The world is burning, and I want to do something about it

If you ask any California firefighter, they’ll agree that the world has gotten hotter. Wildfires have ravaged the state during California’s historic drought, fueled into raging infernos by a combination of limited rainfall and prolonged dry heat. Not too long ago, I was driving back from the coast and hit a traffic jam around the city of Davis. The drivers in front of me had slowed to marvel at the scene to their left, a panoramic view of the night sky painted with a deep orange glow, the color of living embers. A wildfire was creeping dangerously close to the local university, threatening its student population. In California, you can literally stumble across a wildfire on the side of the road.

So what could we do while we waited for the rain to return? For the most part, we were asked to conserve. Every Californian was instructed to take shorter showers, turn off lights, even limit toilet flushes. Farmers updated irrigation systems to help preserve groundwater. The governor even halted the watering of lawns at the Capitol as a symbol of solidarity.

But what could be done about the prolonged dry heat that transformed so many forest fires into infernos? Could we conserve our way to a cooler climate, one unflicked light switch at a time? Unfortunately, achieving solutions to our climate problems will require us to dream a bit bigger. Luckily for us, Novozymes has no lack of imagination or innovation, and my goal at the UNLEASH think tank is to embody our company’s inventive and creative spirit. Brainstorming this big will require me to step out of my comfort zones of agriculture and microbiology, and in doing so, I hope to create partnerships and uncommon connections that will enable Novozymes to impact sustainable development goals set forth by the United Nations, especially those regarding food, energy, and water.

Can Novozymes touch the world by making infernos extinct in California? If we dream big enough, we can make it so.