Is this the “wake-up call” we needed

Peter du ToitI'm the founder of FutureWork IQ where I spend my time assisting businesses to improve their climate literacy so as to understand the projected impacts from the expanding climate crisis and how to adapt their workplaces in the face of these impacts.

The Covid-19 pandemic is creating massive disruption globally. It’s changed how we travel, its changed how we work and from where. It has shown how challenging facing a global catastrophe can be. Our systems have been put under severe pressure and in some cases are on the verge of collapse.

Now that we have been shaken from our complacency and “business as usual” mindset we may be more willing to tackle our biggest and extremely urgent existential threat. The heating planet and the catastrophes that will unleash.

In a reply to Kate Lister’s question will this crisis will forever change our view toward in-person meetings and events I made this observation:

There is something else that is emerging from all this. We know that commuting (air & road) is responsible for massive daily emissions. This event has resulted in a marked reduction in those emissions for obvious reasons. What we have to do this decade, which is to reduce emissions by 7.6% per year, every year until 2030, will require a Covid-19-style response. What social distancing has shown is that we can in fact get millions of knowledge workers to forfeit the daily commute and work from home and that many events can be presented virtual as effectively as in-person. This is is low-hanging “emission cutting fruit” that regulators need to pick immediately! We have the technology AND know-how. We need to use it!