Diana Morant, Minister for Science and Innovation, and the Editor-in-Chief of the Society of EL PAÍS, Pablo Guimón.Santi Burgos
Diana Morant, the Spanish government’s science and innovation minister, warned this Friday that “the big problem facing science” in the face of climate change is “denial”. “And that society suffers a kind of placebo effect” and feels that it doesn’t affect them. In Europe, scientists know how much of an impact it has. 30,000 million euros come from Brussels to promote the transformation of the environment.
The city will be one of the places where these new steps will take place. And in it you must travel. As? “The future will be multimobility. Different forms, but not forgetting anyone, including,” emphasizes Giles K. Bailey, director of Stratageeb, an expert in shared mobility. Well, now is the time to rethink. Carlos Moreno, Director of the Entrepreneurship-Territory-Innovation (EIT) Chair at the Sorbonne University, has one of those experienced voices. “Distance in cities is a vice,” he muses. It takes closeness to reconnect with family, friends, and life itself. In Paris, 53% of vehicles are used for journeys under six kilometers. However, the solution, Moreno goes on, does not come from the accumulation of technology upon technology: “techno-solutionism”. The speech is enriching. “The green transition involves a reduction in energy consumption in our buildings,” says María Teresa de Diego, director of business development for Ferrovial Construction’s Next Gen division.
The science and cities of this century were discussed alongside the climate-social pact at the Ecosystem Now event organized by EL PAÍS with the support of Santander, sponsorship of EY, Ferrovial, Redeia, Familia Torres and Veolia; and in collaboration with COAM and Felicidad Collective. The two-day event ended this Friday.
Architects know that we are heading towards a time when energy becomes expensive and other houses require it. Vitoria continues on this path. But are these buildings only for the privileged? “It’s a risk, but it can be overcome with classic materials,” says architect Iñaki Alonso. Because it is also time to abandon concrete and think about carbon capture and wood.
“Urban planning is chaos and order at the same time. In Latin America, cities are places of communication between neighborhoods, while architecture must provide order,” says Eugenia del Río, Secretary of the Official College of Architects of Madrid (COAM). Cities need to be designed with new logistic systems in mind. And close that endless and polluting loop of purchases and returns.
“The climatic emergency is worse than the phyllomera plague that devastated vineyards in the 19th century,” warns Miguel Torres, president of the Torres family of wineries (with cultivation in Chile, California and Spain). The field is groaning and they have responded. It is the first winery to recover carbon dioxide from fermentation. Vines planted at higher altitudes, systems to delay ripening, light bottles are other measures that have been implemented.
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Between this mortar of frustration and hope, youth has, in Aristotelian terms, the potential for change. A government of new politicians has arrived in Chile with great sensitivity, pushing for radical green change. An entire geopolitical map that contradictingly reflects the short-term darkness of a planet estimated to be close to a rise of between two and three degrees Celsius while Germany, cornered by Russia, goes back to coal. “Human society is in danger,” warns Joaquín Nieto, coordinator of the Citizen Assembly for Climate. Or not that much? “If we compare the last million years to now, there have been warmer times and higher sea levels,” reflects paleontologist Juan Luis Arzuaga. The solutions of the present are never found in the past.
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