Elon Musk delivered a speech in Germany and highlighted the need to address global warming. As founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, Musk has devoted a good part of his life reducing the need for fossil fuels. According to him, the effects of climate change in the long term far outweigh current problems.

Even the Volkswagen scandal rocking the world today, whose environmental cost has been massive, is eclipsed by the bleak future we all face unless action is done today. The Huffington Post reported that the scandal only serves as a highlight to the bigger problem of climate change.

He also used as an example the refugee crisis in Europe today. "Today's refugee problem is perhaps a small indication of what the future will be like if we do not take action with respect to climate change," said Musk in his opening statement at a business seminar by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy in Berlin.

"Today the challenge is based on millions of people, but in the future, based on what the scientific consensus is the problem will be hundreds of millions and much more severe," he said. He drove his point home with this statement, "In 20, 30, 40 years in the future what do you say to your kids or your grandkids? When they ask 'Why didn't you do anything?' What will you tell them?"

On the Tech Insider report, he appealed to the audience saying, "I think it's very important that we take action today to recognize that we are making a very significant change to the chemical constituency of the atmosphere and oceans... one that is almost impossible to reverse."

He stresses that action must be taken now. According to Musk's assessment, even one of the most progressive countries in terms of its transition to renewable energy, Germany, still has a long way to go. The Energiewende is already the most aggressive shift of any nation to renewable energy from fossil fuels. If their success is still not enough to catch up with the effects, then what more other countries that have not even begun any real climate change protections programs?

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