The Fortune of Misfortune Learnings from the Climate Crisis
imagine a beach
the sun is shining not a single cloud in
the sky
you’re on a holiday and you’re about to
take your first lesson
of surfing until you look around and you
see
this hundreds of pieces
of plastic and trash in the water
on the pavement on the sand everywhere
the year is 2016 and i have decided to
go on a holiday to learn to surf in
morocco
little did i know that this place of
beauty and big waves
was actually also the victim of
disregard
and pollution on the very first day of
the surfing trip
i collected vast amounts of plastic
while being forbidden from the water due
to my self-incompetence or
the lack of it
i left the question in my mind
for a long time where did this plastic
come from
how are humans impacting
our planet negatively
these questions daunted me for a while
until i decided to
do something about it i read a lot of
books
i watched a lot of documentaries
listened to podcasts
i cried a lot
i decided to build a comparative data
model that was looking at one hand
at the environmental issues and the most
severe ones
as defined by science and on the other
hand
was looking into which were the most
funded
environmental projects out there trying
to find the correlation
i also decided to interview more than
300 people
asking them about their opinion on
climate change
yes in 2016 people had opinions about
climate change
the results were devastating
online offline on tv in my interviews
the discussions about climate change
were a mess
and more fundamentally the data was
showing that there was
not enough funding going towards the
most severe
environmental issues
after six months of these events i made
a decision
i decided to quit my job in finance i
decided to quit my city
and focus my efforts on addressing
climate change
on a more practical level this meant
that i was able to combine
passions of mind such as technology
science
accuracy and turn them into a job
my story is one of many fueled by sense
of urgency and realization
that have increased the populations of
people and businesses talking about
climate change
but it is one too few for what is at
stake which is why
today i would like to take you on a
non-biased and fact-filled journey that
tells the story of climate change
the story doesn’t start but heats up in
1895
then arrhenius a swedish physicist and
scientist
in chemic in chemistry decides to find a
new type of excitement
and for this the influence of co2
on the greenhouse effect
this is actually
an exercise that serves as a therapy
a therapy for him to overcome the
separation with his wife
a therapy that leads to a nobel prize
mind you
a year later the results of this study
come out and
are able to show that there is a
relationship between
atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration
and
temperature this might have been
the first step the first instance
when humans are able to tangibly take a
step
to address climate change
might have
but like in everything in life if you
don’t take the lesson the first time
life will shove in front of you further
circumstances to teach you
the same lesson again and again until
you decide to take an action
so is the story of humans and climate
change
arenas wasn’t alone in his effort to
define and quantify what climate change
was
he’s been followed by hundreds and
thousands of scientists
who have been able to complain
completely explain to us
what is this man-made climate change
yet the projected emissions ahead of us
look like this
until 2020
2020 was the year of pledges pledges
from countries such as japan
china with the net zero commitments
from the uk with the climate disclosures
mandates
the eu the green deal and joe biden
being elected as a president of the us
on the company side the list was endless
walmart nike starbucks and many many
more companies taking a stance
and a step to be tangibly part of the
solution towards a more sustainable
future
and
wow we might be thinking that we’re
already organizing the party to
celebrate
the effect of these pledges
let’s think about it are these pledges
enough
are we actually able to tangibly prepare
for the future
with them what planet took a deeper
breath in 2020
and received the new year’s gift of
seven percent reduction
we only saw a 0.01
temperature decrease in the projected
increase by 2050
meaning all the effort and all the
lockdowns and all the time that we all
humans spent
locked up at home actually let
still through the effects of
deforestation land degradation
to even more further development of
climate change
and on an economic level this meant that
the severity of natural disasters were
going to continue to develop
the supply chains were going to be
further disturbed
and the output of the economy as well as
the profits
were going to decrease
you cannot manage a life and a business
in a failing world
in simpler terms carbon neutrality and
pledges are simply not enough for us to
sustain
our existence as individuals and as
businesses and for those of the
countries
and companies that have understood this
today and are willing to go beyond the
pledges
there is a price the history has saved
them a win applies
in an economy that is going to be
dependent on sustainable solutions
but rather than focusing on future
scenarios maybe let’s look
at the data and what we can do today to
actually
respond today
we are on track to hit 2.1 to 3.1
degree temperature increase by 2100
with the current pledges and policies
that we have in place
we’re also facing three times
more plastic and trash in terms of waste
that would need to be managed
with a whopping 91 percent of plastic
not being recycled as of today
our biodiversity is declining there’s
data from the last 50 years that
shows that we have lost 68 percent
of the populations and from all the
birds that are on this planet
70 percent are domestic
while 30 are wild
if you put all of these issues together
our planet would look like this
looks beautiful right it takes time and
effort to digest all these data
but there’s a common denominator there
our planet is tied
and our planet is living and breeding
more difficult and more heavily these
days
a question comes and it remains
what step did you take to prepare for
the future
i want to take you back to this beach
where we were in the beginning
now this beach is using drones to
collect the plastic
this plastic goes into bins that are
able to recycle themselves
in the bins you can find worms that are
eating the plastic
and making it disappear
in the further distance you can see
solar panels and wind turbines
that are fueling now industries that
have previously been reliant on fossil
fuels
while the country where this beach is is
now using agroforestry and regenerative
agriculture
as well as the water as a natural source
of energy this is not a vision
this is the reality today a reality that
has been
shaped by people who know that the value
of sustainability is not only
environmental but also economical
and this is the reality in industries
old and
new
a question still comes and it remains
what step did you take today to prepare
for the future
before we answer this question i would
like to say something else
in the face of climate change we’re all
small a hurricane can destroy your house
a drought can destroy your livelihood
a flood can destroy your infrastructure
and your business but in all these
events
in all these instances we somehow
miraculously
are always able to recover and continue
with our businesses and with our lives
which is what makes us human
which is what makes us superhuman
and in this superpower is where the
solution for climate change lies
in this superpower we find something
crucial
climate change is not one issue it’s a
complex
group of issues and in the complexity we
find the solutions
because in the same way that we have
created the problem by millions and
billions of wrong decisions for the
planet
we find the solutions in the billions
and millions of right decisions for the
planet
today we’re given a chance as citizens
as businesses
to take a deed to take an action to take
a step
and yes today not tomorrow not in five
years not in 10
no pledges no promises
a step for reduction today
a question still comes and it remains
what step did you take today to prepare
for the future
you took the first step by being here
today now let’s all take the next one
there’s no plan b for the planet
you