Opinion on the ongoing Climate Conference + An Ode to Open Education

I think the way how the climate conference is run is very bad, it’s definitely not reaching the potential of the people.

First step would be to transform universities from places for thinkers, scientists and analyzers into places for thinkers, scientists, analyzers AND pragmatic people, those that work “in the real world”, with their hands.

The goal is to make a concrete step towards continuing to dissolve the boundary between “white-collar” and “blue-collar” people. Unity is always necessary and desired, but we can only get there if we actively interlink these currently separate groups, instead of reinforcing invisible social boundaries between them.

Our world is formed of a collection of voices, and we can only make people understand each other better, if those people start talking to each other. And that can only happen by bringing them into the same physical spaces.

I propose to transform universities into open learning environments, where everyone gets access to. It means seeing the “right to education” in its most radical, but also its most honest form:

“Fixing the Climate” can only work if we, as a society, all work together. It means less Amazon and sourcing more locally. It means infrastructure, it means art, it means growth and advances in conflict resolution and overall human health, away from a burnout society, towards a flourishing society.

People must learn to formulate their learning goals. This can already happen very early in childhood. Of course some things like manners and morals will be “imposed” upon the child, but generally the child should always be asked “What do you want to learn?”. This is also a skill adults can learn, at any point in their life. It means reflecting upon your own situation and coming up with areas where you need support to grow into your “better self”.

If we want to fix climate, we want to grow into a much more modern society: A society where access to education is not limited by that point when you were 10 years old and all of your future education was decided based on the grades you had until then.

Universities have the possibility to embrace the true sense of the word: Universal access to learning, for everyone, with exactly the same rights and accesses.

This especially also means mentoring. Some people can learn some things from each other (i.e. “mutual mentoring”), and some people want to only teach or only receive. This means that the current model of the university “course” is not to be abolished, but quite the opposite! Courses continue forming an integral part of university culture, but courses should have an equally strong counterpart: Self-directed, individualized learning.

This will crucially also foster entrepreneurship. From a political and economical perspective, and also as a co-founder and employer myself, I always consider “with whom do I want to work together?”. I want people that enjoy their work, with whom I can co-create something bigger: an awesome product.

But academic research and teaching could not only be much more closely intertwined with entrepreneurial pursuit. The beauty, the synergies and potentials for finding fruitful life companions are endless. When people truly work on their dreams, those that work together also help making each others dreams come true, because those are, when it comes to some projects, identical with the dreams of oneself.

Actually asking people “What do you want?” and, in case they are even just slightly unhappy in their current life situation (for whatever reason), giving them the possibility to follow their curiosities, their social connection skills, their search for meaning and, eventually, their passions and longings.

I believe that the next generation of universities must be born. Free admission for everyone. The current “filtering” of people is actively harming our society. We need more cooperation between academic disciplines, industries and societal groups. This is the only way how we are going to solve the climate, for good.

There are many good projects presented at the climate conference, for sure. Those are the part of the climate movement which assume reduction of CO2 emissions as the most important goal of this “climate movement”. That’s partially true, but in reality, it’s a much more large-scale societal shift.

It’s a shift towards embracing self-reliance, self-agency, of students not following a predefined curriculum, but instead them building their individual curricula by themselves. Of helping them and supporting them in whatever they are up to, and of making a genuine effort of finding the most synergetic cooperation partner (either mentor(s) or “project partners” for whatever endeavors they are up to) for every newly admitted student.

I believe that also the economic consequences of this radical systemic shift would be enormous. If every human of a country would have access to all educational resources, not only e.g. through lecture recordings, but by having access to the identical “student life” of all other students, as well as the economic benefits that an immatriculation entails.

“Alma mater”, the nourishing mother. The mother of modern society is education. Only if the access not only to knowledge, but to practices, to “how to do things”, to finding teams where pursuit of your own goals is synergetic with (i.e. mutually beneficial) to someone else’s goals and that person’s pursuit of their goals.

Obviously, the “regular” ways of studying would still exist, and they would also continue to be embraced. If you want to become a doctor, it makes sense to have a standardized set of courses that need to be studied, so that eventually, I can go to any doctor and expect a reasonably similar quality of medical procedures.

But truly “fixing the climate” doesn’t only mean “reducing CO2 emissions”. It also means “reducing CO2 emissions”, but not only. In addition to that it, very importantly, also means free access to education, for everyone. Simply by dropping the bureaucracy.

What’s currently holding us back is, in some ways, some words on paper called “laws” and “regulations” which state that there are certain legal limitations to who can enjoy the benefits of “going to university” and who cannot. It’s bureaucracy, of power of the paper over the people. But it’s also people working in universities actually enacting these laws and regulations.

Radical access to education is a radical mindset shift of society. It means redefining what education is at its core, that it’s both: learning of knowledge and practices and learning about one’s own compass in which knowledge and practices to learn (“self-reflection”, “what do I want to learn right now?”).

This means that universities also shouldn’t be limited to just “factories of degree holders”. Right now, when you don’t want to continue studying and learning, you’re pretty much “thrown out” after the Master’s. But learning is a life-long process. The desire to learn doesn’t stop because you earned a formal degree. In a truly fluid society, learning must always be intertwined with work, both in entrepreneurship and artisanship.

If we continue seeing “climate stuff” as “green”, as only all the things which “green parties” and “greenwashing” etc. makes us believe what “green” is, then we’re destined to fail. Climate is, by definition, everything. It’s not only some degrees in the atmosphere of planet earth, but it concerns the basic structure of society, of trust, of belonging, of self-expression and, eventually, finding “your people”.

So I think that the climate conference really doesn’t use its full potential. It could be all the colors, not just green. Showing all perspectives of society, and providing fresh, innovative, warm spaces in the centers of cities where people from all branches of life come together and learn, exchange, ideate, found and build whatever their heart desires. Where connection and exchange that is beneficial on as many layers as possible is actively facilitated. Where we don’t segregate education by age, subject or any other prerequisites, but where not only intercultural, but also inter-societal (i.e. across different “bubbles” within society) exchange is actively facilitated by everyone.

That is a way of seeing education I want to see my children grow up in.