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Climate billionaires needed | The Express

Tribune
Imran Jan March 27, 2022
4-5 minutes

It is all about fulfilling the need in the present. The small problem now is bigger
than the big problem later
the writer is a political analyst email imran jan gmail com twitter imran jan
The writer is a political analyst. Email: imran.jan@gmail.com. Twitter
@Imran_Jan

I was talking to a friend of mine about the gasoline prices going through the
roof in America. There is a hype of electric cars online but they are nowhere in
sight except some Teslas one might spot in posh neighborhoods. Even if one
wants to buy a Tesla, the wait time for the vehicle to be delivered is between 6
and 11 months. I commented how electric cars were needed urgently and he
said by the time electric cars would be available, gasoline prices would have
gone down again and so there wouldn’t be much need for them.
It is all about fulfilling the need in the present. The small problem now is bigger
than the big problem later. People demand electric cars to reduce their
expenses instead of reducing carbon emissions. That is how the average
person’s mind works. And it is true across the board. Therefore, I am
convinced that climate action would come not from a genuine sympathy toward
the planet and its inhabitants or from the need to preserve this planet for the
generations ahead. The real change would rather come from a mechanism
that would answer the people’s genuine needs and offer very tangible benefits.
The global population did not shift to adopting computers because they thought
efficiency in computing would solve humanity’s major resource wasting
problems. Steve Jobs invented personal computing in his California garage not
just for human beings to have a tool for their minds. He wanted to sell the tool.
Bill Gates quit his Harvard education to develop Microsoft not because he
wanted to usher humanity into a modern age. He wanted to sell Windows. I
remember the early days of the internet when we used to go to what were
called internet clubs back then. We went because the internet was cool. I do
not know anyone who got on the internet and adopted Email instead of postal
mail because they thought saving paper would help their grandchildren.
Mark Zuckerberg did not create Facebook in his dorm room because he
thought that connecting people around the world would end wars. Truth be
told, Facebook is where the wars happen now. His little Instagram is knowingly
impacting people’s mental health, which could lead to major societal problems.
People do not adopt changes in their routine because they think it is good for
the wider world. People do not change their behaviour even when they know
that doing so will benefit their own health otherwise smoking would never exist.
People are not going to change how they produce and consume energy just
because they think their behaviour would affect how their grandchildren would
live on this planet. Let us not fool ourselves and expect the global population to
possess this collective sense of obligation and foresightedness.
The existing batch of billionaires have largely come from internet
entrepreneurship. If human beings are to survive on this planet in the next
century then the next generation of billionaires better come from climate
entrepreneurship. Whoever comes up with that brilliant idea, which will make
people stay carbon free not out of a moral obligation but because it would
mean more money in their pockets, would join the future list of billionaires.
People do paperless billing not because it saves trees but because it means
less clutter in their mailbox and easy search in the email instead of sifting
through a ton of envelopes. If there is a system, which will make carbon neutral
life a more comfortable one, people will adopt it in a heartbeat. That is why the
major help toward solving climate change could very well come from the very
private and profit driven greed that created it in the first place.
The world needs activists, preachers and opinion leaders. But the Earth needs
creative entrepreneurs who would not only ‘think different’ but make people do
things differently without reminding them about morality.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 27th, 2022.

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