 years if we produced all the additional electric energy we would consume over the same time frame from renewable and "non-polluting" sources, primarily solar and wind based? In my personal viewpoint, pollution is the overabundance of a resource that cannot be recycled, reprocessed, or reused in a manner that leaves the natural environment at a balanced position regularly (probably annually to account for seasonal patterns). I support any net increase in electric production that is required above what can be achieved from efficiency improvements be from solar, wind, and geothermal (and non-burned bio-fuels), which would be manufactured from the same energy and recycled and recylcable materials.

In my book, we would most likely have cleaner water in all impact areas (mining/extracting sources, transfer stations, transportation lines, processing plants, and end use points). Our soil could be cleaner from the lack of particulates coming from those same impact areas, either out of the exhaust stacks, residue from piles of material or leaks from pipes/tanks, or discarded remnants. Landfills would be filled more slowly if at all from the remaining elements from material processing. And our air would be free from artificial contaminants allowing us to live healthier outside than any point since the beginning of the industrial revolution. And this is just the beginning.