Hacking the extinction: Part 1
Last year, I invested some time into researching climate change in more detail. I’m probably not the only one. It is topical these days, thanks to instances of extreme weather events, water shortages, and children marching in the streets.
First question I asked myself: Why hasn’t it been solved already?
Here are three reasons I found to this question, summarized:
1. Most people are not able to comprehend the magnitude and severity of the issue. Whether it is denial or shock, most people shy away from it, expecting government or other groups to address it, ignore it and hope the problem goes away.
2. Governments are slow to react, and depend on voters who are heavily influenced by headliner media. This is somewhat self-explanatory but gets more complicated and corrupted when you look into Cambridge Analytica, Russian bots, Mercer & Bannon and the dark side of human nature. Probably one of the bigger issues that pervade human nature and society, we might as well try to solve how do we rid the world of bad guys?
3. Businesses prioritize profits over most things. This often includes doing what’s right for the environment. Unless they are held accountable by government (ref 2 above), there is no impetus to change other than consumer behaviour. But often economics still win out over ethics. As we get back to inequality issues and many lacking basic needs for survival, this becomes even more unlikely to happen.
They can all be grouped into one answer, I suppose.
Those who have the power but are not held accountable, take no action.
Well, I know climate change is real and it is happening at a frightening pace. For whatever reason that the science is not being heeded, or the solutions are not being created, the fact remains- we are losing ground right now.
So exists our current predicament.
I am an evolutionist. I always wonder, are we bound to go extinct? If you believe that people on earth evolved from protozoa, using their incredibly developed brains to survive, wouldn’t the story be exactly the same? Wouldn’t any dominant species on any planet in the universe eventually find themselves in the same predicament? Once they reached a certain population, how might they control themselves from exhausting every resource?
If the species was wise, they would organize into a self-regulating, harmonious groups with centralized management system that cooperated and allocated resources fairly, living in balance with the earth and all other living beings. A Utopia.
Yeah, um, that’s not really us right now.
We are more like this:
And this:
And really like this:
I’m not saying Utopia is out of reach.
It’s just.. far away from where we are in the present situation.
I can’t really control government much other than to vote. I cannot control business except to influence the ones I am in. I can control myself and try to reduce personal emissions.
I can also try to influence my friends and family through discussion and debate. That is extremely important practice these days. To talk and communicate and rationalise as a community.
But perhaps there are other ways we could get further. Let’s look at how we can hack the system.
My first suggestion is to mobilize a large and critical part of the population-the workforce. To work together in a new way.
People normally apply themselves 8 hours a day toward building economic wealth for their employer’s businesses. Most of us need it to survive, and we are conditioned to the idea that jobs=economic growth and stability. But often times workers are applying themselves vigorously toward roles that by design, are speeding up our path to destruction. Making products and widgets that are wasteful business models and unsustainable business practices.
Is this is where our smartest and most capable brains should be focused right now?
If you were the general manager at a company who was on the brink of survival, would you:
A) Send your best staff members to throw a company party that consumed all of the company’s resources?
B) Send out the best teams to research and develop game-changing solutions that that can save the business?
Or in this instance, our planet.
If you truly believe in climate change; if you believe the science and the collected data and the mathematical models, you should feel a deep urgency to get moving. You ought to feel this on a level similar to how you feel about your job. You should feel it like the pressure your boss puts on you to meet a deadline. The way you feel about paying bills and shopping for food. The fact that you probably don’t, however, is indicative of how far off we are.
Many years ago I worked with some designers at BizDojo in Auckland and formed a group called Popcorn Collective.
Popcorn’s foundation was in the idea of helping design projects for human good. We worked on low-cost baby incubators, built 3D printed eye exam equipment on smartphones. Now we are working on a seaweed tech project, and Covid-19 related medical equipment for development and distribution.
As a hardware founder and project manager, I have some experience with some of the unique challenges that ventures face in New Zealand. I believe at scale, some of Popcorns tools and frameworks could address meaningful shortfalls of the current system, especially as it applies to impact ventures.
I really believe that all of us: developers, researchers, managers, designers, engineers, scientists, techs, marketers, retirees, students can and should re-design, re-make, and re-engineer the future.
In the next few weeks, we will start to share some of these learnings in the hopes it will accelerate change toward the brighter version of the future. We hope to see you there.
