#59 Climate makers
“No, the weather has always been changing. There is no climate change. Just look up the facts! By the way, I just installed solar panels and made my backyard green. My next step is recycling rain water and getting rid of the car.”
I’ve been having versions of this conversation for years now. Only last weekend, during the first days of Festival 2030, at least three. The people saying such words tend to be somewhat older, maybe less educated, but also deeply involved in their community and neighborhood. It reminds me of a graph from 2019 showing emissions per political party in the Netherlands, which showed that voters of the decidedly green progressive party almost emitted most CO2 and we’re the most frequent flyers. Words matter, but actions matter more.
We started our festival this week with the Climate Makers (Klimaatmakers) project we do in collaboration with Het Klimaatmuseum. The project looks for new, locally relevant solutions that tackle the climate crisis or its consequences. First, we invite people to identify local problems and ideas for solutions. Then, artists will build some of these inventions. Finally, in an auction, we’ll ask organizations to commit to adopting these inventions.
In the first days of the festival, over 200 kids created the first ideas for climate inventions. These range from air conditioning for glaciers to plastic collecting drones, and flying heat shields for gardens to machines to message the past to take action earlier. I can’t wait to see these be build!
As always, you’re invited to participate in any part of this project. Reply to this email and I’ll share the details with you.
This week, we’re getting started for real with the festival and some of its key projects. Thanks for all the support, and see you soon!
— Jasper
