Sustainability on solid ground and safe hands?!?

Culmination of all my LinkedIn posts on sustainability, de-growth, micro-states, re-prioritisation on how we could see the world etc. and thoughts as my first artcile on the newsletter. Warning - this will be verbose and thought-provoking/deep. :)

Micro-states or Micro-communities

This subject of the?#decentralisation?and?#localisation?of almost everything is something I spend a lot of time on. I foresee a future where in there are?#microcommunities?within which there is high level of?#interdependence, but across the border between the next micro-community there is minimum to none?#dependence.

We need to let go the thought of lopsided balance of?#resource?flows as it exists currently, it just doesn't work. We are in the middle of a massive crisis exactly because of this reason.?#Policy?makers,?#scientific?community, board room executives and even primary and high?#school?#teachers?have to start emphasising the need of the mega shift away from this "world as one marketplace"?#philosophy.

This would pinch the?#corporates?as they exist in the current form, but they have to realise that the exodus they faced from Russia in February and March 2022 is just one of the many such exoduses to come. The moment when the current resource shortage starts to bite the common man in a significant way, everyone will be back to their?#hunter?gatherers and?#tribal?ways of life.

Each micro-community shall have its own optimized solution for energy, food, transport and other major requirements, and have their own vision of the long term. The entire concept of?#nation?states also might cease to exist, which is a myth in the first place. Even if they do exist, they need to let the micro-communities thrive.?#Governance, policy, supervision and execution also need to happen at that level.

Talent vacuum in clean-tech, De-growth and re-prioritsation

Global food crisis, energy crisis, pandemic public health crisis after effects, war in Ukraine, looming fears of recession & the climate crisis. Inspite of all this, almost everyone at least in the well off societies and upper middle class and above communities just don't seem to care.

The wealth of the top 0.01% has increased by $ 2 trillion over the past 2 years, and money continues to get pumped into unicorn turned startups which doesn't seem to solve any of the real world crisis. Given the super high pays, the smartest talent work in all these modern age "metaverse" enabling companies(read "tech") , and have very few smart minds left for solving the real world issues.

Personally I just can't seem to comprehend this development that there is a massive talent and leadership vacuum in the food/water/energy/climate space for the next 1-2 decades. This has to change, at both a micro and macro level, otherwise we are headed for a mass extinction or rather self destruction in the next 2-3 decades.

Solutions - combination of?#degrowth, reskilling of smart talents towards the above mentioned sectors, better prioritisation of mission-criticals at a policy level, which includes radical overhaul in the definition of GDP and growth, localised and decentralised empowerment for decision making. All this can be done, in that sense I am an eternal optimist, but will and commitment has to be there...

Externality denying capitalism

Excellent representation of the current state of affairs in the global economy. Although the announcements and PR around green energy investments has increased exponentially in the past few years, the actual money spent is still predominantly in fossil fuel industries.

We don't seem to understand that we can't have the cake and eat it too. This externality denying capitalism along with never ending thurst of inorganic and incessant growth (read greed) will lead to nothing but extinction, along with wiping of the biodiversity and any relevant life on the planet.

If we continue this way, capitalism in the current form will go down in the history books as the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs, ice ages which led to massive extinction and the more recent world wars.

Hope there is some ray at the end of the tunnel.

#growth?#degrowth?#economy?#biodiversity?#greenenergy?#greenwashing?#sustainability?#sustainablefuture

Emissions pathways in the coupled climate-social system

A very important and thematic article recently published in?#nature?on the determinants of emissions pathways in the coupled climate-social system. Link to article is?https://lnkd.in/dYrhj_Cv

Main takeways being,

- Several non linearities and tipping points are present with particular connections across individual, community, national and global scales

- In addition to the conventional future cost of technologies, even factors such as public perception of climate change and responsiveness of political institutions has a major role in determining the emissions pathways

- Therefore, an interdependent socio-politco-technical feedback processes can be decisive for climate change policy and emissions outcomes

This is very much in lines with my article I posted yesterday on pursuit of interdependence. On a macro level, it is impossible to achieve our climate ambitions if a sustainable interdependence and balance is not established to result in a favorable outcome.

#climatechange?#sustainable?#future?#community?#sustainablefuture?#sustainableenergy?#sustainability?#climatesolutions?#carbonmarkets?#climate?#climateaction?#climateactionnow?#hydrogeneconomy?#greenhydrogen?#renewableenergy?#renewables

Pursuit of sustainable interdependence or independence?

I have been struggling with this question for a long time now. On one hand, independence sounds like a basic human right. In modern democracies with past freedom struggles and independence from colonial rules, this has become a basic human right - at least since the past 250-300 years. The concept of independence was not necessarily such a big "non-negotiable" prior to this era of world-wars and colonial rules. Large kingdoms and self-sufficient tribes have existed for several centuries longer than our present concept of nation states.

We as human species, and extending to nature has always been interdependent. Fast forward to 2022 - we are more interdependent than we ever were. In the hunter-gatherer days, each tribe was interdependent amongst each other; but more or less independent of the other tribe. Trade wasn't really that common in that era. But, the equation has changed completely now, we are extremely interdependent and that is what creates complex webs of connections - right from geopolitical, incessant growth to sustainability and we keep struggling to find the right balance.

Take Europe for instance, there is a hue and cry over energy independence - however it is completely mis-framed - it is just reduced dependency from Russia, but alternatively increasing dependency (at least in the short term) with US, MENA regions for LNG imports. In the long term it is increasing extreme dependency on China by relying on lithium ion and solar cells, which for 99% comes from there.

At a very micro/personal level, I also keep struggling to find the right balance of this interdependency. Realization that pure independence is only possible if I turn into a sage and move to Himalayas has made me rule out that possibility for the medium term at least. So for all practical reasons, pure independence is a modern-day myth, nothing else. Now, what level of interdependency is sustainable that can still let our fantasies of self-sufficiency thrive and give us that artifical sense of control? Something I don't yet have an answer for - or the pursuit of sustainable interdependency continues...

#sustainability?#energy?#growth?#independence?#interdependence?#freedom?#renewable?#future?#sustainablefuture?#humanism?#europe

Real definition of sustainability!

I came across this infographic somewhere, can't seem to find the reference again - in my opinion this is what really defines sustainability. It is far more than just green energy or driving electric vehicles or producing green hydrogen. There are so many different elements to it, where-in a lot of innovation and creative thinking can be applied.

Unfortunately, there isn't much work going on on most of these aspects, I hope that there is a shift going forward. For us, harmony and circularity are essential in everything we focus on. And in order to achieve several of these idealistic objectives, the conventional growth mindset focussed around market capitalization, shareholder value and valuations needs to change. At certain level, de-growth is also an answer to many of the solutions we face, of course that doesn't apply to everything, but is a serious aspect to be considered.

With the recent crisis in Ukraine, energy scarcity and the Covid crisis, the focus towards resilience and autonomy has grown significantly. The fear is that this is coming at a cost of harmony, restricting access and being non-equitable to several low-income countries. Of course there needs to be a balance, but there is a lot to be done in this space. Once the policy makers take a more holistic, species/ecosystem view of things rather than boxed in to an individualistic or nationalistic viewpoint, the real shift will start to take place. Until that is done, real sustainability is a far away goal.

#sustainability?#energy?#growth?#circularity?#harmony?#equity?#resilience?#autonomy?#inclusion?#access