乐观的火花

These days, watching the news, reading the newspaper or following social media doesn’t fill one with much joy about the state of the world’s economies, political stability and climate. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy old man insisting that things were better in the olden days, I have to admit that it is hard to find sparks of optimism in the day-to-day news. Our industry is being tossed around on the waves of international developments like the upcoming Brexit, the US elections, wars in the Middle East, low oil prices, and weak economies and currencies. As a result, you could generalise that the geomatics industry is barely growing, virtually stagnant, just riding out the storm and waiting for better times. But Durk Haarsma, publisher of ‘GIM International’, is so positive by nature that he has found a few sparks of optimism to share with you.

(By Durk Haarsma, publishing director, GIM International)

首先，金砖国家的经济体 - 巴西，俄罗斯，印度，中国和南非 - 在2008年危机之前，这些经济体被认为是未来最有希望的新兴经济体。在过去的几年中，我们还没有听说过金砖四国，但看来俄罗斯卢布和巴西皇家是世界上最快的货币之一。中国和印度的增长数字分别为6％和7％，西方政客只能梦想的数量。金砖四国的总国内产品（GDP）总计166000亿美元，相当于全球总数的30％。除了这些国家的安静增长外，另一个好消息的片段是，根据世界银行最近的一份报告，全球人口的百分比每天不到1.90美元，从而从30％以上下降了在1990年至2015年至10％以下。这意味着数亿人不再生活在极端贫困中。我想强调的乐观的最后火花是对发展更绿色的能源部门的支持日益增长。根据经济合作与发展组织（OECD）的说法，越来越多的政策制定者和企业致力于可再生能源目标，这应该通过减少温室气体排放，空气污染和减少对化石燃料的依赖来带来环境益处。气候怀疑论者正在失去地面，尽管对于许多人来说仍然太慢了。

These three upbeat examples will hopefully go some way towards brightening the day of the many industry professionals who feel saddened by the consequences of the daily news reports for both their businesses in geomatics and the world as a whole. By its very nature, geomatics is well positioned to take up the challenge; it can put existing technologies to work and develop new ones, helping to boost economies in emerging markets, to further decrease poverty for many in other parts of the world and assisting in the search for new ways of generating renewable energy to safeguard the planet’s future. I encourage you to go out and look for these and other sparks yourself, to boost not only your optimism but also your business.