Mega trend: Regaining Footing
What rock climbing taught me about the war in Ukraine
by Elena Bondareva
Flight – the weightlessness, the speed, the promise of it – is magical. Until a malfunction renders it so distressing that you’ll give anything to feel solid ground under your feet. This is not a contradiction, just the difference between a good and a bad day.
Between the pandemic, its domino effects (dramatic business closures, hybrid workplace for knowledge work, supply chain hurdles, the Great Resignation, etc.), the confronting effects of climate change, and the war in Ukraine with its effect on oil prices, we found ourselves flying through a “perfect storm”. Once inspired and free from mundane constraints, we are grasping for anything steady, desperate to regain our footing and ready to survive at all costs.
This trend has manifested itself in what may look like a reversal of climate policy: not only has climate action seemingly dropped from the Biden administration’s rhetoric, but there is a renewed commitment to fossil fuel production. However, interpreting Regaining Footing as a betrayal of values or a rejection of aspirations would be as much of a mistake as interpreting you bracing yourself through flight turbulence as a preference to walk everywhere. Renewables are not ready to provide reliable base load power everywhere, at all times. Good news: we know what it will take for this to change. Dr. Green investigates this aptly in Forbes.
By no means an expert climber, I have always found climbing reflective. Sure, you leap, losing hold on the wall completely, but only under three circumstances:
You trust your skills to keep you safe.
You trust the belay rope to keep you safe.
You have to or you may die.
Moments that focus us on our footing as opposed to our flight test what we know for sure. Where we feel safe and where – intolerably exposed. What we need, individually and collectively. If we hadn’t paid attention to that, our aviation industry would not have become mainstream. Shaming people for what they need alienates them. So, doubt not that we’ll fly again but for now, let’s heed the lessons in this moment of vulnerability. The more seriously we take them, the sooner people will be ready to look up into the skies again and crave the weightlessness of an ever longer, more ambitious flight.
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