How to Solve The Climate Crisis And Make Our Society Better | Futureproofed
The COVID-19 curve has barely flattened and already we’re stuffed with analyses that draw its parallel with the climate crisis. Completely understandable. However, there is at least one essential difference: how to solve the climate crisis without hurting ourselves.
Even in the middle of this dark corona pandemic, the past months have shown three points of hope. The first one: most citizens care. Faster than we could ever have imagined, citizens have begun to change their behavior even if it was difficult both emotionally and financially. People are capable of not only thinking about themselves. We can act in the general interest. As Rutger Bregman observed in his book “Humankind: A Hopeful History,” most people are virtuous.
What a reassurance 🤝
The second ray of hope: when faced with an unprecedented crisis, leadership emerges. It seems to be possible that governments allow experts to advise them. Local authorities also work overtime to inform and support citizens.
And third: economic leadership also flourished. Companies, especially banks, jumped in to bring financial relief to families and businesses by postponing loan and credit card payments, for example, or offering emergency grants.
This tandem of citizenship and leadership is exactly how we need to solve the climate crisis.
Pulling parallels is never without danger, but as far as the COVID-19 and climate crisis go, it is difficult to ignore some similarities.
The climate crisis is also a global health problem. In Europe alone, climate and weather-related events have caused 112,000 additional deaths since 1990, the World Health Organization (WHO) reports. The organization also estimates that there could be an additional 5 million worldwide deaths related to the climate crisis between 2030 and 2050. News bulletins seldom report on these staggering figures.
Originally published at https://blog.futureproofed.com.
