Today Reuters published a picture of the Pope addressing journalists about the vital importance of taking climate change as a number one priority. Reuters quoted him saying: “If we don’t turn back, we will go down". Truth is, many religious leaders have been advocating for a greater attention to climate change for years, one great example is Patriarch Bartholomew "The Green Patriarch", and also many wise Rabbis, Pastors and Imams around the world. Here is Reuter's pic:
In 2010 I published a book called "Integrating Religion and Sustainability", in which I explained how religious leaders can and are urging their communities to stand up to the challenge of climate change and other social and environmental risks that the human family faces. In the research that led to writing that book I studied 10 religions and visited five countries, interviewing local religious leaders and looking for case studies. The following pic is me in the Sahara Desert after things went wrong with my transport (but that adventure is another post's material hahaha).
This morning, as I was reading the news on the Pope's declaration, I remembered my book and some very interesting conversations I had during that time. One of the conclusions during those days was that social media was enabling people from all over the world to cooperate on shared challenges like climate change: but back in 2010 blockchain was not something we could include in the conversation. So, today, after sharing with my team these thoughts we came to the conclusion that today it is possible to think of democratic, transparent and effective blockchain-based systems that can actually help us raise, allocate and monitor funds that finance decisive actions against climate change.
Today an international, colaborative, civil society-led system that tackles environmental challenges is viable thanks to blockchain. And all those religious leaders, those scientists, and those activists that have been urging us for years to take action, could start inspiring people to find effective ways to contribute to the fights against human-powered climate change via the development of ambitious blockchain applications. Think of it, it would be fantastic to bring the blockchain conversation (and possibilities) into the very heart of the environmental agenda.
Do you know anyone working on this? Do you have any idea that could contribute to develop this kind of mind-blowing but well-grounded applications? My foundation would be interested in partnering up and even in seed funding solid proposals.
Cheers!!
