Right now, the very idea of imagining the future might feel strange when the world is changing in ways we barely even understand. In this episode, we ask the question, is a safe and just future for all still possible and, what will it take to imagine and enact on those kinds of futures?

Andrew Merrie, a research liasion officer at the Stockholm Resilience Centre is joined by two people who spend much of their time thinking about this: Garry Peterson from the Stockholm Resilience Centre and Laura Pereira from the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University.

Both have pushed hard for global environmental governance structures such as the UN to use scenarios more as part of their policy development. Such scenarios could help us design ideas for a credible and positive future.

Just want to listen? Here’s the podcast version:

Relevant books and publications

The Dangers of Cynical Sci-Fi Disaster Stories (Slate)
Seeds of good Anthropocenes website
Radical Ocean Futures
The Myth Gap
The Coode Street Podcast
Developing multiscale and integrative nature–people scenarios using the Nature Futures Framework (People and Nature)
Kim Stanley Robinson on His Next Novel, The Ministry for the Future
Nnedi Okorafor on Africanfuturism
Dystopian dreams: how feminist science fiction predicted the future (The Guardian)
Building capacities for transformative change towards sustainability: Imagination in Intergovernmental Science-Policy Scenario Processes (Elementa)

About Rethink Talks

Rethink Talks is Stockholm Resilience Centre’s multimedia podcast series on resilience thinking and global change. It spotlights conversations between experts on a range of topics that highlight how resilience thinking and biosphere stewardship add value to current debates on for instance COVID-19.