Winter is Coming! Or is It?

Vision towards a Green Future (Part 1)
Every generation wishes better for its children, so why are we not acting as such on climate change?
What makes this issue so special, so elusive? After all there is only one earth.
I live in a small country called Barbados, a tiny speck on the world map, a country undoubtedly that will be impacted by climate change as we see further loss of our coral reef due to increasing sea temperatures and appear set to lose many of our beautiful beaches. Yet even here, just like much elsewhere, it seems a non issue. A problem for someone else to fix. In our defense it does seem like a mess we did not create and largely out of our hands. At this point though; pointing figures is of no real help.
The apathy here is real. Even those in the know and the green movement stick to local issues, like keeping the beaches clean and occasionally reducing our usage of plastic. We have witnessed five Solomon Islands sinking and offered no real support to their plight at the United Nations. In spite of that I think the answer lies in territories such as Barbados and the Solomon Islands. Those on the front-lines of the impact of current climate change.
Allow me to pose this question… why not “hack” the global economy until it becomes green? Many persons are not aware of this fact, but Barbados is used to taking a leadership role amongst small island developing states on a range of issues. Perhaps this uniquely qualifies the island to lay out the road-map for a new global economy.
At the end of all of this dear reader, you must know that I wish to propose the solution or at least part of it … I hope. The world is moving to a more liberal minded, self regulated future. This presents an opportunity in several spaces including those currently taking place — big data, the internet of things and artificial intelligence — and others which are arguably a few years away — decentralized systems and enhanced global connectivity which promotes greater planetary relationships.
I prefer to think that the latter is perhaps what the early internet pioneers envisioned — a future where information sharing enables greater awareness of the world around us and the global impact of our decisions. As one author, Patrick Tucker, wrote, “When the cost of collecting information on virtually every interaction falls to zero, the insights that we gain from our activity, in the context of the activity of others, will fundamentally change the way we relate to one another, to institutions, and with the future itself. We will become far more knowledgeable about the consequences of our actions; we will edit our behavior more quickly and intelligently.”
I stand to think Mr. Tucker and I share a similar vision, and perhaps, this is just what the green economy needs.