From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Going to space gave me the opportunity to separate from our planet, but in doing so it allowed me to feel more connected to it than I ever had on its surface in the middle of it all. I carry that with me all the time now.
We don't always see change and activism from the perspective of what we're giving, it's too often about taking things away… Don't eat that… don't do that… don't drive that car… we have to reframe and rethink. Imagine if we told people we could give them the universe back, it's a beautiful gift- but also allows us to save energy, birds, insects and more.
Seeing the Earth from space gives you an unfiltered understanding of it. Until you see the Earth from this vantage point, everything you knew about the planet was based on something that someone else had told you – based on their own filtered understanding and bias.
We are the master race. We are the creatures who impose our will on virtually everything that lives and breathes. It's deeply shocking when you start to think about the scale of it.
Out of the 1,800 companies we measured, 250 created more environmental damage a year than profit. 600 created environmental damage of 25% or more of their profits. Together, the 1,800 businesses we researched created over $3 trillion of environmental damage in a single year.
The people who will be disproportionately harmed by climate change are those who are (in general) less advantaged economically and socially. Justice means equality of opportunity for all human beings, and that equality of opportunity is quickly reduced if you're in Bangladesh and your home is flooded or if you're in Nigeria and your crops fail because the rains have changed.
We mustn't focus exclusively on this threat, and it tends to be the case that the global elite does. I was at Davos in January 2020 and climate change was the agenda – and the pandemic had already begun! It was quite difficult to persuade people that there might be a nearer-term threat facing us than climate change.
Fascinating, important and highly recommended
By the middle of century, the temperature and humidity in parts of the world will be so high at parts of the year that the human system will not be able to cool itself, you are effectively being cooked. One of the places this will happen first, with potentially grave consequences, is the Arabian Peninsula- disrupting Hajj.
We got to the point where, we are not on our grandparents' planet anymore. Meat has become less healthy for us – it's too available. There are too many calories, too much saturated fat. Animals are no longer 'free-rangy', they are growing in very tight confined conditions.
Taken together, mass migration, mass starvation and mass extinctions are what we will see if we sleep walk into a future of unmitigated climate change. These stresses will ruin economies and drive competition over dwindling resources.
We can win in the struggle to avoid climate chaos, we can win in terms of economic recovery and we can win when it comes to promoting development and justice. All we need is the political will.