At Thales Day 2021 in the Round Tower, Copenhagen we debated constructive climate anxiety, and asked the audience, "In what year will the arctic sea ice disappear in the summer?". During the debate panelist and professor of philosophy Vincent Hendricks emphasized trust as key to solving the climate crisis, so rather than write down their answer on a piece of paper, as originally intended, the audience was simply asked to remember their guess and raise their hand if they came close to the informed guess of climate Scientist Jens Hesselbjerg Christensen in our panel. He estimated it to happen in 2038.

The winner of this years olive tree with a guess of 2042 graciously hands it over to a nearby thrift shop owner that was in the audience, where it will now greed costumers.

Trust saved us a lot of paper.

Why an olive tree?

In part XI of Book 1 of his 'Politics' Aristotle writes about an illustrative anecdote in which Thales predicted that the weather would be favorable to the olive harvest the following year. Therefore he bought the rights to the olive presses in his hometown of Miletus and the neighbouring town. When his prediction came true and everyone needed the presses Thales sold the rights to a prize he himself fixed. He did so to show that philosophers can make money but that they are interested in other things-- those things being philosophy, which translates to love of knowledge/wisdom.

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