[ONLINE] - Unlocking Our Climate Imagination

When we imagine our climate future, it’s easy to drift towards catastrophe, especially in view of this summer’s shocking examples of climate chaos—from floods and sinkholes to 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? So 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 at Arizona State University, 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.

Join the Climate Imagination Fellows, along with experts in global climate policy, and local journalism, on August 31 at noon ET to discuss 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, @topnigel
Commissioner, Energy Transitions Commission
UN High-Level Climate Action Champion, United Kingdom

Bina Venkataraman, @binajv
Editorial Page Editor, Boston Globe

Kim Stanley Robinson
Author, The Ministry for the Future

2021 Climate Imagination Fellows:
Vandana Singh, @singhvan
Hannah Onoguwe, @HannahOnoguwe
Libia Brenda, @tuitlibiesco

Moderator:

Ed Finn, @zonal
Director, Center for Science and the Imagination, Arizona State University