Tech, culture, democracy. Scope, scale, speed. Loyal but disobedient.
“There are incremental advances that happen in all kinds of things. Every once in a while there’s just this iconic leap. Soloing El Cap is just this quantum leap. ”
At a press conference held by climate activists Extinction Rebellion last week, two of us journalists pressed the organisers on whether their aims were realistic. They have called, for example, for UK carbon emissions to be reduced to net zero by 2025. Wouldn’t it be better, we asked, to pursue some intermediate aims?
A young woman called Lizia Woolf stepped forward. She hadn’t spoken before, but the passion, grief and fury of her response was utterly compelling. “What is it that you are asking me as a 20-year-old to face and to accept about my future and my life? … This is an emergency. We are facing extinction. When you ask questions like that, what is it you want me to feel?”
We had no answer.
“It used to be that companies got big slowly and methodically. Create a product, achieve success locally or regionally, then grow a step at a time by building sales, distribution, and service channels, and ramping up manufacturing capability to match your progress. Everything took its time. The acorn, after long, slow decades, grew into the oak. We called this “growth,” and there may still be industries where it is good enough.”