Melchior Huijts
A great week it has been, the Bubble week that we’ve had with the whole group on Texel. From Monday until Friday last week, we have stayed in the city of Den Hoorn on Texel to finish our project. By being on-site, we have been able to listen to Texelaars by having guest lectures from them, but also by going into the field ourselves. It has shown us that many Texelaars are busy with sustainability, initiatives are wide-spread, and many have the right mind-set for change. It seems as though all the necessary ingredients for a change towards a sustainable community are present and yet it isn’t changing the community much at the moment. Maybe it just needs time, but maybe it needs something else which is not worth waiting for…
Often in history it has been a certain event, affecting all layers of society, which caused change, a crisis. Crisis changes the situation of people so drastically that they will have to divert from their normal way of living. Either man-made or by nature, a community is faced with problems that make them adapt. Sometimes, this crisis is sudden, such as a flood or a hurricane, but it can also have been luring around the corner for already a long time. Think of the financial crisis around 2008 of which the world is still recovering. It has only been after such a financial crisis, that extra regulations have been set in order to prevent this from happening again.
At this moment, I feel that something similar to the financial crisis is happening. Only the impact it will have will be much larger, affecting everyone on this earth and striking on all levels of society. Scientists have proven that global warming is genuinely happening and sea level rises are actually already a fact [1]. If we continue the way we are living our lives, an environmental crisis at a global scale will be a fact quickly. Probably already in the current generation, but definitely in the one to come. It is almost a pity that the environment has been able to cope with a lot of man-made disruptions, because it hasn’t taught us how badly we are treating our own environment. Also, it is proven that the result of the emissions, has a time-delay. Even if we would completely stop emitting greenhouse gases at this moment, the temperature rise peak would happen after around 5-10 years.
Therefore, I would like to ask you the following. Please do not sit and wait until a new crisis comes banging on your door. It is already far ahead up in the streets and you can see it coming. If we change now, we will be able to stop this crisis from growing in size. Every major change start with one person, but real changes happen if you can let others join. So please come together and make a change altogether, before we get wet feet.
[1] NASA, ‘Vital Signs of the planet: Sea Level’, read on 20/01/2016, http://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/