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At the rate at which we are gradually improving energy and water efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and addressing biodiversity, deforestation, the loss of fisheries, and the human condition for the world's poorest billion or two -- well, we're never going to get there. Indeed, for some of these issues, the indicators of progress are headed in the wrong direction.
Perhaps it's my advancing years, or my congenital impatience, or my reading of the tea leaves, or all three, but I find myself in a bigger hurry than ever to figure things out.
And one day on stage last fall, I just blurted it out: "We've got about 5,000 days to figure things out," I proclaimed. It turned out to be a powerful sentiment, based on the comments and subsequent calls and emails I received.
Five thousand days -- 13 years and change. If you have a child in kindergarten today, in 5,000 days she'll be a freshman in college. Time flies.
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Where did that number come from? I'll be the first to admit that it is not based on scientific analysis. Rather, it's a mix of what I've been hearing and what I've been feeling -- an amalgam of information and instinct. (At Compostmodern, a one-day conference in in February that I emceed, I began the event with the 5,000-day reference. Later, during audience Q&A, I was asked how I arrived at that number. I flippantly responded, "I made it up," then went on to explain the rationale. Of course, only the first four words of my response became the story, as reported by Treehugger. You can watch some of it here.)
But 5,000 days is not without foundation. For example, in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, comprised of more than 2,000 scientists from around the world, announced that we have about 10 years left to enact policies that will avert climate catastrophe. Similarly, Al Gore, in An Inconvenient Truth, said that the world has 10 years or less to turn things around. Last year, IPCC's Nobel Peace Prize-winning chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, went further, saying only seven years remained to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions at a level widely considered safe. In 2007, the World Wide Fund for Nature warned governments that they have five years -- until 2012 -- to "plant the seeds of change" and make positive moves to limit carbon emissions.
A little over a week ago, British Prince Charles told an audience in Rio de Janeiro, "The best projections tell us that we have less than 100 months to alter our behavior before we risk catastrophic climate change." That's a tad over eight years -- about 3,000 days.
In comparison, 5,000 days may be optimistic.
Pondering the science behind such time frames was befuddling until Saul Griffith came along. Griffith, for the uninitiated, is an inventor, best known for his inexpensive technique for making prescription eyeglasses that has become one of the leading solutions for correcting vision in developing nations. His latest company, Makani Power, aims to create high-altitude wind turbines tethered like kites. His resume includes a PhD from MIT's Media Lab, a fistful of fellowships, and several honors and awards, including a MacArthur Foundation "genius" grant. This may be one case where that moniker isn't hyperbole.
I met Griffith at Compostmodern, where he gave a rapid-fire, mathematical formula-laden yet entertaining presentation about the need for radical new design thinking in the age of climate change. He uses his own life to underscore the need for designers and others to use metrics in order to effect change. He shows how he's methodically calculated the carbon impact of everything he buys and does, right down to his socks and surfing. At one point in his quirky presentation, he set out to "prove" my 5,000-day thesis, offering some scientific equations he says he "knocked out" in the relatively few minutes since my opening remarks. Suddenly, I felt vindicated.
