New Math: An Invitation

The old ways won’t work anymore, but there’s a way through. Miracles can happen if we choose agency over apathy and embrace the new math: 1 + 1 = 100.

By: David Hodgins, Executive Director, LABBC

As the climate crisis worsens, more and more people—especially young people—are falling into despair. The problems are so big, so complicated, that anything we can realistically do seems pointless.

Others feel anesthetized, numb, dissociated from the pain—or defensive, cynical, lashing out at whomever is pointing the finger. Emissions continue to rise and divisions in our culture continue to widen.

I get it. I’ve cycled through all those emotions myself, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s a way through.

I see a future where humans thrive in partnership with nature; where business models drive economic value, support human wellbeing and enhance ecosystem health; where circular manufacturing systems upcycle waste into products and materials we need, where food systems feed and regenerate the planet.

But how do we get from here to there? Is there time? The year 2020 was supposed to mark the beginning of the “Decade of Action,” but then we lost two years to COVID-19. Now, with less than eight years until 2030—the next major milestone—we need miracles.

That doesn’t mean magical thinking. A miracle is a series of dedicated actions—hard work, skill, collaboration—that come together in one seminal movement.

But what does that mean for me and my organization? Even though I’ve spent my entire career working on climate, it can feel overwhelming when I sit down to plan out the year ahead.

“Where can we make the most impact? What’s the message? Why does it matter?”

I recently took a break from wrestling with these questions, went for a walk and put on a podcast. It was an interview with nine-time Grammy-winning music producer Rick Rubin about how he helps artists break through creative blocks.

He shared a story about a musician he was working with who had notebooks full of songs he couldn’t finish. After struggling all day in the studio, Rick sent him home with a piece of homework: Come back the next day with just one word that he loved. The singer came back the next day with a word, and with Rick’s help he finished an entire album’s worth of material in one day. I was inspired.

I started thinking about words and phrases that could help clarify my thinking, help me sort through all the ideas rushing through my head. How could I break it down into the simplest possible principle and build from that?

I’ve always loved author Jim Collins’ “Genius of the AND”—the idea that we can hold two seemingly opposite goals in the mind at the same time—but that didn’t quite capture what I was thinking. The concept of “gestalt” seemed helpful, but that wasn’t it, either.

Then I remembered a conversation I had with my business coach when we first started working together and I was trying to explain to him what I do. After listening to me for a few minutes, he jumped in and said, “1 + 1 = 100.”

That metaphor struck a chord (no pun intended!). We need to transform our relationship to the world, to ourselves and to each other. We need to alchemize despair and cynicism into hope and possibility. But how?

I started sifting through ideas from all the different things I’ve been reading—from science fiction to psychology, from business theory to evolutionary biology—looking for ideas that I could plug in to make this little equation “work.”

Charles Eisenstein came to mind. 100 = “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible.”

So, what is 1 + 1? Putting my logical hat back on, I thought about the questions most people might ask. “How much will this work cost? What’s the plan?” 

Author and historian Yuval Noah Harari, whose first book “Sapiens” has opened millions of minds, recently turned his attention to this first question: How much will it cost to decarbonize the global economy by 2050? His answer is encouraging: just 2% more. 

“If humanity invests just an extra 2% of global GDP in developing eco-friendly technologies and infrastructure every year, this would be enough to prevent catastrophic climate change, while also creating lots of new jobs and economic opportunities.”  

To put that figure in perspective, governments around the world announced stimulus measures worth nearly 14% of global GDP to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic in just the first nine months of 2020. 

We can come up with the money—politicians and CEOs move 2% around all the time—we just need a clear objective and a logical place to start. 

That brings us to the second question: What’s the plan? As Harari points out, it’s not as simple as writing a check.   

“[To] prevent catastrophic climate change,” he says, “we’ll need to make sure that the funds are invested in the right places and that the new investments don’t cause their own negative ecological or social fallout.”   

Harari doesn’t tackle the question of the “right places” to invest, but another visionary thinker has.  

In 2017, Paul Hawken published “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.” He admits the title might sound brash, but he chose the description because, prior to the publication of his book, no detailed plan to reverse global warming had ever been proposed. 

What I think is cool about Hawken’s approach is that he doesn’t claim to have created the plan. Instead, his team discovered a plan, “a blueprint that already exists in the world in the form of humanity’s collected wisdom, made manifest in applied, hands-on practices and technologies that are commonly available, economically viable and scientifically valid.”   

This is true with any great vision—it has always been there, waiting to be revealed.   

Now an independent nonprofit, the Project Drawdown team compiles the results of their research into a Solutions Library, which can be sorted based on sector and greenhouse gas impact. I was curious what kind of impact the real estate industry could have, so I spent some time playing with the numbers. 

It turns out that 12 of the top 100 solutions relate to electricity use in buildings, and decisions around the way we construct, operate and occupy our buildings drive demand for 21 more. 

This discovery filled me with new energy. For an investment in the low single digits of global GDP, we can create the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible, and the real estate industry is the catalyst. Who knew? 

As optimistic and empowered as this makes me feel, I’m under no illusions—we have a long way to go. 

Though the price tag is relatively small, how will we mobilize the capital? Even if we know what to do—how will we execute on the opportunities in front of us?   

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I believe that miracles can happen if we take aim, even badly—if we choose agency over apathy—and move with intention, together. 

1 + 1 = 100. If you like it, please take it.  

If you’re feeling stuck, that’s ok. Here’s an invitation—go for a walk and come back with one idea that inspires you. 

I can’t wait to hear what you come up with.