Towards 9 billion
How do we create the conditions whereby we welcome rather than fear 9 billion and enable them to build stable and meaningful lives for themselves and their children?
At our 3rd Fulcrum Leaders colloquium we teamed up with Joss Tantrum of Terrafiniti, the people behind the “Towards 9 Billion campaign”.
Joss introduced big, hopeful and playful ideas as a basis to explore this tantalising question.
To begin the evening however we started on a more sombre note as we listened to award winning documentary filmmaker, Shafiur Rahman who, in a piece entitled ‘From Libya to Calais’ shared footage and spoke movingly about the apocalyptic images of refugees that we see on a daily basis. He spoke about social invisibility and how the state and the supra-state engages in deportations and incarceration seemingly in contravention of international agreements, asking what kind of bleakness lies ahead, and what kind of solutions are being hatched.
Joss then reflected on how the potential population (and marketplace) of 9 billion citizens in 2050 demands a range of social, technical, industrial and ecological pre-requisites. Such citizens would need to be highly connected, well educated and economically capable. Markets would have to prioritise stability, personal and societal wellbeing and focus on the sustainable use of scarce materials, preservation of vital ecosystem services & functions and the utilisation of abundant & renewable resources. He invited the audience to look at what would need to happen for these pre-requisites to be in place.
