19 Déc Mississippi meeting the Nile in Amsterdam
Story imagined by Hugo Pilate, Joe Tankersley, Caroline Hamrit and facilitated by Silvia during the workshop futurs proches in Eindhoven, December 18, 2020.
The representative from Mississippi delta can’t believe that she has been summoned to attend this course because her region has consistently failed to reach the climate goals
The weeks wasted on the blimp to Amsterdam has left her in a foul mood when she greets her fellow conference goers.
During the work sessions she is belligerent, unyielding, dismissive. While others talk about the positive ways they have integrated protection for the environment particularly water into their energy solutions, she sees nature as the enemy.
The course covers many valuable and important topics like the lack of resources and the global challenges that have made societies rely on local resources as a source of food, construction and energy. She has a quick flashback of Mississippi and all the challenges that her friends back home face. She realizes that new ideas might be their only hope.
The afternoon continues with covering the socio-economic problems that every society has faced since then…but how these difficult situations have made them realize that they could no longer survive without supporting each other… Thus, this was the starting point of switching to other values like solidarity and collaboration.
After a long day of captivating but slightly “know-it-all” lectures, our representative is dying to find a gym to workout at and release some stress. A bioregion cartographer from the Nile delta she had met at the final lecture of the day offered they could both go to a cycling gym right outside the city. As they walk there they cannot help but to notice all the different natural regions close to the city, to admire how local animals and plants cohabit in harmony around local communities…and these were living with local resources…
When they finally arrive at the address of the gym they are puzzled. It looks like a hydrogen production facility. Just as they are about to give up and head back a group exits, dressed in workout clothes.They assure them that they are in the right place. Inside they find that the cycles are integrated into the city’s energy plant and that they provide energy for the whole area of Borneo.
After an exhausting workout, the two stroll through the city streets as the evening lights come on. Mesmerized by the beauty of Amsterdam they agree that it is time to take these new ideas back home.