Ecomodernism

Within environmentalist circles, there exists something of a debate as to whether or not it's good to allow for continued economic growth and human quality of life if it will come at the cost of the environment and of course climate change. As anyone who knows a little history is aware, as we've developed technology, increased quality of life, and created a globalized, interconnected economy, this required the burning of fossil fuels (oil and coal) and boosted the human population massively, and this has led to the huge ecological problems humanity is facing right now. On the surface, it seems like doing a deal with the devil. Do we ditch the energy sources that are making us wealthy and prosperous, or do we hold on to them while we keep digging ourselves deeper?

Well, frankly, this whole discussion is based on a false dichotomy. While traditional, old school environmentalist movements often emphasized becoming more in tune with nature and slowing down, modern technology and science allows us to maintain our high quality of life, population, and economy all while minimizing our environmental footprint. This isn't speculative technology, we have these resources available to us right now, and they come in all different forms.

Unlike some Vegans, we emphasize that human beings also deserve moral consideration, and increasing their quality of life does not automatically need to come at the expense of the environment. Economic growth is (overall) a good thing, and billions of people rely on it to escape poverty. In comes Ecomodernism, the idea that economic development and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive, and both can be achieved with the proper technologies, smarter planning, and a shift to a more sustainable civilization.

Motives and Rationale

Despite it being considered an environmentalist issue, climate change very much is a human rights concern, considering that it's projected to kill millions of people in the coming years, particularly those in poor countries. But at the same time, these countries need to be lifted out of poverty; Western countries have the resources to give to these countries so they can be lifted out of poverty and become wealthier through economic produdcivity.

And even amongst first world peoples who have everything they need in terms of basic necessities, unless we want to go back to the Middle Ages and have much of the population die, we need to embrace technology in order to maintain our health and comfort. It's important to keep in mind that if we shut down fossil fuel companies tomorrow, like, millions of people would die.

Among the many calls by environmentalists to fight climate change, some of them include abolishing capitalism or overthrowing current systems in exchange for a system that would presumably be better not just for the environment, but for humanity.

It's not a very productive solution. As noble as their intentions may be, this ultimately is just wishful thinking fueled by the Nirvana Fallacy. There is no reason to believe that a revolution to overthrow capitalism will happen any time soon (especially given how adaptable it is), since despite its many, many flaws, it has given us the comfort and high quality of life millions of people take for granted. Many calls for a leftist revolution don't even have a coherent blueprint on how it is to be achieved and implemented, but even if we managed to overthrow the system and replace it with whatever leftist governance some advocate, it doesn't automatically follow that this system will result in fewer emissions. These industries are not polluting and breeding billions of animals for fun, they're polluting to fulfill the demands of consumers. If consumers won't change, what reason is there to believe that this new system will reduce the demand for the products of these industries?

Others advocate for something more misanthropic: Population reduction. These people argue that the main cause of all of our environmental woes is human's ever increasing population. But this is not based on the most sound of reasoning. A new human life does not automatically translate to a huge environmental footprint. The West makes up a relatively small minority of the global population (about an eighth), yet is the population that is source of the most greenhouse gas emissions, compared to the other seven billion people in developing countries. So, is it population, or how the population lives?

Decreasing the human population is a pretty hard sell and it's not even clear if the results will be what are intended. It could be effectively implemented through authoritarian measures like China's former One-Child Policy (good luck defending that) but other than that, telling people to have less kids is... unlikely to be a success (look at how hard it is to convince them to go vegan!). Also, saying that a population reduction would be a net positive forces you to concede uncomfortable positions depending on your angle (namely, events of mass deaths like famine, genocide, and wars, while involved a lot of suffering, were a good thing in the long term for the environment).

There also exists anarcho-primitivists but those people are way too wacky to take seriously.

Ultimately, it comes down to Ecomodernism being the most realistic solution, as this article will demonstrate. There is no reason to believe that abolishing capitalism will result in a system that's better for the environment, nor is it realistic to expect the human population to decline dramatically enough in time to result in the reduction of the enough emissions to avoid the catastrophic effects of climate change. There is no need to abolish the system to improve things, and while the population tends to go up and down, advocating for reduction is not only difficult but extremely alienating as a position.

Veganism

Gotta start here, obviously. We've mostly discussed these sorts of things in other articles, so we'll keep this section brief.

Out of the hundreds of irrational, unsustainable activities human beings partake in, consumption of animal products is arguably the most egregious in terms of cost to benefit ratio. Not only is animal agriculture responsible for roughly 12-20% of global emissions , it is also responsible for about 50% of deforestation, AND is the primary usage of our crops, including soy, wheat, oats, and maize ('corn' is a very silly word). It takes dozens to hundreds of gallons of water, and dozens to hundreds of pounds of feed just to make one pound of meat. Thermodynamics would cry.

With our current food supply, we can easily feed the current global population, and especially if we get off beef and dairy, we'll be able to clear up tons of land that's used for grazing. Allowing that land to rewild potentially allows for forests and wetlands to gradually return, which can act as major carbon sinks.

What makes it particularly egregious compared to the other unsustainable things we do, is that consumption of animal products at most, give us a temporary moment of indulgence which very often damages our long term health, and that could have otherwise been achieved with other foods that can not only be made to be just as delicious, but are even healthier. At least with fossil fuels and transportation, there are economic and quality of life arguments to be made.

In terms of ecomodernism, Veganism is cornerstone. It is a completely unnecessary waste of resources, and we can easily support the current global population and more with our current food infrastructure. Switching humanity to plant based diets would be a massive relief of our food resources, and reduce greenhouse gases substantially. This would not have any significant negative economic impact (and in fact, would be beneficial; see Economic Arguments for Veganism), and would improve our sustainability significantly. Just one example of environmental preservation and economic growth going hand in hand.

Improved Agricultural Science and Technology

The concern with feast and famine traces back to the famous essay by Thomas Robert Malthus in his work An Essay on the Principle of Population (though there were works about it before him) which basically said that agricultural output did not increase proportionally as the human population increased. Now, Malthus had very good motives for believing this, and this was a very valid concern to have during the Industrial Revolution when birth rates were exploding, but he could not realistically have foreseen the developments in agricultural methods and technology that would come.

In the modern world, as the population has been increasing, we haven't seen an increase in people going hungry per capita, and if anything, that number has only gone down, and can decline even further. Famines in many parts of the world are a thing of the past and is very possible to solve in places where it's currently happening. The main causes of undernourishment in those regions are due to human stupidity, such as wars (Ukraine in particular), the COVID-19 pandemic supply chain ripple-effects, and of course climate shocks.

As previously mentioned, we currently grow enough plant food to sustain the global population. However, the population is expected to increase by several billion this century, and even axing all animal agriculture and the land that takes up (factory farms, grazing), farms to grow crops take up a huge percentage of land, land that destroys habitats and potentially deforests entire regions. Despite that, we have the technology to not only feed several times our current population, but also do it with minimal environmental impact.

GM Technology

This is the most crucial aspect of modern agriculture, but unfortunately, like Nuclear Power, it's prone to tons of fear-mongering by pontificators of pseudoscience. Let's cut out the nonsense and focus on what the actual science says.

There are tons of benefits to using GM Technology on crops (despite what the fearmongers say), and among them include increased efficiency in order to produce more crops per acre of land (for both consumption and general use, such as cotton). This results, logically, in less land required to harvest the same number of crops, along with generally reducing emissions. Let's take a look at the data.

A big selling point of GM technology is increasing its durability to be more resistant to pests, viruses and more extreme climates (especially drought-prone ones). Besides cutting down pesticide use by 37% (something that actually may potentially cause health problems, though not to the extent it's often feared), utilizing GM technology to grow crops increased yield per acre by 22%. There are also tons of GM crops that are being developed such as MON87460 and TELA for Maize, HaHB4 for wheat, and QCAV-4 for bananas, all of which are developed to give crops dry resistances, which will be incredibly important when heat waves from climate change become relatively frequent, especially in Africa.

There are some crops that are widely consumed but are also relatively high in emissions, namely, rice. Not only is there a lot of research being done on Golden Rice in order to reduce the emissions from rice production via genetic modification, but also make it more nutritious by increasing its Vitamin A amount (which is a huge health concern globally, especially amongst children).

Improved Agricultural Methods

Some fear-mongering headlines warn us about how the number of farmers we have is declining, but this is not inherently a bad thing. If anything, it's indicative of how far we've come. For much of the history of civilization, the vast majority of people were farmers, whether they liked it or not. And even with the best techniques and equipment, food scarcity was extremely common, as famine was a pretty routine thing. You had to plant your own food, and if you lived in a climate where growing food was not possible during certain times of the year (like in much of Europe and Asia), you better hope you had enough to last when the cold started coming in. It wasn't like you could have imported it from a place where food is always growing. Nowadays, we can provide food for billions of people with a very small percentage of farmers, and as time goes on, we'll need even less farmers to grow more food, freeing those people up to work other jobs.

Clean Energy

This is perhaps the most crucial tenant of Ecomodernism. Energy and electricity are the primary catalysts towards moving humanity forward via economic and technological development, but the downside is that this is often done through fossil fuels, which are the main culprits behind climate change. However, we have technology that can give us this energy with a significantly smaller impact on the environment.

Renewables

Though renewables may be somewhat limited depending on location, they will serve as an instrumental part of a clean energy future, and have plenty of use cases. Of course, as the name suggests, the energy is created from renewable resources that won't run out any time soon (sun is gonna be around for a few billion more years).

A common critique of renewables is that even if the energy they produce is clean, it still creates emissions producing them and obtaining the materials needed for building them. While both are true, it is completely possible to produce solar panels and wind turbines with minimal emissions. It would involve needing some initial emissions with the development of the renewable/nuclear plant, but once that's up and running, you can pretty much get everything made cleanly, and since the majority of emissions from producing wind turbines and solar panels is the manufacturing process itself (about 70%). And as far as getting the materials we need, it is true that mining and extracting them does come with its own set of emissions, but we have ways to minimize these as well. This can be done by using renewables themselves to power mining equipment (solar has a lot of great off-grid uses), since they are largely diesel powered, using clean energy to process the materials, optimizing drilling operations (which with AI now is much easier), and of course recycling materials, which reduces emissions by 95% compared to getting new. This all isn't stuff we think will be likely to happen, this is all available right now. It's mostly bureaucracy, politics, and industry inertia that is artificially slowing down the adoption, but that can be said for just about everything discussed here.

Solar

Solar is easily the most versatile renewable power source we have, and probably the one with the most potential. A lot of energy from the sun hit's Earth, roughly 175,000 terawatts. Harnessing even a small amount of that gives us a ton of energy to use.

While solar alone won't be able to power the world, it has tons of uses off-grid, and shines (pun intended) in warmer climates that get a lot of sun (Africa in particular is brimming with potential for Solar energy). The costs of Solar PVs have declined by 90% since 2010, and as mentioned before, they can be made with few emissions, with their materials heavily recycled. As far as off grid uses are concerned, putting them on every household roof would be a massive environmental boon. The United States EPA estimates that if every household in the country put solar panels on their roofs, that would reduce total US emissions by about 7%, and about a quarter of current-power sector CO2.

Nuclear Power

See: Nuclear Energy

As far as clean energy is concerned, Nuclear Power is the bread and butter. It's an energy source that can provide for the energy needs of big cities and industry on the level of fossil fuels, with minimal greenhouse emissions.

If we had the majority of our energy grid on nuclear power, our carbon footprint would be fraction of what it currently is, and we would have no issue providing to our citizens, and of course our economy would still be chugging along.

Fusion Power

This is much more speculative (it's one of those "always a few decades away" things), but it's something to keep in mind.

Unlike Nuclear Energy, where atoms are fizzled, or "split" (hence Nuclear Fission), Fusion Energy fuses atoms together via extreme heat. Tons of research and resources have been devoted to figuring out Fusion, and if it actually ends up happening, it would be extremely clean and efficient. The main source of energy will be deuterium which is obtained from seawater, and lithium, which makes up a large chunk of Earth's crust (and would also produce helium, which can help with our potential shortages).

Fusion energy is basically like Nuclear, being efficient and clean, and no intermittency, but potency amped up by several orders of magnitude.

Natural Gas

This one is a bit of an outlier. While it is still a fossil fuel and emits CO2, the quantity is a caliber below oil and coal, and does have some practical benefits such as for cooking. It likely won't play a very significant role in our clean energy future, but it can be incredibly useful as a transition fuel from other fossil fuels to renewables and nuclear power. They can also serve as a back up in case there are any issues with solar or wind plants. Most of the infrastructure is already in place, so it wouldn't be a very big investment, making it's utility as a brige to clean energy easier. Anything that kills off coal and oil (the two worse emitting energy sources) faster is a tool that should be considered.

Urbanization

The common perception of humanity's ever-increasing burden on Earth is often showcased with our largest cities, such as New York, Tokyo, London, or more cynically Shanghai or Delhi. A lot of environmentalists insist we've strayed to far from nature and point to these as reasons why, but this thinking is misguided. Contrary to this popular lamentation, big cities are actually the most sustainable way of living, especially compared to rural and suburban living.

It sounds counterintuitive, but the reasoning behind it is pretty simple. Firstly, they allow us to pack BILLIONS of people in relatively small amounts of land. Over half of the world's population lives in urban areas as of 2025 (to be more precise, about 56%), and in regards to mega-cities (cities with populations exceeding ten million people), about a quarter of the world's population resides in one. And the kicker? Cities only take up 1-3% of the world's total land area, and mega-cities make up less than 2% of that. This runs a bit counter to the idea that humans are a ubiquitous scourge on the Earth, when we can probably have three times our current population and still leave most of the land largely untouched. Couple that with a good nuclear power plant or two, you're providing billions of people with very clean energy.

And there are other things that make cities more sustainable. Cities are generally significantly less car dependent, and very often have extremely robust and efficient public transport systems, which are also gradually moving towards being electrically powered. They also are often walkable, meaning people often don't need to drive to go to the grocery store or for other amenities. Also, with everything being very compact and close by, it becomes much easier to centralize utilities like electricity and water.

Urban cities aren't perfect, and are prone to excessive land use and sprawl. But these are not problems inherent in cities, as there are many examples of it being done fairly well. As we increasingly recognize the issues with too much land use from cities, urban planners are increasingly focused on minimizing that, often in the form of building up instead of outwards, and repurposing some buildings for residential use.

We're not saying every last person oughta live in big cities, we of course need some people living in rural areas to maintain agriculture, and some people have a personal preference of suburbs and rural areas.

Of course, we do not think nature is stupid and redundant, we share a great appreciation for nature, and from a mental health standpoint, it's good to get out and bask in it from time to time, which is partly why it's important for big cities to have some recreational park systems in place. And of course, forests are vital as carbon sinks. It's just problematic to automatically assume the closer to nature we are, the better. We did live pretty close to nature for much of civilization's existence. It sucked. Unless you fancy freezing your ass off during winter hoping you have enough food, engaging in hard, backbreaking labor from dawn to dusk everyday, likely dying at age 32 from some horrible infectious disease, you would agree that nature isn't always so great, though most people have an extremely romanticized idea of life without technology.

Suburban Living

Depending on how it's done, suburban living is arguably the least sustainable of the three. Compared to rural living, Suburban houses tend to be bigger, more unproductive land use (particularly lawns) and culture is generally more car-centric. However, if they take a more sustainable approach, suburbs would likely rival cities on that front. This would come in the form of living in smaller (but not inferior in terms of QOL) homes, such as attached housing (smaller units, with insulation), installing solar panels on the roof of every home, investing in decent public transport, utilizing space that's used for lawns as gardens for growing food, emphasize biking and pedestrian infrastructure, and have a strong local zero waste program (which are all things we should be doing regardless of area settlement).

These things are certainly an uphill battle in terms of implementing, but it goes to show how we can transform even the most unsustainable forms of living into the opposite without compromising the economy or quality of life.

Construction

As important as this is, it's a bit harder to achieve due to the inherent harms with a lot of construction, but it isn't impossible, and can often be remedied with alternative building materials and implementing clean energy.

Cement

Cement is one of the most important construction materials for infrastructure, but it's also a top source of emissions. Roughly 8% of global emissions are due to concrete production alone. It's concerning, because while concrete is such an essential part of our infrastructure, it's difficult to decrease the emissions from it significantly. However, a big change would be utilizing clean energy (either nuclear or renewables) for developing cement instead of fossil fuels used in kilns, having them be electrically powered, but half of the emissions from cement production come from the chemical reactions inherent in heating limestone (CaCO3) to 1450°C to calcine them into lime (CaO), and there isn't really anything that can be done about that in terms of eliminating it. But as it happens, we've managed to developed some carbon capture methods, such a amine scrubbing and calcium looping, but they are often energy and infrastructure intensive in themselves, and it's difficult to justify the costs.

However, humanity being ever adaptable, have developed alternatives to cement that can be utilized that are much cleaner. Likely the most sustainable material we have available is Wood, and we can modify it a bit in order for it to make it sufficient to replace concrete. Cross-Laminated Timber for example is probably the best material for this purpose. It's basically several wood panels glued together, which sounds weak, but is actually much stronger than it sounds.

Economics

They say money makes the world go round, and these days with globalized economies and a massive interconnected world, this probably true, though equally others consider money to be the root of all evil. Despite being labeled as the dismal science, economics is something that affects everyone. Rich, poor, or somewhere in the middle, every participant in some monetary action should be at least a little aware of how it functions, and what its state is like. Economic growth and health is vital to the wellbeing of the citizens of the world.

Of course, some people need more economic growth than others. Your average first worlder doesn't need it as much as a working class farmer in Indochina, and globalization has helped spread this wealth while also generating more for everyone.

Infinite Growth on a Finite Planet

It's very common for some environmentalists to point out that Earth's resources, which are necessary for economic growth, are limited, and it's inherently unsustainable to have an economy focused on endless growth. The thing is though, it doesn't need to be infinite. The limits to wealth given Earth's resources are absurdly high, and much of our wealth doesn't necessarily come from resource extraction. The observable universe is also finite. Doesn't mean it isn't unfathomably large.

A big product of wealth is our infrastructure. Bridges, roads, canals, viaducts, railways, mass transit, water lines, electricity, telecommunications, internet, anything that increases or allows productivity by the citizens. Yes, these do require resources and materials to be made which do come with emission, but as we've gone over, these can be made with alternative materials that are renewable (wood as we've seen is extremely versatile) that have fewer emissions. And fossil fuels are also a limited resource that are projected to run out in a few decades, but not only should we be getting off of them anyway, the stuff that we'd be replacing them with are either renewable (solar, wind, hydro, potentially fusion), or have a long lasting supply (Nuclear).

As far as other materials are concerned, most metals we use are commonly found in the Earth's crust (and that isn't going to run out any time soon) and are very often recyclable, and while this is more speculative, by the time we run out of precious ores and metals on Earth, we very likely will be able to mine asteroids and other planets (Mars is widely believed to harbor tons of useful materials in its crust) for them, meaning we aren't merely confined to what's on Earth.

The concern isn't really that we are limited in our resources. The concern is more that we have to stop being so stupid about how we use our current resources and infrastructure. Humanity is still in something of an intermediate period right now on that front. While we do have the science figured out, governments and markets are still taking time to catch up.

So the world's wealth being finite? Technically true. But will it pose a problem for future generations? Very, very unlikely. If we're smart about it, that is.

Decoupling

Decoupling refers to the concept of making our emissions and our economic growth independent of each other. When our only real source of energy was fossil fuels ever since the Second Industrial Revolution, emissions and growth were hand in hand. But we know that it doesn't have to be that way anymore.

This article has already gone over all the things we can do to decouple the two. Switching our energy grids to clean energy, improving agricultural techniques, maximizing sustainable lifestyles (veganism, living in bigger cities), and even improving our construction processes. But while some would concede these are all theoretically possible, they would probably point out that while it's a coherent idea on paper, we haven't seen this happen in the real world, as evidenced by increasing emissions while the economy continues to grow. While it is true that just because the technology exists and that doesn't automatically translate to them actually being implemented due to slow as hell governments and public resistance, we actually are seeing evidence of decoupling in Western countries, albeit slowly. European Union countries plus the United Kingdom have all been making strides on this front. The United Kingdom for instance has been growing it's economy massively over the past few decades, and has also been reducing emissions simultaneously, leading to reduced consumption-based CO2 emissions per capita. This is likely going to decrease further with new plans to get the country on entirely clean energy within the next few decades, with a heavy emphasis on Nuclear power and wind. The same can be seen in EU countries such as France (which has been doubling down on Nuclear in recent years), Germany, Sweden, Finland, as well as the United States, all to varying degrees.

This trend is common in every Western country, as well as wealthier developing ones, all reporting increases in economic productivity while their emissions decline. The real problem is that this isn't happening as quickly as it could be, and countries like China and Saudi Arabia are lagging behind on decoupling. But this ultimately shows that decoupling as it relates to ecomodernism isn't some tech-bro nonsense. It's something that is actually happening right now, with serious progress being made.

Degrowth

This might have some legs depending on how it's approached.

Some less informed individuals (often of anti-capitalist persuasion) will tout degrowth as the solution to the environment and not consider the economic consequences. Informed individuals view degrowth as a way to eliminate emissions from unnecessary production which would reduce GDP, but not to a point of economic collapse.

Many economists are quick to point out that degrowth, if not done carefully, is reckless. Economic growth is a good thing, since it's what allows society to afford everyone a decent quality of life and a comfortable safety net, and it is absolutely essential for the developing world to get more money flowing into their economies, to raise their living standards and bring them to pace with the developed world. You might solve climate change, but it'd be at the enormous cost of human welfare.

But as important as stimulating the economy is, there is an argument to be made against overconsumption of frivolous goods. In the west, and especially the United States, having more material wealth to spend on luxuries like nicer cars, designer clothes, exquisite meals, vacations to Disneyworld, and anime body pillows is correlated with status and prosperity relative to peers. Buying all of this stuff drives economic development and growth... but at the same time, this stuff isn't good for the environment. Look up the true cost of the American Dream.

It's a matter of cost effectiveness. It's better to invest more money in developing countries for things that are actually useful. Generating wealth in first world nations is important, but the first world already has a ridiculous amount of wealth, far more than it knows what to do with. With a proper tax structure, redistribution of wealth, and investment in public services, citizens of the most developed nations can have all their basic needs met and live comfortably. A little less economic growth here might not be so bad.

The problem is whether or not getting people to buy less frivolous crap and other high end goods is a realistic solution in time to avoid ecological disaster. While one day we'll probably move away from chasing endless material wealth and possessions and move culture towards valuing modest, sustainable lifestyles which does seem to be an increasing trend, that will probably be decades if not centuries from now. This is already happening, as people are eating less animal products, driving electric cars, installing solar panels, and voting for politicians who care about the environment.

But ultimately, a carbon tax at this point in time is probably more realistic. Speaking of which...

Carbon Tax

This could have some potential drawbacks, but overall a Carbon Tax is widely supported by economists and an essential bridge towards making our economy green.

Putting aside all the nuances, a Carbon Tax ostensibly just a fee placed on the burning of fossil fuels based on the amount of CO2 they emit. Depending on how it's implemented, a Carbon Tax would incentivize industries to utilize less fossil fuels in their operations. This would cut out a lot of the low hanging fruit emissions and is extremely cost effective. Some variations also apply this to consumers, hopefully incentivizing them to invest in more energy efficient homes and electric vehicles.

This isn't some bureaucratic political game where certain restrictions apply sometimes to certain industries under various circumstances, this would slap a penalty on ANY industrial use of fossil fuels, whether it's in cement or steel production, automobiles, cooking, you name it. This makes it simple and versatile to apply. And so far in places where it has been implemented, it has had a lot of success. In British Colombia, a carbon tax reduced emissions by 5-15% with minimal economic effects.

And on top of the tax, any money generated from it can be used to fight climate change further, such as investing in scientific research, and green technology and infrastructure. Revenue from carbon taxes has been about $100 billion globally.

Of course, in economics, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. A Carbon Tax often gets passed onto consumers, making their energy and gas bills more expensive. But overall, considering the benefits, it's a huge net positive that is well worth any downsides.

Personal Efforts

See: Other Ways to Reduce Carbon Footprint

As important as many systemic and infrastructure related changes are to obtaining a sustainable and well-off civilization, we also have to consider our own lifestyle choices, and if they are reflective of how we think everyone should live. We have to be the changes we want to see in the world; We can't just talk a big game and expect the government to fix all our problems and not have any inclination to fix what we can in our own lives. Our actions don't exist in a vacuum, and your positive actions for the environment subtly influence others to do a little more. Setting an example counts for much more than you may realize.

With concern to ecomodernism, taking steps to minimize your own carbon footprint isn't giving up your quality of life significantly, and in fact, can often save you money. It's being part of of embracing solutions, and moving towards a world where we accelerate technological advancement while staying committed to the environment.

For a (mostly) complete list of ways to achieve this, check out the article above.