While scientists and environmentalists are well intentioned with their daily projections of our not so distant future dystopian world order and subsequent extinction it can put a real damper on the day. The struggles of our grandparents can seem downright quaint in today’s post climate change world… the age old mantra “life goes on” a phrase twenty somethings of today might wear ironically on their t-shirts.
Can you blame them? The daily challenge of survival is no longer limited to ourselves as individuals, our individual communities or even entire populations but now encompasses every last one of us, including all future generations and/or the lack thereof. It’s enough to make you throw your recycling bin in the trash can.
The answer? I have no idea. But I am inclined to think that a very good start would be for all of us to run to the bookstore or the internet and grab a copy of The World We Made, an imaginary memoir written in the year 2050 by history teacher Alex McKay. The author, Jonathon Porritt, who just returned from the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi is a founding member of The Forum for The Future, an environmentalist and no lightweight in the scientific and technology community. This green futurist believes that we already have the technology to create a sustainable, progressive world in which environmental, economic and social advances are shared, maintained and enjoyed by all. The catch? We must also believe that this is doable. It’s fundamental. If we don’t collectively believe that it is doable it simply won’t get done.
I’m in. I’m gonna get the book. And I’m gonna believe. How about you?
Buy the book here. Read an interview with the author here.
“The World We Made presents a credible vision of the world in 2050 – a world that is connected, collaborative and genuinely sustainable. This is the biggest thing I’m working on at the moment. We simply have to change the ‘mood music’ in terms of the way people feel about sustainability, and that means that everything we do in Forum for the Future is about positive solutions to today’s converging sustainability challenges.” Jonathon Porritt, Author of The World We Made
“In a world where doom and gloom surrounds us everywhere, Jonathon Porritt shows us that another future is possible. . . Jonathon is arguably more responsible for helping to create that positive future than anyone I know.” Jeffrey Hollender, Co-founder of Seventh Generation and Co-chair of Greenpeace US
Meighan Morrison 
Just put it on my wishlist to read, you convinced me. I’d very much like to think we still have time to change the direction we are headed.
I can’t wait to read this, too, Lois. It would be a huge mental shift to have a feasible blue print of a real sustainable future and a road map of of how we arrive there. As it is said, thoughts become things. Remember The Little Engine That Could? I think we can, I think we can, I think we can…
Meighan, I do remember The Little Engine that Could, I love that book. I’ve seen in my own life that as people see the way I live they start to question what they can change in their own lives. It’s a good feeling to know I can have a positive effect if only in a little way.