It’s simple, says the SpaceX boss – according to something called the ‘Kardashev scale’, we just have to move energy production ‘off-planet’

Next time the weather gives the UK 61 days without rain and we wonder idly if this is the end, there is a term we may whistle up to soothe us. Like murmuring the rosary, or putting our fingers in our ears and humming, this phrase is to be mumbled on repeat – “the Kardashev scale, the Kardashev scale” – a buzzy concept in tech, much favoured by Elon Musk, and precisely the thing we’ve been waiting for. The Kardashev scale is the answer both to our impending doom and our anxiety around it – and if we decide to believe in it, we won’t have to give the climate crisis a single thought until the last drip falls from the tap.

This is the idea and it’s a familiar one to anyone who has watched tech billionaires take intractable, commonplace crises and decide that, among the measures and proposals in play, the vital missing ingredient so far has been them. Do you remember when Jeff Bezos, rather than doing something quotidian and loserish like funding public education by ensuring Amazon pays the same tax rate as regular Americans, decided instead to reinvent preschools?

Emma Brockes is a Guardian columnist

Tim Cook geht nach fünfzehn Jahren als Apple-Chef. Er formte den Konzern, doch die große Erfindung gelang ihm nie. Kann sein Nachfolger John Ternus Apple wieder innovativer machen?

How much do you know about the history of one of the most powerful computing companies on the planet?

In the 50 years since it was founded, Apple has long been seen as one of the most significant technology companies globally. The design and manufacturing decisions taken in Cupertino, California have affected product design across the world, helping usher in an era of ubiquitous touchscreen computing while insisting on exacting user experience design principles. How much do you know about the history of one of the most powerful computing companies on the planet? Test yourself with these 12 questions.

The Guardian’s Apple at 50 quiz

Remember the iPod? How about the Pippin? In the half-century since it launched its first PC, Apple has given us some amazing innovations. We round up its biggest triumphs and flops

Fifty years after Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne founded the company in Jobs’ parents’ garage in Los Altos, California, Apple has become a behemoth, and billions of us use its products every day. From the first successful home computers with colour screens, to the iPod, to the smartphone that set the template for the modern mobile era, the company has repeatedly reset consumer expectations.

As a result, the firm occupies a central position in the tech world, initiating trends and popularising products. Here are five of its most influential products from the past half-century – alongside some unusually big misses.

From a gold-covered Dennis Rodman to Jack Nicholson sitting in the snow, Albert Watson has spent a career shooting the stars – as well as the occasional giant coffee spoon

Did the 21st century begin on 1 January 2000? Or was it that blue sky day in September 2001 when the planes hit the twin towers? These images from the last 25 years chronicle modern history in the making

At the turn of the century there was a modest debate, mainly conducted on the letters pages of the newspapers – back then, still the prime forum for public discussion – as to when, exactly, the new millennium and the 21st century began. Most assumed the start date was 1 January 2000, but dissenters, swiftly branded pedants, insisted the correct date came a year later. As it turned out, both were wrong.

The 21st century began in earnest, at least in the western mind, on a day that no one had circled in their diaries. Out of a clear blue sky, two passenger jets flew into the twin towers of the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001 and so inaugurated a new age of anxiety – a period in which we have lived ever since.