Dale Hagen

LBST 2301-338

Professor Tina Katsanos

Deepening Sustainability Knowledge

For this study, the event I had selected was the “You and the planet: the new normal”

livestream run by the independent scientific academy known as The Royal Society in partnership

with the British Academy. The livestream was openly streamed using YouTube’s streaming

services on October 29, 2020, from 6 pm to 7 pm GMT. My purpose in watching this livestream

is to better understand the current state of environmental efforts and become better informed as

we progress into the post-Covid-19 world. It can be taken as a given that Covid-19 has had at

least some effect on everything we do now. Hence, it is entirely reasonable for me to become

curious about how it has and will continue to affect efforts to create a sustainable future.

Due to late action upon my part, and the nature of the event, my ethnographic method of

choice for this study was to be an offsite nonparticipant observer. As an online livestream, there

was no way for me to attend in person. In fact, of the panel of fellows who were part of the

livestream, four were in the UK, and one was in South Africa at the time. For them to get some

form of questions from their audience, they had a period before the livestream where participants

could submit questions that may be used during the event. In addition to this, they also had an

interactive app setup to get the audience's input on various questions during the livestream.

Unfortunately, I had neglected to take note of the time zone when planning to attend and was

surprised to find out that I had missed the live stream by several hours. Fortunately, The Royal

Society uses YouTube’s ability to record and then post livestreams when ended to post all their

livestreamed events for the public to view in the future. This allowed me to observe the event

still after it had occurred. Since I was unable to seek permission from the panel of fellows to use

their real names, I will be referring to them by pseudonyms when needed.

 When they began the event, Leader (the man who can be considered the host for the

panel of fellows) started the discussion by prompting the panel with the topic of a just transition

and whether or not the idea of justice has to be married to the transition from our current system

to a sustainable one. The resulting responses from each of the fellows varied slightly in content

depending upon their experiences and expertise but were all in agreement that the transition

would have to be just to be effective. Following this exchange, Leader continues the discussion

by prompting fellow A, whose interests/expertise include land and agriculture, about if science

and technology can sustainably support the increasing population. The response A gives is that

we are already going past several planetary boundaries and, as a result, are already living

unsustainably, so not only do we need science and technology, but behavioral change will also

be required to reach sustainability. By extension, fellow B, whose expertise lies with land and

small communities, builds upon this by stating that a crisis response similar to what has occurred

with Covid-19 would function to bring about this behavioral change. The key to getting this

response is to educate the public about the problem correctly.

The next major topic they eventually moved to was more in line with the global

community's current state and their positions on environmental efforts. Leader had started this

part of the discussion by initially inquiring fellow D, whose expertise and interests are focused

on politics and the urban environment, about the transition to a sustainable economy/society and

cities' role in that transition. Fellow D responded that a significant amount of greenhouse gas

emissions from energy-related sectors are, in fact, from cities. They then identify that urban

environments can respond by increasing the forms of partnership at this level between

businesses, civil society (which includes several different communities/collectives), and

government (who are composed of independent political leadership). Branching from this,
Leader then inquires fellow B about the option to deurbanize to reduce the impact on the

environment. Fellow B’s response was optimistic about this option, pointing towards our

experiences during this pandemic in regard to working without being local to one another. This

finally leads to the question that begins the next major topic: Leader comes back to fellow A and

asks about the potential conflict between profits and the solutions needed for the transition and if

democracy is poorly suited towards the long term goals needed to complete the transition. Fellow

A states that ideally, the solutions can and should bring profits during and after the transition. On

the topic of democracy, fellow A clarifies that the solution is to make the long term goals into

laws to remove them from the political debate, citing that this is what some other countries have

done to rectify this problem. This leads to them discussing various countries around the globe

that are making Carbon Neutral agreements and Net Zero pledges. Part of this conversation also

drifts to the US and the impact of the 2020 election on the movement towards the transition.

With the US, China, Japan, and South Korea all making these pledges, they estimate that this

could be a potential tipping point in the transition to a sustainable future.

From what they have said, I can assume a couple of things about how they see the

transition to a sustainable future needs to occur or, to be more accurate, the transition to a

sustainable future will occur. First is the need for education. By spreading information, people

would be more active and more willing to cooperate with others to make the needed changes.

This could be the change to a plant-based diet, which is mentioned several times throughout the

event, or even the move to clean energy sources like wind and solar. These would also carry the

need for workers to be willing to change jobs or possibly adopt new ones as their existing jobs

get phased out. The second need is for the transition to be just, which would involve holding

corporations liable for their sustainability promises and mainly applies to helping the previously
mentioned unemployed find new work to minimize the impact it would have on them.

Additionally, from the four fellows that were present at the panel, I can also assume, based

purely on the interests and expertise of them that The Royal Society sees the transition having

great effects on everyone from small communities to major cities with significant changes in

how we procure/use energy and agriculture.

In conclusion, I would say that while I was ultimately successful in my goal of becoming

better informed but that my methodology was flawed in practice due to my ineptitude. Ideally, I

should have, at the very least, signed up to submit a few questions of my own to better interact

with the livestream when I had the opportunity. Had I done this, while I could have still made a

mistake with the time zones, I would have been able to interact and had the chance to learn more.

My other failing was not checking the website more carefully and considering what time zone

was being posted for when the livestream would occur. If I had, even without the submitted

question, I could have interacted with the livestream chat or utilized the interactive app used

during the livestream. On a less pessimistic note, this livestream was just one of several in a

series that The Royal Society is doing, with the next one occurring on December 3, 2020,

focusing on technology.