EUSAIR - Final Report

THERE’S NO PLANET B!
Lučka Kajfež Bogataj: As a professor at the University, it’s a my privilege to
work with young people. They are actually my inspiration. When you work as
a professor, you never get old – and you’re more open to accept changes.
So this is number one inspiration. (…) It’s fantastic how much they know.
My second inspiration is diversity: not just diversity in nature, but also diversity
in people. It’s wonderful to meet dfferent cultures, it’s wonderful to learn from
them – and it’s wonderful to cooperate.
Boštjan Videmšek: My book is a kind of manual: it offers solutions. After all
these years of covering conflicts and refugee issues, I have no more capacity for
human tragedy. So I’ve decided as a journalist, as a human being, to give something
back. I now believe in something called “constructive journalism”. And I’m
trying to use all my experience and knowledge to find solutions. Going around
with photographer Matjaž Krivic, a super optimist, I was infected by his virus of
naivity, and finding people who were fighting the climate crisis with solutions
was super inspiring. They don’t let you to say “It’s impossible” – because they
show you it is possible.
Lučka Kajfež Bogataj: We’re seeing less mass tourism in our Mediterranean
area. People understand that they can make their destination more profitable
not by adding more and more people, but adding more quality. This is something
I find quite advanced. (…)
Boštjan Videmšek: The Greek island of Tilos is absolute proof that the future
can be different. It’s a perfect mixture of the development of technology and a
change in the social paradigm. First, a young doctor came to the island and
started everything from grassroots. He created very strong social tissue. It then
became the first island in the Mediterranean to be self-sustainable, reliant only
on renewable energy: photovoltaic, solar and wind. They were never shy to point
out that this is also a business model.
Lučka Kajfež Bogataj: We live in quite complicated times. This covid-situation
was not wasted time. My advice is innovation. But technology is not everything.
We need new institutions. In my view this is extremely important, because even
on the level of the United Nations, these institutions are old. They were made
for different problems in different times. Even universities: have they followed the
changes over time? Today, my students can get all information: but they desperately
need a professor to tell them what is fake news, what is actually useful and
what is garbage. Parliament – the same thing. So we need new institutions, new
infrastructure. Let’s make them green. Most important of all: we have to invent
new life-styles. GDP is not enough, GDP is old, so last millennium. There are new
measures of success.
Boštjan Videmšek: An agenda fully based in the future, not the past. Young
people will be the core victims of the climate crisis. Give them the chance to lead
now. To make a huge step forward, we need a smooth and fast transition from
reflex to reflection. And I don’t see this potential in politics, because the work of
politics is based on a strategy of the reptile part of our brain – reflex. We need
reflection – and this belongs to young people.
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