One of the more pessimistic writers on climate change is David Wallace-Wells who talks about the uninhabitable earth.
He writes about heat, food, plagues, air quality, war, economic collapse, and poisoned oceans as all being inevitable in our lifetime. Tough stuff to read. Bill Mckibben’s recent summary is more apt for many: the habitable area of the planet is shrinking, a calamity vast enough not to need overstating. Easier read but still overwhelming.
And yet as a business owner, you need to be thinking about what climate change means for your business and whether you need to refocus. Is the business you are in flexible enough to survive the coming changes? How do you look at what is predicted and make any adjustments? How do you decide what you believe? Earlier in the month, I wrote about business in the time of climate change. Now I want to flip it to climate change and what that means for business.
I am addicted to The Economist magazine.
On July 6th, they had an editorial called, “Navigating the Rapids” in which they suggest that instead of summer reading this year, that you speculate about the future. Starting with scenario planning, you can map out several futures, deciding how to respond to each of them, and identify the early signs that they might be coming about. This is being used now by many corporations not just the military. Another choice is to read science fiction which offers different perspectives and new possibilities both for events and possible responses to them. That is more like summer reading. The last suggestion is trendspotting which is looking for emerging technologies and behavior that have yet to become widely adopted. Some trendspotters are right on and some are widely off.
By reading about possible futures, you can shift your perception of the present and allow a new understanding of the future to unfold for you. I would also add to reading, asking your dreams to show you glimpses of where we are going and more specifically where your business needs to go. Use whatever you do to get around the ingrained belief systems in your head to some new perception. These years are going to be hard, but also hold the possibility of tremendous creativity for those who want to play.
“The future is already here — it is just unevenly distributed.” William Gibson.
“The Uninhabitable Earth” by David Wallace-Wells is in magazine article form and also a book.
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-earth-too-hot-for-humans.html