Glimmers of a Fabulous Future

Friday, March 13, 2020 was a peculiar day in the San Francisco Bay Area. Colleges, universities, and private schools had already closed, and that Friday, public schools also stopped in-person instruction. Danny Beesley had invited me as a guest on his new Fab City podcast. On my way to meet Danny, I drove through a shopping district and remember seeing for the first time the uncanny sight that has now become familiar－once bustling streets turned ghost-town quiet. 

At the time, I didn’t understand the link between the big changes that were underway and the Fab City Global Initiative. But I’m a huge Fab City fan and was excited and honored to throw ideas back and forth with Danny. 

Fab City is a world-wide project where a participating city sets targets to make everything that’s consumed in that city locally by some future date. 34 cities around the world have made the Fab City commitment so far. Just think about the emissions reductions as transportation distance is reduced by over 99 percent! And the potential for waste reduction is also substantial as we shift to things that are made just-in-time and and just for you instead of things that are impersonally cranked out on the other side of the world.  

Cities that have joined the Fab City Global Initiative as of May 2020.

As we started recording the podcast, we talked about the enormous promise that’s linked to Fab City commitments, but we also candidly discussed the lack of progress. Specifically, there are over 1,800 flexible small-scale manufacturing sites around the world called Fab Labs. If we were going to hit the Fab City targets, we’d expect to see real manufacturing going on in Fab Labs. Unfortunately, we weren't seeing that yet. 

What a difference a month can make!

By April 13th many of those previously under-used Fab Labs were at full capacity, manufacturing face shields, face masks, and other pandemic-related equipment against aggressive timelines and quotas. Danny and other leaders were suddenly working day and night to coordinate thousands of volunteers. A transformation that we thought would take many years happened almost overnight. If, after the pandemic, we continue to use and scale this local manufacturing capability, it will lead to significant emissions reduction and waste reduction. It will also make us more resilient in the case of future pandemics or natural disasters－relying on hundreds of local micro manufacturing sites versus easily-disrupted global supply chains.

This rapid positive transformation got me thinking about some of the other potential gifts for a brighter future that we see in our response to this pandemic. I don’t want to downplay in any way the tragedy and loss associated with the pandemic. However, I know that many of the unintended positive consequences of the pandemic have already been covered like cleaner air and water, animal populations rebounding, and even the human lives saved by air pollution reduction. So I’m assuming by this point we all accept that there are some positive outcomes mixed in with this global tragedy. I’m especially interested in positive responses that we see now and that we would benefit from long-term, but which may not persist after the pandemic unless we call attention to them and do some work to nurture them.

The first positive response that I’ve noticed relates back to the lives that are being saved because of the reduction in air pollution. This unintended side effect of the pandemic-related global slowdown was first covered by news outlets after Stanford professor Marshall Burke published his analysis in March. At that point, Dr. Burke estimated that as many as 77,000 lives could be saved in China because of pandemic-related reductions in air pollution. To put that number in perspective, the World Health Organization estimates that there are approximately 7 million premature deaths each year due to air pollution.

City with Air Pollution. Source: Max Chen (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) https://www.flickr.com/photos/maxchen2k/46193502072

In our response to the pandemic, we agreed as a global human family that we would change our lifestyle and, in many cases, suffer economic hardship in order to save millions of lives during this one-time pandemic. That we were able to come to a global consensus is extraordinary, and that－even though many of us were in little danger－we valued the lives of others so highly that we were willing to make these sacrifices also reflects very positively on us. Beyond this pandemic, could we come to a consensus that we will change our lifestyles to save millions of lives each year by reducing air pollution? I don’t believe this means we simply have to give things up or slowdown the economy, but we do need to redesign most things and drive the shift from a Harmful Economy to a Healing Economy. Just-in-time-and-just-for-you local manufacturing is an important part of that shift, but we have to also move from extracted and toxic raw materials that harm to healing raw materials－locally-grown natural materials that actively rebuild soil and clean the air without producing any water-polluting runoff.

The second positive response relates to where power has shifted and decisions have been made. National governments tried early to assert themselves and leading heads of state seemed to be in an unofficial contest about how many ill-informed and easily-debunkable statements they could make. Meanwhile, global and regional organizations were the voices of reason, debunkers of myths, and creators of effective policy. In some cases, regional organizations didn’t exist and had to be created ad hoc, such as in the San Francisco Bay Area where 6 county health departments coordinated to create and implement the regional “shelter in place” orders. Around the world, multi-city or multi-county urban areas followed similar regional response strategies. The reason that I see this as positive is because in most instances where we're dealing with large natural forces－be it the natural spread of a virus, the preservation of forests and reefs, or the large-scale reduction of emissions and pollution－an effective response needs to be coordinated both globally and regionally. This stands in contrast to where we invest the most political power today－in nations, states/provinces, counties/districts, and cities－at a level that’s either too small or too big to be effective. Global organizations are typically hamstrung by nation states, and regional organizations often have limited mandates such as transportation or economic development. If we are going to be effective at stopping despeciation, ecosystem loss and degradation, and all kinds of pollution, then we need to permanently shift more power and decision making authority to the global and regional levels. 

If the pandemic drives a permanent shift to local just-in-time-and-just-for-you manufacturing, an ongoing commitment to change our lifestyles to save millions of lives each year, and a strengthening of the global and regional organizations that are working to eliminate our negative environmental impact then we've received some vital gifts to help us build a fabulous future together. Are there other positive aspects of our shared pandemic response that you hope we will continue afterwards? What are they? Why do you feel they're important? Please share in the comments. 

Acknowledgements:

Thanks to Danny Beesley for inspiration and collaboration.

Thanks to the many brilliant designers, engineers, and makers who I've been able to work with the past few months and to the thousands of others who joined this global effort to support first-line responders and vulnerable communities.

Additional Resources:

Inside Bay Area Makers' Rush to Solve the PPE Shortage, April 8, 2020.

World Health Organization Air Pollution Mortality Estimates