This article is an adaptation of the talk I gave at the EIT Climate KIC Community Summit in Hamburg (July 2019)

Here’s a parable you’ve probably heard:

In the 1890s New York City had a daunting horse manure problem. Transporting people and goods around the city resulted in so much manure that officials worried that the streets would soon be buried deep in it. Apparently in 1898 there was a conference to address the problem in which they essentially gave up.