Spring 2.0: Opportunity in Trouble

I saw today in my street the first butterfly this year. I so enjoy to see waking nature! It’s wonderful to hear the loud strife of birds over good nesting positions again, colourful shrubs bloom in the city, Japanese cherries and magnolias, young leaves on trees. The air is clear and it is unusually quiet. There is no that constant rumbling noise of traffic, no crowded streets. The road traffic has fallen in both Italy and China and air quality in major cities, otherwise number one human health problem we experienced this winter in Zagreb too, has improved significantly. The cause is serious, but this consequence is positive. I see an opportunity for change, for the transformation of cities for the better, just like that white butterfly I saw this morning has transformed from a caterpillar.

I breath, the air is clean

Imagine the air clean and fresh all year long and that you can smell the scents of nature, hear birds, bees and swallows humming around. Imagine the streets and facades are all covered by greenery, and only some vehicles pass by on the main roads. Or better yet, there is only public transport that is cheap, reliable and powered by electricity, the electricity generated on our roofs. All roofs in the city produce the electricity we consume, while the excess charges the batteries of electric vehicles.

Imagine that there are more people on the streets and squares than cars, more children playing outside, imagine that cyclists and pedestrians do not hate each other and collide because everyone has their own space to walk or ride. Imagine suburban areas being connected with the city by high speed rail instead of buses and there are no traffic jams.

The mood would be better and the air always fresh. Fewer people would rush to the centre, more of us would live around the cities, and epidemics like this one we are experiencing would be more difficult to spread because the density of population in our cities would not be that high. I see an opportunity to reorganize the city for the better, to ask for changes in our general urban plan.

Virtual classrooms and offices, emissions from traffic significantly drops

Tomorrow and the following days many of us do not go to the office, the children do not go to school. But work and schooling will not stop. We are embarking on an experiment of so-called distributed collaboration. We will be connected by technology in virtual classrooms, offices, meetings and conferences. It may not be perfect at first, but we want to play safe and do not endanger our and others’ health. We will avoid a lot of emissions from transport, which contributes to almost one third of our total carbon emissions thus further warming the atmosphere and changing the climate, in addition to polluting the air.

All conferences, meetings and trips are cancelled. By not going to just one of three planned trips that I was supposed to go this month within Europe, I will avoid 250 kg of carbon emissions. A quarter of a ton! If we know that the total annual emission per inhabitant of the Earth should be no more than two tonnes of carbon, because the carbon budget of the planet allows so much and that is how much the planet can digest without overheating, then the savings of a quarter of a tonne per trip is huge. Because travelling around is huge and too much. I see the opportunity.

Imagine that all conferences and meetings you are invited to more and more frequently, take place exclusively in the virtual space? We have the technology to do this and it works great. Imagine how many tons of carbon would be avoided and would not heat the Earth and how much time you would save. You would be less separated from your family, you’d spend less time on exhausting trips and spend less money in expensive bars on highways or airports! I see the opportunity. It’s called virtual office and distributed collaboration. How this is done in a structured way, learn from the Edge Ryders Distributed Collaboration Manual.

 We need a system change and it starts now

In an epidemic like this, I do not see an opportunity to grant new government approvals to hydrocarbons exploration and exploitation into seven new fields. Oil, gas and coal should remain permanently underground, because the oil, gas and carbon that we burn today will remain in the atmosphere for 20 years more and intensify global warming. We cannot just launch new explorations in 2020, while we are in charge for the EU Council Presidency and, as part of Europe, we are expected to move towards a climate-neutral continent with zero carbon emissions in 2050. Zero means no carbon, none. We cannot take pictures and shake hands with the leader of the Youth Global Climate Movement and at the same time claim that we must explore new oil and gas fields, refuse to ban disposable plastics and ignore warnings from scientists about the dangers of climate change.

In the Spring of 2020 we can and we must start a total transformation of the way we live. One small virus clearly shows us what does it mean – and unprecedented change, overnight, and it shows that things can be done differently. Climate change are much larger problem than this tiny virus, the scientists are warning us for decades that we have to do things differently. And yet…

I see an opportunity for a system change that starts right now. I see an opportunity for many simultaneous small changes going on, innovations and improvements for the better that are collaborative and supportive. I see an opportunity in each of us for the Spring 2.0. Transformation is possible, just like finding a cure for a new virus is likely and possible, but we have only ten years left before climate change becomes bigger then us and impossible to manage or reverse, the change must begin now. How, let’s explore, learn and act together. I see an opportunity for each of us to learn in a virtual classroom of EIT Climate-KIC – the biggest European Climate Innovation Community – our platform is available to all, accessible 24/7 and free,  join us!

Or, how it has been wonderfully put by my colleague from the Italian EIT Climate-KIC team: „Never waste a good crises. COVID-19 is an opportunity for a massive systemic experiment.“

By Sandra Vlašić, Terra Hub & EIT RIS Climate-KIC Hub Hrvatska

Photo by Yiqun Tang on Unsplash