Mastering Gravity
Transcriber: Amanda Zhu
Reviewer: Peter Van de Ven
(Music)
In the fall of 2018,
I decided to hug my father
for the first time in my life.
The experience unveiled a powerful lesson
that can solve some
of humanity’s greatest challenges,
like the question
“What is the single most impactful action
for climate change
adopted by mankind since 1979?”
The answer?
There isn’t one.
Why not?
That’s the discovery
I’m about to share with you.
My story actually begins a little earlier.
Overlooking a rice field
surrounded by mountains
in northern Thailand,
patches of water shine like silver
in the morning sun,
only surpassed by the radiant smile
of the wise old man in front of me.
He has just presented me
with one of his many riddles:
What is, in one creation,
the brightest of all brightness
and the darkest of darkness?
The answer is “the human mind.”
“If you master it,
you can turn thought into reality;
and if you don’t,
you cannot change anything.”
Inspired by this moment,
I decided to launch
a personal experiment back in Norway.
My first thought was about my father
and the fact that we never hug each other.
I love and respect my dad deeply,
but we’ve never hugged
for as long as I remember.
A respectful nod
or a handshake is our ritual
even if my wife and kids
hug him every time we meet.
To change this up
would make for a perfect first experiment
of mastering mind
to turn thought into reality,
I thought.
The following weeks, however,
second thoughts arise.
I mean, what if my dad disapproves?
He should make the first move.
And I mean, what will my family think?
This could get really embarrassing.
A simple hug should be easy.
Still, I could not muster up
the courage to do it.
A few weeks later,
I came close to giving up
the whole experiment,
but I remember the words
“If you don’t,
you cannot change anything.”
So on September 16, 2018,
I decided for another try,
and I armed myself
with enthusiastic determination.
As I’m getting out of the car
with my father in front of me,
enthusiasm, however,
is replaced by panic.
My heart was pounding like crazy.
I mean, time froze.
It stood still,
just like that first time I was standing
on the top of the 10-meter dive tower
of the swimming pool,
scared stiff about the terrifying height,
thinking, Shall I jump or not?
And then I jumped -
arms out,
brace for impact,
and embrace.
I hugged my dad for the first time.
My father was caught by surprise,
of course,
but within the next second,
he put his arms out
and hugged back.
A simple hug had a life-changing impact
and unveiled a powerful
lesson about change.
This change actually resembles
the launch of a mission to Mars.
The first two minutes from launch
requires more fuel than the entire
next seven months of flight.
The heavy fuel burn
of those two first minutes
is because of gravity.
I had also felt a kind of gravity,
this paralyzing inertia
leading up to my dive tower moment.
Giving dad a hug today, however,
has become second nature.
The profound words of the wise old man
had proven right.
By mastering the human mind,
you can turn thought into reality.
It begins with awareness
about something worth changing -
a thought,
a compelling vision
of an alternative future.
Then, through willpower,
persistence, and courage,
we master our inert gravity
to turn that thought into reality.
I’ve always aspired to be a change maker.
Victory over gravity added fuel
to my inner fire and desire for purpose,
so I decided to jump again:
this time, from the safety
of a familiar corporate career
into the uncertainty
of the entrepreneurial startup world,
fueled by a passion to create hope
for a better future for people and planet.
Awareness about something worth changing
grew into a desire to act.
Did you know that nearly everything we eat
is entirely dependent on healthy soil?
Earth can be compared to an orange,
with its peel representing the soil.
In fact, it’s more like an apple, though,
with its super-thin skin being vital
for nearly everything we eat,
the clothes we wear,
and the air we breathe.
And what is the current reality
about global topsoil,
this vital thin skin of our planet?
Twenty percent of earth’s fertile land
is already degraded,
and deserts are spreading rapidly.
Twelve million hectares of fertile land
perished to desertification annually
according to the United Nations.
That’s 2,000 football fields
of fertile soil
turning to sand every hour.
I mean, if you line up
these football fields,
you have to drive
at 210 kilometers per hour
to keep up as they turn into desert.
And as this plays out,
our global population is growing so fast
that we will need more food
in the next 40 years
than the planet has produced
over the last 500.
Producing food also requires water,
lots of water.
The water footprint of a hamburger
is 2,000 liters;
a slice of bread, 80;
and a small cup of coffee,
more than 130 liters.
And what is the current
reality about water?
By 2025, 1.8 billion people
will suffer absolute water scarcity,
and more than 70 percent
of all available fresh water on Earth
is already consumed by agriculture
for food production.
And what happens
when more soil turns to sand?
We need even more water.
Turning thought into reality
where we declared victory
over these challenges
made me dive into the ClimateTech
startup journey with desert control.
Our vision is no less
than making Earth green again
by stopping and reversing
desertification and soil degradation.
And how do we do it?
With the power of nature’s gravity.
Let me explain.
Clay-rich soil retains water
and has high resilience to droughts.
Mixing clay into the ground,
however, is difficult.
We therefore invented a process
to turn clay into a liquid
nearly as thin as water.
This liquid is sprayed onto the ground,
and gravity does the rest
by pulling the tiny clay particles down.
Sticking to each grain of sand,
they create a soil structure
that absorbs water just like a sponge.
This process can turn
degraded land and sand
into fertile soil
and reduce the water usage for irrigation
by up to 50 percent.
But can this brilliant idea
really help save the planet
in a world already 20 percent degraded
and desert spreading
at 210 kilometers per hour?
How can an idea
from a small Norwegian startup
make even the slightest dent
in such a massive problem?
Well, first, we must realize
that simply because we see the problem
doesn’t mean everyone else does.
Deserts spreading
at 210 kilometers per hour
are not visible to the human eye.
Soil degradation happens under our feet,
and the topsoil is getting thinner
from underneath -
out of sight, out of mind.
Further,
the 2,000 football fields
per hour turning to desert
are scattered around the world.
The problem, therefore,
must be recognized and solved
from the edges
with global solutions
and local implementation.
Second, we are in a battle against time.
Winning slowly,
inch by inch,
country by country,
is going to take longer than we have.
We must think big, start small, act fast,
and design to scale exponentially.
Combining these two points
into one exponential roadmap
is how we overcome
such a massive problem in due time.
Imagine observing
a desert planet from space.
Suddenly, a green mosaic piece appears,
then another one, and another.
And as each mosaic grows
and the pace of new pieces
appearing accelerates,
the exponential
terraforming power kicks in.
And when the mosaics finally interlock,
the vision of a green planet is complete.
How does this all
translate to climate change?
And why is there no answer
to the question
about the most impactful action
for climate change adopted since 1979?
The first World Climate Conference
was held in February 1979.
Scientific evidence pointing
towards disaster
has been published
at accelerating pace ever since.
Still, no change of direction
has been made by mankind
over more than 40 years?
That’s about the same time
it took for me to hug my father.
I believe the inertia-kind of gravity
plays a powerful role here.
Even the explanations
and excuses we come up with
are in themselves
a representation of this inertia,
gravity that makes us postpone
even the most important thing in life
because we have something urgent
to take care of first.
And when the most important thing
finally becomes urgent,
it may already be too late.
The best time to plant a tree
was most likely more than 40 years ago.
The second best time is now;
that is, if we have the fertile soil
to support it, of course.
In fact,
even the most obvious solution
to climate change
can be just under our feet.
Did you know that as much as 95 percent
of earthly species of biological life
can be found in soil?
A mere teaspoon of healthy soil
contains a billion bacteria,
thousands of protozoa,
dozens of nematodes,
and an army of creatures
ripe for an action hero movie.
This army underneath our feet
and the soil ecosystem
is vital for the circle of life.
And the carbon cycle
restoring Earth’s degraded soils
can offset 50 gigatons of CO2.
That’s 10 times the annual emissions
of the United States.
And the soil ecosystem
with its army of superhero earthlings
captures carbon entirely for free,
boosting agricultural productivity
and water efficiency at the same time.
Stopping the 210-kilometers-per-hour
desertification speed
is therefore even more critical.
When soil degrades,
so does its army of superhero earthlings.
The 12 million hectares of fertile land
that perishes annually
represents in weight
of biological superhero life
more than 25 million African elephants.
Superheroes that we can save and empower
by mastering gravity,
an act that, in return, may save us all.
Can you see it now,
that solutions to
humanity’s greatest challenges
are right under our feet?
With open eyes,
discovering gravity
can be as easy as seeing a falling apple
or giving Dad a hug.
The next step is mastering gravity
to turn thought into reality.
And when you are standing there
on top of the dive tower
talking to yourself about jumping or not,
remember that it’s easier done than said.
Making that jump may even set you free
to pursue a purpose larger than self,
and that purpose may even start
one of these exponential movements
for a brighter future.
Time is running out.
Fortunately, you have the power to jump.
Are you ready?
(Music ends)