BREAKING: Ambitious Plan to Reach Net Zero Emissions by Yesterday In a move that has the world's scientists, economists, and environmentalists all scratching their heads, Oxford professor Simon Sharpe has unveiled his audacious roadmap to achieving net zero emissions faster than ever before – apparently, by yesterday. Dubbed the "S.S. Pipe Dream," the revolutionary plan calls for a time-travelling DeLorean and an audacious energy heist in the distant past. Sharpe proposes convincing the ancient Romans to abandon their love of luxurious warm baths and keep all that steam energy for the future. "The sooner we get to zero, the better," Sharpe said in a recent interview, wearing ironically dark sunglasses and a t-shirt with the slogan, "eco-warrior on tour." "The fate of the planet is at stake, and we've concluded that our best course of action is actually to go back in time, scold some ancient civilizations for not recycling, and tell them to, uh, could they just hold onto all that carbon for us until we have a solution? Thanks." Critics have called the plan "laughably implausible," but Sharpe is undaunted, stating that the technology for this and other breakthrough initiatives, such as convincing Genghis Khan to abandon his campaign of global conquest in favor of a campaign for global compost, are "basically just around the corner." However, Sharpe's plan to reach net zero emissions also includes less whimsical, more Orwellian measures, such as strapping every living human being to a stationary bike to generate a global network of clean electricity. Or a man-powered hamster wheel hub that will replace all combustion buses and trams. A truly revolutionary mind, he claims these efforts are both compulsory and retroactively enforceable as of 1990. At the environment community, there's an appreciative nod to Sharpe's enthusiasm, although most are not taking his suggestions seriously. Climatologist Dr. Sarah Greene counsels patience. "The revolutionary act of creating power by pedaling might sound progressive, but there's one small issue: it would take a million of us at once to produce enough energy to microwave a single burrito." When asked whether his plan might be more wishful thinking than viable policy, Sharpe merely smiled mysteriously and wiggled his fingers. "Once upon a time, people thought net zero emissions by 2050 was a pipe dream," he said. "But they were wrong, and there's no reason to believe we can't continue to be catastrophically wrong, one harebrained scheme at a time." Still, Sharpe has his supporters, many of whom are climate change activists in their own right, albeit with a more outlandish penchant for time travel-based solutions to modern problems. A representative from the group "Extinction Rebellion: Temporal Division," a less-well-funded and less-organized splinter group of the original Extinction Rebellion, has pledged to support Sharpe's ideas, in exchange for his first trip back in time to prevent the invention of the plastic straw. Now that humanity has failed to achieve net zero emissions by yesterday, only time will tell if Simon Sharpe's dreams of time-travelling DeLoreans, millions of stationary bikes, and Genghis Khan the Composting King will come to fruition or simply vanish like carbon dioxide in the wind.