Wednesday, 2 April 2014
Learning to drive a bus
The global system in which we are functioning is in crisis. Our economy, our financial system, the world’s ecosystem and our society are all having hard times. The facts are overwhelming, but crystal clear. Just three of them as a reminder:
· Our society is peaking regarding suicide rates, burnouts and ADHD children.
· Being only at the beginning of the consequences of the global warming, already today the yearly cost to society are estimated to be 1,6 % of the GNP worldwide (by the way, for developing countries this is even 7 %).
· Already today there are yearly 400.000 climate dead. That is our beautiful cities Bruges and Gent whipped a way completely, every year!
In the rest of my text, I will illustrate the absurdity of our current global crisis, and what according to me, could be part of the solution.
Who has been already in Central or Southern America? Then you probably have seen or even taken one of these overcrowded public busses? You know what I mean: these beautiful, colourful, old American school busses. At the central market place they gather and then leave for a long trip often in the mountains. A lot (and with a lot, I mean a lot) of people sit, stand or hang half-outside the bus … and the chicken, sheep and vegetables are put on deck. Quite a lot of people get car sick when taking such a bus. That is no surprise with all this turning, in a bus that has often no suspension and is way too hot. By the way, what I admire is the way the locals can elegantly throw up in the middle of this crowd. While we are making a primal scream as if we are dying, they only do a very modest "bheuh". Respect! Anyway, you always find two key figures on these busses. I call them the “Stuntman” and the “bus driver”. Two of them I remember really vividly. When I was in Guatemala for a couple of months for my thesis, these two were the regulars, driving the bus I had to take to get to my working area. The bus driver drove like mad: way too slow with his overloaded bus uphill, but he compensated this completed downhill. Now I know why the “Guatemaltecos” always make a cross when they enter the bus. But even more crazy was the other part of the duo: the ticketing man, performing one big stunt after the other. As the bus was often so overcrowded, he could not use the passageway to go and get the tickets at the other side of the bus. No problem: just take the back door, climbs the little stair to get on deck, crawl on the top of the roof to the front of the bus, and come in again through the other door (and all this while his companion is racing of the mountain).
We can laugh about it, but all too often these busses go into the deep! But let’s imagine that you can prevent such an accident. Imagine, we are all in this bus together; You are the driver and I am the stuntman. Suddenly, someone in the back tells me he heard that there is a big problem due to a landslide in the next big curve? I, the stuntman, am in total panic and I have to just knock off one of my most spectacular stunts, by getting on deck, roll like a real action hero to the front of the buss in order to finally jump on the engine bonnet to urge you, the driver, to stop immediately! What will you do? Speed ahead or will you break?
Now let’s do the same thing but now change the beautiful, but overcrowded bus into our even more beautiful and overcrowded “earth” . The complete world population is in the bus and all the fauna and flora is stapled on the roof. Our driver is now a one-person mutant representing all our leaders. The ticketing man, in our case is the crème de la crème of the scientific world. The latter goes to our driver and explains him carefully all the facts including the ones I told you at the start of this speech. He makes him very clear: “if we take this curve we will go in the ravine”. What do you think our dear mutated politician will do? Will he slow down? No, he will not break immediately! For the moment our leaders even haven’t the finest clue of where the break could be and are pushing the gas pedal deeper as ever before … . Totally absurd, a very good basis for tons of movies and books in a few decades.
Okay, our politicians suck but probably you wander: what can I do about this? This all asks for big actions. That’s true. But I do not agree with the idea that we cannot change anything ourselves, because others would take all the decisions above our heads. Let’s take our example again. What could we, passengers in this bus, have done? Well, first of all we could have, by opening our eyes and raising our voice, shouted the message to the driver; as loud that even this ugly mutant would get scared! And if not, we could have voted for another creature behind the steering wheel! And secondly, we could have taken small actions ourselves. Maybe I could have tried to block the wheels. I don’t know: I could have thrown my “bokes of choco” in front of the wheels. Frruummph. Not a lot of success; but if all 7 billion of us would throw their “rice with Peking duck”, “manioc” and “frietjes met mayo” before the wheels it will definitely slow down.
By the way, did anyone of you already asked himself why the hell we are driving as hell in this bus? Wouldn’t it be much more relaxing and saver to lower our speed with a few kilometres per hour: less stress, we can enjoy the beautiful landscape, and the passengers, although they do it very serene, would become less sick. Effective change will only come when people understand what fascinating possibilities a sustainable future holds. It is not about a society of "cold showers" and "cars stopped in traffic jams or without fuel”, but a society in which our quality of life is improving!
We are all awaiting a fascinating time. Maybe the bus will go in the deep; maybe we will be able to break just at the edge ; who knows?… Anyway, things will change drastically. We do not live in a period of changes, but in a change of time periods. In the coming 10 to 15 years probably more will happen than the last 50 or even 100 years all together. And what can we do?
First of all, BE AWARE - let us be aware of the beauty but also fragility of this bus called “Earth”! Won’t we reach our destiny by slowing down a few kilometres an hour.
Two, ACTIONS - not “them” but “we” can all make this happen, all of us together: many small changes make up a big one!
Birds
I will use this forum to go deeper into one of my old passions: birds! When I was 12 years old I started, more as a coincidence, with bird watching. Armed with a small binocular and a bird guide, I started searching with some friends for normal bird species, like the Chiffchaff, the Chaffinch and the Kestrel. It was in a way adventurous for a twelve year old kid away alone and most importantly it was a good time with my friends. But quite fast a “factor” competition came in, as it became the search for rare birds. Probably you think now that the only rare bird in this story is myself, but you could be mistaken. Bird watching is much more practiced then you probably imagine: This rare bird watching e.g. has its own English word: “Twitching”. And there is a Hollywood film about it: “The big year”. Although it has little change to become Olympic, some even call it a sport. But my attempts were more modest and relaxed. At the end, I had on my list species like Fan-tailed Warbler, Lesser White-fronted Goose and the incredible Two-barred Crossbill. Now you are really impressed, no?
Anyway, one thing I liked about birds was the fact that they are so divers; you had of all kinds. And in that sense, they are just like humans. In the rest of my speech I will talk about two bird species and what we can learn from them. The first one illustrates that we are all chicken if it comes down to handle changes and the second one will show that we are also capable to do the opposite.
But first the chicken! We have at home 2 chicken. Great animals: eating all your left-overs, keeping some space herbs-free and giving eggs! Some week ago, I had a problem: the eggs were destroyed every day again. But how did this happen? After a remarkable piece of detective work, I found out that a Magpie, the king of thieves under the birds came in the henhouse and ate the eggs. As a handy handyman as I am, I attached some Plexiglas strips before the entrance of the henhouse. It worked: no more Magpie. One problem: also no more chicken going in the henhouse. At the hour that the chicken normally go into their house, I went outside. One of them was totally “freeking” out and running around like a chicken without a head, as we say in Dutch. And the other one, I could not find directly. Finally, I saw the bum of the missing chicken sticking out of some bushes, as it had isolated itself from the world by putting its head in some green. Hilarious how the world of these chicken tumbled down just by 3 Plexiglas strips. And probably we are not scared of Plexiglas, but if we are honest, aren’t we all a little bit like these chicken when it concerns changes? We are all paralyzed when it comes down to big changes, especially if they are long-term or contain a proportion of uncertainty. We stick e.g. too long to our job, because we are scared of the unknown in a possible new opportunity?
But then there is this second bird and he or she will fly in the story soon. But first I have to put on my running shoes and go out for a tour. And I am lucky, close to my home, I have a nice piece of nature where I love to go jogging. Some months ago, I did my normal tour until I saw a Buzzard, a medium to large bird of prey, landing very close to me on a branch of a tree. Fantastic, I could see clearly its yellow claws and its sharp beak, bringing back all the old memories from my bird watching period. I continued running. But suddenly, I got hit on the head, rather hard. It was that Buzzard that attacked me from the back. I did not have any injuries, but it was quite a surprise: the birder taking by the bird. Later on the internet, I found out that other people, often joggers or bikers, got injured rather severely. But where did this small Buzzard get the courage to attack a relative big and dangerous creature as me? One word: passion! Probably, the Buzzard has a nest in the neighbourhood and this passion, this higher purpose, makes him or her take bold actions in their changing environment. You can see similar things with e.g. swans.
So to conclude: What can we learn from these two birds? Well, when it comes down to important personal choices or to global changes our society is facing, it is really up to us to make the choice. Do we want to be the Chicken or the Buzzard? Are we willing to get out of our comfort zone or do we bury our head in the sand like an Ostrich? All too often we hang onto our stones, while the universe is throwing us diamonds. And the magic spell to mutate from a chicken into a majestic Buzzard is passion! Cultivate this “grinta” and major things will await us.
Wednesday, 13 November 2013
Grow
Let’s play a simple game and see if you are really smart! I just ate a delicious chocolate. I love these and I absolutely want one more of these. And I am lucky. There are still left in the chocolate box. In fact, there are 3 left. So I am slyly grabbing one more. I have eaten now two and there are still two left in the box. In a next iteration, I ate the third, leaving only one in the box. The last one … dawn, now the box is empty. But I am still not satisfied. There are really no other sweats in the house? Nothing! So what is happening now? Can I still take one more?
Not possible! Logic, no?
Well then, it is proven: you are stupid! In fact, we are all stupid. Because if it comes down to our economic system it does not work like that. As you know economic experts and politicians are way more smarter than all of us together; so for them this game does not stop here; in fact it never stops and continues for ever. They keep on picking imaginary “chocolates” from somewhere and they assume that you will be able to pick these sweats forever … . They keep on growing even if there are no more chocolates in the box. How do they do that? Let me explain.
The economy is doing bad. We all know that! You hear it almost every day in the news. And it has to start growing again. From Van Rompuy up to Obama all know it: Economic growth is what we need! Reasonable, no? The assumption that we need growth to get us out of this crisis is evident.
But lets think about that! Experts say the ideal rhythm for this growth is 3 percent per year! What does that mean? This means a doubling of the economy every 23 years! I will repeat it: a doubling of the economy every 23 years (and then we even do not account for the huge world population growth or the upcoming middle class in the developing & growing countries). This exponential growth is also true for the resources (like minerals and oil) we use in our economy. In this doubling period, e.g. from here up to 23 years later we will consume the same amount of resources ever consumed before (by us, our parents, grandparents, etc. up to men making fire out of stones).
But wait a minute: are these resources not limited? Some figures:
- Let’s take “Oil”, the engine of our economy. It is estimated that the peak production of oil was in the year 2006 and by 2030 there will be only the half of that production.Moreover the easy oil has gone, so oil will become terribly expensive. Just to give you an idea on the speed we are consuming that oil: 95% of all oil found up to now is used in something like only 70 years! 70 years, that’s peanuts looking at the period of existence of men kind …. Your grandmother or even your parents were born then already! So we are talking about now and the next generation, not about some far future.
- Some more figures. When will the following resource be totally finished in a scenario of resource growth like it is today?:
- Gas: 2045
- Zinc: 2025 (that’s a big 10 years!)
- Lead: 2025
- And the list continues: your children and grand-children now born will live in a resource-poor world!
“If something is not able to continue, it probably want.” It is just a rational look at it. For centuries we were blinded for the irrational aspects of the system. There are bio-physical limits to economic growth. We can have technological innovations and increase in efficiency, but still, where do we have to keep on getting these resources? At least that is how I, stupid earth creator, think. For our politicians and economists it does not seem to work like that; they keep on putting all their eggs in the growth model, they continue to promote the harvesting of these invisible chocolates out of this box.
So what is the solution? To be clear: there is no simple straightforward solution, but one things sure: We need to go for a better economy, not a bigger economy! A local and smaller economy, in balance with the world’s resources. An economy serving the people again, not the other way around!
So to conclude:
- Be aware of politicians and economist: That you knew probably already, but still it is worth a repetition.
- There are limits to growth. The world resources are finite. Economic growth is not thé solution.
- “Less is more”, is also viable for our economy.
Monday, 26 August 2013
Ice Breaker Speech (#1 Toastmasters)
Hello everybody,
I am Nicolas. For already more then 10 years, I’m working in the geographical sector. So I am making maps, digital applications based on satellite or aerial imagery. You may know one of my projects: the thermographic maps taken over Antwerp
I was born in a place where the air is still fresh, clean and even a little bit salty and traffic jams are exceptional. A place where they speak officially the same language as here in Antwerp Antwerp Bruges
I had a normal and nice youth. My 12 matchbox cars were the only toys I had, but I had one magical and huge playground: the country side! My father had, as a kind of hobby, a small farm, so I just played outside all day long; “buten speeln van s’nuchtens toe s’avonds”. For the rest: some soccer and later on horse riding and bird watching! Fantasic!
There is a saying that goes like this: “We did not stop playing because we became adults, but we became adults as we stopped playing.” So, being 36 years old, I am doing all I can to keep on playing: I still play “football”, or something similar with my old friends of the university and with my two little boys I play again outside in the garden.
An important year in my live was the year that I became 19. Then I went to the university, “op kot” in the major student town in Belgium
By the way, I studied bio-engineer, better now as agricultural engineer. A great thing about this study was also the opportunity you got to see the world. For more then 1 year I was abroad. And now the quiz is really starting … For one thesis I did some study on small animals that live in bananas in a fantastic country in Central America . A country that has no army and is well-know for his huge biodiversity … (capital: San José Mexico , with the capital having the same name as the country; the Maya culture … : Guatemala Spain , named …Valencia
But all good things come to end, so finally I had to start working. After an intermediate stop inBrussels , we ended up buying a house in a city without any Toastmaster club, exactly in the middle of Brussels and Antwerp
And to end up with, I will have 3 children of which 2 of them are not born in Belgium Africa never colonized. Some well known inhabitants were Lucy, Haile Gebrselassie, Emperor Haile Selassie, the spiritual leader of the Rastafa and reague… Ethiopia
Thursday, 6 June 2013
Take the risk (my first speech at Toastmasters)
Hello everybody,
I am Nicolas. I am new at Toastmasters. Something like a big month ago, I came here for the first time. It was a nice experience, but at the same time: scary!
Scary because the level of the speakers was so high and I did not dear to do any table topic until now. I was afraid to fail.
And that is also exactly what I want to talk about today, being afraid to take the risk.
Because if you think about it, that is how it goes in our success-driven society. Success is the norm, failing is not an option. And if you fail, it is always your own dawn fault. So, we are afraid. Afraid that we break a leg. Afraid to loose money. We are afraid that the police will come. Afraid that people will laugh with us …
So, we teach ourselves, and even worse, we tell our children, not to take any risks anymore! Don’t climb that three, you can fall of; don’t throw with that snow ball, the window could get broken and even worse in Antwerp
That is of course, the wrong message. Because it is only by doing new things, taking a risk that we learn to know our environment and ourselves better. It is like these big turtles that you find inSouthern America : “They can become very old, but they can only advance when they stick out their head!”. So everybody, once in a while stick out your head.
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