Zhou Jinfeng: Innovative Application of Blockchain in the Field of Public Welfare (I)
2020/8/27 14:24:00 本站

The following is Dr. Zhou Jinfeng, the Secretary-General of China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF)’s keynote speech at the Nanjing Jiangbei New Area Global Blockchain Summit Forum held in August, 2020.

 

Thank you for giving me this opportunity (at the Global Blockchain Summit Forum) to communicate with you. I think my topic may have to be changed a little bit. The original one was "Blockchain and Environment", but now I changed it to "Blockchain and Public Welfare". In the morning, I briefly talked about the role of blockchain as a general equivalent in the history of human transactions. Then I want to go on to say that human transactions can roughly be divided into three stages.

 

In the first stage, of course, there was no trade in the primitive era. Probably, people hunted and caught not enough for people to survive, so there was basically no trade. Then entered the first trading era, called physical trading. A has a knife, B has a chicken, and C has a tiger skin. Then if A and B just need each other, a transaction can be formed. If A needs B, B needs C, and C needs A, then the transaction will not succeed. The level of trading is extremely low, so this is the first stage of physical trading.

 

The second stage is currency trading. For example: You change your knife or chicken directly into money, and then take the money to buy anything, so that the entire transaction level is greatly improved. These are two stages. Today we are going to talk about the blockchain, which is the third stage of the transaction-digital currency and blockchain transactions.

 

Human transactions in the first stage are mainly necessities of life, as the objects of transactions. In the second stage, the main transaction object is still based on the main necessities of people. Whether you buy a car or a song, it is a personal need.

 

In the third stage, what are the main trading products? Why does our blockchain mainly serve? Of course, everyone is engaged in finance, insurance, and blockchain logistics, but I think the most important service object of blockchain is public welfare.

 

That's the topic I am talking about today. What is public welfare? English is public interest, which means public interest, for public interest. When humans are trading in the first phase, they are mainly food and daily necessities; at that time, humans are also mainly engaged in the production of food and daily necessities.

 

In the second stage, everyone knows that farmers in developed countries account for only 10%, and 90% are industries. Then the main product of the transaction, your money, is mainly buying a car to buy a house, not food. The subject of the transaction has changed. Today, the subject of the third phase of the transaction has also changed. What has become?

 

The subject of future transactions is neither a house nor a car. Large transactions will occur in the field of public interest. Are there any signs now? There are already, such as carbon trading and carbon sink trading. What are they trading? It is your company’s reduction in carbon emissions. Well, you get a carbon sink, so you get something equivalent to money. So is there anything else besides? There is too much. Today, I will talk about the possible trading models in public welfare. I hope to inspire everyone and hope that everyone can put their minds on meeting the greater and even the greatest trading needs of tomorrow.

 

Just now I talked about chickens, knives and tiger skins. Now I will talk about another example-old books. What is an old book? When we were in industrial civilization, we desperately printed and sold books, and bookstores were also booming. But what is a book? Printing and book trade have brought the unsustainability of today's industrial civilization to mankind. The forests on the earth are cut down no longer enough. If humans still use books, buy books, use new books as before... Now everyone with children in the family knows that the weight of schoolbags is heavier than we did before. Many books are of the kind of coated paper, and the quality and number of prints are very high. Now children in elementary school have trolley boxes, because the books are very big, many, and very new. At the end of a semester, every book is covered with plastic cover, which is the same as a new book, but it becomes rubbish. We should not accept the consumption model brought to us by industrial civilization.

 

After the forest disappears, the air on the earth can no longer become clean. How is the smog formed? It turns out that after the black smoke from the power plant, the wind blows it away, but the dust on the earth will not fly out of gravity to outer space. It just flies from one place to the entire atmosphere of the earth. That's it. Now the earth is like a big water tank. People throw a handful of mud in it, shake the water, and throw another handful of mud after the tank becomes clear.

 

Humans are now "throwing mud" too fast, no matter how they shake this earth "water tank", the water can't become clear. Therefore, the smog has expanded from the original factory to the periphery of the big city and to North China. Smog was everywhere in China a few years ago, and even the cities in the west had excessive air pollution. This is the collapse of the entire human habitat caused by industrial civilization.

 

In addition to climate issues, there are also biodiversity issues. Mankind is now facing the sixth mass extinction. We are worse than dinosaurs, dinosaurs have stayed on the earth for a long time, tens of millions of years. We humans have only about 100,000 years, plus this Anthropoid period, it is only 2 million years. So, what should humans do? How should human beings change the status quo? It is difficult to change now, because the incentive mechanism of the currency transaction body of industrial civilization will hinder the optimization of human ecology. Science has advanced, and the rate of destruction of the earth has become very fast. It took humans for decades to extract gasoline and petroleum underground and turn it into carbon dioxide and waste gas. The power of mankind is getting stronger and stronger, but human civilization has not made enough progress, and there is no mechanism for rebellion.

 

The industrial civilization of mankind led to the destruction of the ozone layer and the formation of black holes. Ultraviolet radiation caused the intensity of ultraviolet rays to increase continuously. The extinction of mankind will happen sooner or later. Later, mankind signed a Montreal Convention, which slowed down the process. Now mankind has signed the "Convention on Biological Diversity" and UNFCCC, but these are not enough.

 

After the Paris Agreement, the United Nations established the Kyoto Protocol to stop carbon trading and the rapid increase in carbon emissions by means of carbon sinks. However, this mechanism is unsuccessful. Carbon emissions continue to increase. The production mechanism and capital mechanism of currency sovereign countries and industrial civilization are still preventing us from effectively containing it.

 

Take the book as an example. Old books can be read by new students. This is a good mechanism. Nowadays, some companies are operating the recycling of used books, but the school is opposed to the companies doing this, so it is difficult to actually operate. Like chickens, knives and tiger skins, it has not formed a mechanism, and it has not formed a general equivalent such as currency. So, we are meeting here today to make it clear that if the blockchain is to form a new general equivalent, how can it function further? For example, if a public welfare foundation a year can use billions of cash, then this billions of cash is used for the public interest, so that it can serve the public interest. What matters is how do they do? The communication mechanism of the foundation is still the same as the chicken, knife and tiger skin mentioned above, and it is not used effectively. Let's imagine a scenario. If you drive one less car and add one less gas, you will reduce carbon dioxide emissions. If you walk to work, you should be praised, and a mechanism should be formed. But there is no such mechanism now. Therefore, if blockchain technology is used, such a mechanism can be formed. For each person and each organization, there should be records and feedback on such emission reduction behaviors.


Original Chinese article:

http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4854/13574.html


By / Zhang Daqian Modified / Maggie


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