It’s well beyond time to understand that we each have a role in fighting the climate catastrophe. But: what is that role? What can each of us do, realistically, pragmatically?
What’s a pragmatic solution? What do we mean? Let’s start by saying what pragmatic solutions are NOT:
Tiny and inadequate things. The book “An Inconvenient Truth” does a good job of describing the problems that we, the human race, are creating by destroying our home and our climate. But at the end, there is no recipe for pragmatic action. Instead, a few, feeble solutions are suggested: drive a hybrid car; try meatless Mondays; turn off lights. These fail the test of pragmatic solutions because we all know they’re inadequate. The requested changes occur at the wrong scale; even these small changes will be hard for many, as they require individual commitments counter to common logic, yet remain completely inadequate. Suggestions of inadequate solutions hint at a bleak and undesirable future: the path to avoiding climate catastrophe by leaving us all sitting shivering in the dark.
Government-only actions. The Paris Accord is at once essential and inadequate. It is essential because it points to the need for mechanisms by which nations hold each other accountable to continuous improvement in bettering our climate. But it is inadequate because it is surely infeasible to expect that government-driven principles will solve, or perhaps even lead in solving, such a tangible problem as death by greenhouse gas. If governments are to play a role in the real fight against climate apocalypse, they will need to produce clear and actionable programs or policies. But we can’t afford to wait for government action. What can we already do?
Behaviors not changing. Doing nothing and making decisions that go against the needs of concerted solutions embeds us deeper into the track to climate-based catastrophe. Here’s an example. 2020 came along and brought this pandemic virus. Lots of people lost their jobs or worked from home and so the number of vehicles on roads dropped. But the number of new cars sold soared—who’d want to ride a bus, a taxi, an Uber, sitting in the air possibly polluted by virus-vectors, non-masked riders or drivers? And, because of the absence of good leadership on this, the sales favored big SUVs, the evil of whose carbon footprints will linger longer than the virus.
And yet. The fact that the billions of us have already changed the climate—for the worse—shows that the billions of us have the potential to alter it again, for the better.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” What’s your role? What’s your task in inspiring, leading, and organizing? In imagining, innovating, inventing, or investing? That is where pragmatic solutions exist.
Pragmatic solutions: we are capable of building or enabling solutions that scale, that collectively enable us to build the better world. Your role may be just doing the little you can on your own behaviors. But you may also have, or create for yourself, a scalable role, one of force multipliers: inspiring others; inventing technologies; innovating behaviors; investing in solutions.
Pragmatic solutions: derived from data, built on realizable science and engineering, not just aspirations, fear or desires. Practical and scalable—so that they can start small, at proof points, and deliver 10,000-fold scaling results. Investable—so that bankers, funds, venture funds, energy companies and more, can see their way to supporting results that are both earth-friendly and investor-friendly.
Pragmatic solutions: acknowledging that as individuals we have both greater responsibility and greater power than the small solutions we are fed (recycling, etc.). It is up to each of us to determine how we will use our resources, including skills and time, to power the changes we find worth making.