Imagining the climate positive future we want

We love imagining what our shared climate positive future might look like. Here at Zopeful we like the idea that through hope, combined with real progress on the things that matter, in solving The Climate Crisis* we can imagineer (imagine + engineer 😳) the world we all want into existence.

We've long been believers that the broad fear, uncertainty and doubt around climate change over the last forty or so years and be overturned into positive, hopeful and incrementally bigger progress on that audacious goal of reducing then reversing human-caused - anthropgoenic* is the sciencey name for it - climate change.

It's possible to turn that collective feeling of anxiety that things are only going to get worse into real world progress in working on making sure that's not something that will come to pass.

Yes it's big. Possibly the biggest thing humanity has ever done. Yes it's complex when you look at the whole thing. It's absolutely a lot less daunting when you break it down into the different parts and see what we can do to make a dent.

We can do it. For a large part we know how. For big chunks of it, it's a question of deployment at the global scale. For the rest there's evidence of great progress in figuring it out. And of belief in what we can all do when we put our minds, belief, money and effort towards something.

A story of hope, wild ambition, and progress

When we wrote our first climate science based course in mid-2021 - Intro to Cimate - we signed it off by saying "imagine the party we'll have when we succeed". It's still an idea we come back to time and again. It's a guiding light to counterbalance the sometimes overwhelming size of the ambition.

When we dug through all the latest climate science from the IPCC in Code Red for Humanity and saw those unecessary alternate futures of what happens if we fail laid out in a range of unappealing scenarios. It felt that this incredible research was saying that those things are not locked in. We have a choice.

When we researched and explored the role and scale of how companies ready for the 21st century can rise to do their voluntary part in helping to lead in Climate Companies, we were inspired to see that the number of organizations gearing up to do so is increasing. And that there is a much improved (though much more to do) understanding of what should be considered greenwashing*.

After we dug into all the work being done to give humanity all new capabilities in removing huge amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide in our Carbon Removal course not only did we see the importance of it, where it fits in reaching net zero* but also how important it is that we all make the case and actually reduce emissions* in the real world across the board. It inspired us that the understanding, conversation and narrative is changing from things that sound nice, but have little value in tackling climate change, to things that will help.

We humans are creative, social and imaginiative creatures. Telling each other stories are as old as humanity. All stories have an arc that propels the reader forward to the next chapter.

An open question we all have right now is what type of chapter we're currently in, and what will be the ones to follow.

When thinking about it, something we use to help give us forward movement and agency is to pause and ponder these two questions:

- What stories should we tell now about that near future just a couple short decades out?

- What stories do we all want the future to tell about us?

What can we imagine into existence together?

These things don't happen by accident. They need our intentions and actions to create them.

If you're thinking about or doing something on imagining a hopeful future or turning that amazing ambition into reality we want to hear from you.

Two friends of Zopeful have already done it (and actually they inspired this post):
House of Day Zero by Art Lapinsch - a short fiction story of a future where reaching net zero is celebrated as the huge achievement it will be.

Postcards from the Future by Josh Stehr - an interactive installation where you’re invited to imagine yourself in a future utopia and write to your present-day self, family or friends about what it’s like.

Get in touch below, we want to hear from you!