“It always seems impossible until it’s done” – Nelson Mandela
Imagine Martin Luther King, Jr. hadn’t had a dream, Gandhi never stood up to the powerful elite, and Elon Musk had taken “no” for an answer when they tried to kill the electric car. What kind of world would we have?
Beginning November 30th, world leaders will meet for COP21 – a crucial summit to secure an international agreement on climate change that has been twenty years in the making. Ahead of the summit, powerful short film 100% Possible has been making waves online. Produced by award-winning agency Don’t Panic on behalf of the movement for 100% clean energy, the film uses an amazing 2.5D parallax effect to imagine a world in which iconic leaders gave up on impossible-seeming challenges, and reminds us that time and again humanity makes the “impossible” real…
Featuring famous figures who triumphed over adversity, the film imagines icons such as Martin Luther King and Gandhi had never taken on the great challenges that have shaped today’s world. 100% Possible opens with a middle-aged Steve Jobs working as a sales executive, sitting alone in an office cubicle – no iPhone in sight and a Microsoft sticker on his bulky PC. It goes on to feature other iconic leaders in alternate realities, having never attempted the impossible-seeming feats that made them famous and transformed our world.
The film was created to underscore the need for the same determination and bold thinking when it comes to tackling climate change. In the face of enormous odds, these leaders showed that transformational shifts are not only possible, they have happened time and again. 100% Possible advocates for a transformational shift away from fossil fuels to 100% clean, safe, renewable energy – and aims to explode the myth that it would be “impossible” for the world to be powered this way.
As the closing sequence of the film shows, the untold story right now is that clean energy is already being deployed at record rates. Renewable energy is already the world’s second largest source of electricity, and global cities like Sydney, New York and Vancouver are already committing to 100% clean energy – as are entire countries including Denmark, Scotland and Sweden. In the last few days, Stanford engineers released detailed roadmaps showing how 139 countries can shift to 100% renewable energy by 2050.
Barriers to a world powered by 100% clean energy are social and political, not technical or economic – so now more than ever it’s crucial to show public support for this goal and that anything is possible when we come together. Climate change threatens everything we love, and is a challenge that demands bold action. 100% clean, safe, renewable energy is a solution equal to the scale of this challenge.
The UN climate summit takes place in Paris between 30th November and 12th December: http://www.cop21.gouv.fr/en
Don’t forget to tweet your leader and have your say: http://tweetyourleader.org/
For more on climate change: http://climate.nasa.gov/
This post was written by Iris Andrews