No time for anger over climate change
Of all the speakers so far at this month鈥檚 climate summit in Scotland, one has drawn an enthusiastic standing ovation. It was 15-year-old Vinisha Umashankar who told the crowd:
鈥淚鈥檝e no time for anger. I want to act. I鈥檓 not just a girl from India. ... I鈥檓 a student, innovator, environmentalist, and entrepreneur but most importantly, an optimist.鈥�
She was invited to speak because she was a finalist in a global contest aimed at turning back doomism about climate change by finding individuals who have invented the best market-ready solutions to repair the planet.
Vinisha鈥檚 invention was a solar-powered iron that could be used by the 10 million street vendors in India who now steam-press people鈥檚 clothes with irons heated by air-polluting charcoal. She was 14 when she came up with the idea. She was also the youngest contestant for the first Earthshot Prize and one of the 15 finalists.
Vinisha says that all of the winners and finalists for the prize 鈥渃hose not to complain鈥� about climate change. Rather the contestants鈥� inventions show 鈥渢he greatest challenge in the history of our Earth is also the greatest opportunity. We lead the greatest wave of innovation humanity has ever known.鈥�
The Earthshot Prize, named after President Kennedy鈥檚 鈥淢oonshot鈥� space program of the 1960s, was set up last year by Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge and second in line to the British throne. The contest drew 750 nominations from 86 countries. The first five prizes, announced last month, came with a $1.37 million award and access to participating companies eager to invest in new eco-solutions.聽
The future king says the prize鈥檚 purpose is to highlight ingenuity around environmental problems in order to prevent 鈥渁 real risk that people would switch off, that they would feel so despondent, so fearful and so powerless.鈥� In the spirit of including everyone in dealing with climate change, he wants to show that anyone has the potential to discover solutions.
This fits with a new study by researchers at Rand Corp. that looked at the results of another innovation-spurring prize. Between 1996 and 2019, the Lemelson Foundation and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology awarded an annual $500,000 prize to 26 young inventors. Their innovations led to the startup of more than 140 companies.
The economist who led the study,聽Benjamin Miller, drew this conclusion: 鈥淚f you want to maximize the benefits to society, you need everybody to have a chance to be the best inventor they can be. There鈥檚 a whole pool of people we鈥檙e missing out on because they鈥檙e not being engaged.鈥�
Or as Paul Romer, winner of the 2018 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, once wrote: 鈥淓very generation has underestimated the potential for finding new ... ideas.鈥�
The audience clapping for Vinisha鈥檚 speech probably admired her certainty about finding fresh solutions for a difficult challenge. 鈥淵ou are never too young to make a difference,鈥� she said. Nor too old or cynical to keep on trying.
