Why is he still wearing a mask?
Because the danger of new zoonosis viruses caused by climate change is not theoretical....
How do you perceive it?
When I was born, 85% of the Earth was virgin; today it is barely 25% and there won't be even 1% left in 2050. That's why virus-carrying animals that had no contact with us today are our neighbors...
Nice boars here in Barcelona.
...Hold by unusual climatic phenomena, such as the tremendous drought that Catalonia is suffering or the snow in hot California, and it is worse in the Mediterranean...
don't scare me
I am afraid because you are 22 Mediterranean states in danger, but they do not act.
Perhaps more supranational power is needed to curb the climate threat?
In addition, what they already have: from the UN to the OECD or the European Central Bank are following strategies more typical of the old developmentism than to prevent the sixth extinction, that of humans...
Why have we put ourselves in danger?
Because of the pride of all and the greed of a few. Capitalist development is based on centralization, verticality and the principle of efficiency: maximum productivity with minimum effort.
It's called economic growth.
But it's not natural! Nature, on the other hand, is cycles, and so are we because we are part of them. Growing without limit is not natural, but a deviation from greed.
There are resources for the needs of all, but not for the greed of a few.
Instead, all living things are governed by circadian rhythms – in sync with the rotation and translation of the Earth – which are the cycles of day, night and seasons. Denying them out of greed is suicidal.
what to do
Act. I proposed a $17 trillion plan to Senate Democratic leader Charles Schumer to slow our extinction…
And President Biden approved his.
And I use my experience and influence in the EU to invest to save us: that is, in the transition to sustainable development.
are we there on time
If we do nothing, the most optimistic projections place extinction at the end of the lives of children born today. Why do you think teenagers are protesting so they perceive that threat?
Why do you think we don't listen to them?
Out of selfishness: we ignore them and they are right.
In order to stop the extinction, is it necessary to stop growing economically and decrease?
To save ourselves from extinction we need to grow more and better, not less. We need to think, invest, act, progress, coordinate and take efficient initiatives.
For example.
To begin with, think: in 2000, Prime Minister Prodi and I thought about what the paradigm shift should look like to stop extinction and we analyzed eight technological revolutions to anticipate it.
Which are?
They have been revolutions in communications, energy, mobility, logistics, water and the way we organize ourselves to survive. And now you have to rethink them.
What should we rethink?
This progress is not always plannable, but is often serendipitous: you find it by chance while looking for something else. But you have to try, you have to keep putting points in order to, one day, join them perhaps by chance in one way or another.
What makes you feel optimistic?
That we are reacting. The essence of capitalism is to privatize the benefits for a few and externalize the waste for all – pollution, deforestation – after extracting productivity...
Well, it's not an ultra-liberal definition...
Instead, the technology that was put to use this dynamic today is also beginning to be applied to slow it down, turn it upside down and make it sustainable, and our species, resilient.
Where do you see healthy reactions?
In the energy internet, for example, which privatizes production with millions of generators in homes and returns the surplus to the grid: a third of the cars on the planet will be electric in 2030 and will be connected to the grid: they will return energy.
We explained it not long ago here.
The same will happen with the data and the challenge that occurs also with decision-making, which would therefore avoid the privatization of nature that we have suffered until today.
Don't you see everything too easy?
I believe that technology can help us get out of the problems that its misuse has caused. And I also believe that we will be able to correct it if we work, invest, coordinate. Energy, data, water... Networked democracy. Networks for everyone.
