Expert Gerd Leonhard explains how the future can be better

The German Gerd Leonhard dedicates himself to work that has a lot to do with philosophy, but also with pragmatism: he is a futurist, and one of the most prestigious in the world. His predictions resound in the ears of executives from multinationals such as Google, IBM, Microsoft, Visa and even the leaders of the European Commission. He also knows Brazil well: he is a visiting professor at Fundação Dom Cabral, in São Paulo.

In this time travel that is the basis of his lectures, videos and podcasts, he brings good news: that the future is better than we imagine. And that this good perspective does not depend on politicians, big corporations or banks. It mainly depends on our attitudes towards consumption, food and the companies we support. “In Europe, 71% of people believe the future is dire. But they need to understand that there is good potential,” he explains.

To convince more people to share this vision and empower her as for the fate of our planet, Gerd created a project called The Good Future (“the good future”). The idea, condensed in a short film and on websites, is to disseminate content about how we can have a future balancing progress with humanism, advanced technology with employment, food production with environmental responsibility.

You may think he’s a dreamer, but everything Gerd says has a foundation, path and meaning. And a little bit of faith in humanity too. Check out the interview!

We live in a period of pandemic, climate crisis, risk of nuclear war… Why, even so, are you optimistic about the future?

Indeed, we have problems that seem too big, but we also have more capacity to deal with them. For example, we are creating resources against the climate crisis every day, like nuclear fusion. Our biggest problem is not that we don’t have the tools, the science or the money. It’s just that we have the wrong policies. We need better decisions.

I am an optimist, because I believe that we can solve most problems: water, food, disease, climate change, the pandemic… But this will require us to change policies and place greater emphasis on collective benefits, on having greater collaboration and a perspective world’s biggest.

You say we need to act soon. What are the issues that stand out the most?

I think we have a mindset stuck in the past, focused on growth. Twenty years ago, climate change was already an issue, but not like it is today. Now, we see the world taken over by floods, people dying from the heat, migrations because of the climate. In the past, we could continue to consume more natural resources, and the consequences were not as great. But now they are increasing exponentially.

And we have the effects of social media, which are fake news and their damage to democracy. Ten years ago, with the Artificial Intelligence of the time, you could use Google Maps, but now you have the possibility to create a search report. So we’re losing jobs because of automation. We cannot wait for social programs until we have 100 million people out of work. We need to think about the consequences of technology and redirect the money.

Will the future of food be without meat, due to the impact that production has on nature?

I even think it’s possible that most people will continue to eat meat, but the growth in food will be vegetarian. We can produce food on vertical farms, for example. What should not continue is this culture of meat from large herds, which we send to China and, in exchange, we get a climate problem. I think we are going to consume less cheap meat and eat more good quality meat. Meat will be more expensive, and you might prefer the plant-based one. We need to have alternatives to protein, be smarter about raising livestock, and change the food industry so it stops poisoning us.

Will there be enough jobs as technology advances?

Jobs in the future will be in everything that computers are incapable of doing, because they are binary machines, and the real world is not just zeros and ones. We humans can use intuition, imagination, justice, values. A computer can read all the philosophy books in two minutes, but that doesn’t make it a philosopher. What our children need to learn is creativity, entrepreneurship, innovation, negotiation, emotions, contact with nature… We are going to have a great growth of jobs in the social area, to deal with the elderly, for example. We will have more work directed towards people than towards building buildings.

What is your definition of what a good future is for us?

It’s a future that depends on a holistic point of view, based on four Ps: people, planet, purpose and prosperity. Some of us have a simpler life. But I don’t believe in a future that is inverse to growth. I think this is very difficult, because humans have children, and they have a cost. We travel a lot, and that’s terrible for the environment. We eat, which turns out to be bad for nature. But a good future requires moderation.

You advocate that people feel empowered to build that future. How can this be done?

We must not support companies or governments that are not connected to these four Ps. And the cycle of the economy must compensate for your actions. If you have a supermarket chain, it can invest in urban farms, which makes it more independent from the food industry. There also needs to be enough people saying that what is done to the Amazon is terrible. When a significant portion of the population creates a movement, politicians and large companies tend to respond to these demands. It becomes a wave. Therefore, people need to believe that the future can indeed be good.

By Alex Martins – Vida Simples magazine