We are running out of water, robots will take our jobs, we are eating ourselves to an early death, old age pension and health systems are bankrupting governments, and an immigration crisis is unravelling the European integration project. A growing number of nightmares, perfect storms, and global catastrophes create fear of the future. One response is technocratic optimism — we’ll invent our way out of these impending crises. Or we’ll simply ignore them as politically too hot to handle, too uncomfortable for experts — denied until crisis hits. History is littered with late lessons from early warnings. Cynicism is an excuse for inaction. Populism flourishes in the depths of despair. Despite the gloom, there is another way to look at the future. We don’t have to be pessimistic or optimistic — we can find realistic hope.This book is written by an international and influential collection of future shapers. It is aimed at anyone who is interested in learning to refresh the present, forge new common ground, and redesign the future.
- Cover
- Contents
- Foreword: Realising Hope
- Introduction: Building Better Futures
- Angela Wilkinson and Betty Sue Flowers
- 1. Making Globalisation Work
- 2. Energy: A Better Life with a Healthy Planet
- 3. Are Major Wars More Likely in the Future?
- Joëlle Jenny and Alyssa Stalsberg Canelli
- 4. The Future of Work
- 5. Digital Technologies: Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining
- Claire Naughtin and Stefan Hajkowicz
- 6. Cities to the Rescue: A New Scale for Dealing with Climate Change
- Keith Clarke, Viviana Jiménez, and Tim O’Riordan
- 7. The Future of Global Poverty
- Claudia Juech and Chukwudi Onike
- 8. Transcending Boundaries: The Realistic Hope for Water
- 9. Health Systems: Doomed to Fail or About to Be Saved by a Copernican Shift?
- Kristel Van der Elst and Rudi Pauwels
- 10. Seeding the Future: Challenges to Global Food Systems
- Ariella Helfgott and Joost Vervoort
- 11. The Great Livestock Trade-off: Food Production, Poverty Alleviation, and Climate Change
- Luke York and Claire Heffernan
- 12. Rethinking Economics for Global Challenges
- 13. Leadership and the Future of Democratic Societies
- Martin Mayer and Verena Ringler
- 14. Prototyping the Future: A New Approach to Whole-of-Society Visioning
- Alenka Smerkolj and Timotej Šooš
- Five Principles of Realistic Hope
- Angela Wilkinson and Betty Sue Flowers
- Epilogue: From the Eclipse of Utopia to the Restoration of Hope
- Acknowledgements
- Name Index
- Subject Index
Text
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Adobe DRM
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