Prior to the 2020 WEF meeting, a letter from the chairman to his members read, in part, “We look forward to the Annual Meeting being a breakthrough moment for business action on climate change.” Many seem to have taken that seriously. Here are some of the commitments that struck us most forcibly.
Scientists have revealed Dark Matter and Dark Energy, but now they’ve rolled out the most improbable ‘dark’ of all: Dark Solar, the Dark Side of solar power. This could square the circle of renewable energy and be a boon to the 13% of humanity living without electricity. If even half the energy of photovoltaic cells can be realized at night, that would equal the output of almost 36 nuclear reactors.
Every prior generation had some upcoming date, event or achievement that served as a metaphor for The Future. For many, that future was 2020. Now it has arrived. But If Now Was the Future Then, When is the Future Now?
When the Beatles’ John Lennon first heard Paul McCartney’s It’s Getting Better all the Time , he had only one suggestion, adding, “can’t get no worse,” to the chorus. The former sentiment is, in fact, true. The latter is not: It can get worse.
It is possible to continue the good trends while changing the bad ones and It is our task now to stop the slide and make the world much better.
Robert K. Merton, the giant of modern sociology, coined the term the Law of Unanticipated Consequences. He identified two types of consequences: intended, or what he called ‘manifest’ consequences; and unintended, or ‘latent’ ones. Okay, but what does social theory have to do with sustainability? Hmmm. What if we told you that a huge portion of the…
Previously, we discussed Submerged Value and made a point of noting how significant a chunk of the total value of sustainable actions it represented. We closed with the rather bold statement that often, submerged value actually rivals — or even exceeds — visible value. Well, we’re here now to back that up. Over more than…
