Maja Goepel We have to do a lot of things differently now, that's a huge opportunity

Maja Göpel is considered one of the brightest minds in the republic when it comes to the world and economy of tomorrow We already know what it takes to avert the climate catastrophe and continue to lead a good life on earth, she says.

We just have to finally trust ourselves The world changes, it always does.

We all know that Some of these changes we can easily accept, others we regret or resist.

We can hardly wait for some and are working with all our strength to ensure that they occur Others shock and unsettle us deeply.

But no matter what the changes, we think we have a sense of the speed and scale at which they typically occur We are used to it, that after a certain time the familiar can be restored to a large extent.

We're not used to turning on our phones in the morning, and the world as we know it has slipped overnight About the Author Old beliefs no longer apply - this is a chance! But that seems to be happening more and more often.

Suddenly the bankruptcy of a US bank threatens the world economy and shows the vulnerability of the international financial system If a tsunami floods the nuclear power plant in Fukushima, Japan, this raises the question of sustainable energy systems anew.

The British leave the European Union and question the political integration history of the entire continent Burning in Brazil, Australia, Russia entire regions, Uncontrollable floods in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands kill hundreds of people.

Donald Trump supporters storm the Capitol to use force to prevent him from being voted out of office A virus that apparently jumped from bats to humans in China is paralyzing the world.

Russia invades Ukraine and brings war back to Europe as a political tool But also: can an unknown girl from Sweden suddenly get millions of people all over the world to take to the streets for climate protection.

Movements like Black Lives Matter or MeToo shed light on everything that has been suppressed, concealed or accepted for years and decades Wind and sun produce more electricity than coal and gas for the first time.

Internal combustion engines are banned as harmful products Does the Federal Constitutional Court oblige the Federal Government to do more climate protection on the grounds that the freedom of future generations should not count less than our freedom today.

Required by the United Nations and international courts to charge ecocide as a crime The European population takes in millions of refugees from war and crisis zones.

It is true that things of this magnitude do not happen every day and in some regions of the world more often than others However, we no longer consider it impossible that things of this magnitude can happen every day.

We no longer see them as exceptions, which we discard as isolated cases, and from tomorrow life will continue as usual Our belief that what will be the day after tomorrow presented as a small modification of what is today, no longer carries.

On some days that overwhelms us We want to get back to normal as soon as possible.

But the sense of what this normality was or should be is tipping Aren't all these crises that are showing up today an expression of the fact that something couldn't have been normal before? Do we really wake up in a different world after such events? Or only in our world, whose gradual changes we just didn't want to see or have sufficiently considered? We're plundering the planet faster than it can recover.

On the one hand, large sections of humanity today live with more things, more opportunities, more freedom than any generation before us On the other hand, we are depleting the planet faster than it can recover.

And at the same time, the well-documented injustices between rich and poor, north and south, black and white, man and woman are not decreasing, in some cases they are even increasing again The more the concern spreads that the limits of growth could really be reached, the more difficult it seems to share.

Instead, production increases even more and there is no time for regeneration, neither for humans nor for the environment The social imbalances that our way of life produces seem like a reflection of the ecological damage it leaves behind.

We're not balanced We are prisoners of a system from which we promised ourselves freedom and from which we can no longer find the exit.

FOCUS online earth - our new climate focus In our world today, we feel almost every day that the pressure for change in many areas of our lives has increased to such an extent that continuing as before is no longer an option If we look honestly, many of our previous beliefs, routines and things we take for granted seem to have fallen out of time.

And we see that crises also open up the opportunity to actually tackle long-observed risks and much-discussed problems Replacing an energy system, for example, reorganizing mobility, designing agriculture differently, distributing social burdens differently.

Don't confuse progress with economic growth And strive for a world order that is consistent with the goal of just development, which precedes all international declarations and charters, could also be fair.

Many see the fact that the status quo has faltered not only as a threat, but also as a signal for a new beginning But in what kind of normality this new beginning will lead to is difficult to predict in globally networked societies.

I want to focus on hope We are in the midst of changes such as the invention of agriculture or the emergence of feudalism, industrialization and capitalism in human history have probably brought with them until now Upheavals of these dimensions are called Great Transformations.

They are the focus of a research direction in which colleagues from a wide variety of disciplines gather knowledge about previous upheavals of this magnitude in order to have a more strategically adept influence on today's ones Your insights can help us not to feel overwhelmed by the growing complexity and only endure changes reactively, but to better anticipate and learn to navigate them.

That we are less looking for ways to patch up disused structures, and instead muster the strength to find solutions that involve strenuous short-term conversions, but that can carry it better in the future (.

) A great transformation to a better world for all is mankind's greatest adventure It will consist of nothing but small steps - but without a clear orientation and tireless enthusiasm for the possible, it will not succeed.

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) I would like to draw the gaze from the rear-view mirror to the horizon, focus on hope and the researcher: get our inner spirit up to speed so that we can surpass ourselves together.

Because I have the feeling that we don't lack the ideas for starting out in the world of tomorrow, but rather the conviction that we can implement them There may be a lack of confidence to take the first steps and the confidence that many are willing to take them.

Or the courage to tweak the deep structures and major political framework conditions of our social development We underestimate ourselves.

And forget that things have already started to take a turn and we should get involved No one claims that our present time is easy or that social change is easy.

But I believe that there are times when you have to say goodbye so that space can be created for something new We have to do a few things differently.

But we can do that too .