When we imagine our climate future, it’s easy to drift towards catastrophe, especially as we look back on a summer of floods and sinkholes, heat domes and unchecked wildfires. But while stories about impending doom are motivating for some people, they leave others feeling dispirited. If we’re already so far down the track to disaster, why stress about making changes in the present? That’s why we also need positive visions of the future that we can work toward: stories about human thriving in more just, sustainable communities and societies.
The Climate Imagination Fellowship, a project of the Center for Science and the Imagination, in partnership with the UN High-Level Climate Champions, TED Countdown, and the ClimateWorks Foundation, brings together science fiction writers from around the world to imagine those positive futures, but also to ground them in local complexities, and real scientific and technological insights. We’ll need thousands of stories, and many more climate actions, emanating from diverse communities in all kinds of different social, political, and physical geographies, in order to meet the challenges of the climate crisis.
At this virtual event hosted by Future Tense, join our Climate Imagination Fellows, along with experts in global climate policy, local journalism, and the power of long-term thinking about the future to explore the stories we’re telling ourselves about the climate crisis today, and the kinds of narratives we’ll need to help chart a path toward a better future.
Speakers:
Nigel Topping
UN High-Level Climate Action Champion, United Kingdom
Bina Venkataraman
Editorial Page Editor, Boston Globe
Kim Stanley Robinson
Author, The Ministry for the Future
2021 Climate Imagination Fellows:
Vandana Singh
Hannah Onoguwe
Libia Brenda
Moderator:
Ed Finn
Director, Center for Science and the Imagination
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