BEFORE YOU CONTINUE READING: It could be that the following posts will change your brain. Positively, of course! Want to know why? Then just read on.
In our new focus, we ask ourselves what connects imagination with a sustainable future. We talk to visionaries, embark on daring journeys through possible futures and explore how our imagination can become even more vivid.
Our imagination is responsible for far more than we realize. It constantly assists us in our everyday lives, automatically fills gaps in our perception and helps us to find our bearings. (You can read more interesting background information on the topic of imagination here in the fact check).
What if our future depended on it too? Far too often, we use our imagination (with varying degrees of intensity depending on our personality) to visualize the devastating consequences of climate collapse. We probably use them much less often to imagine the opposite: the world we would like to live in, in which we overcome the climate crisis and change things for the better.
Just imagine...
Where do we go when such ideas give us a tailwind? This is the question Rob Hopkinsfounder of the global Transition Town movement, has often asked himself. Among other things in his new book "Imagine...". However, we must first overcome the current lull in imagination. After all, our ability to imagine and think creatively has been declining since the 1990s. Paradoxically, we have become somewhat smarter since then (our IQ has risen slightly), but we have become less imaginative [1].
Hopkins sees the reasons for this development in the abundance of digital distractions, in our education system, our media culture, but also in our lack of connection to nature. For example, children in the UK spend less time outdoors every day than prison inmates in the USA. Hopkins wants to reverse such aberrations. In this interview, he takes us on imaginative flights of fancy and tells us how imagination can be reanimated.
Time for real utopias
All the people who are part of our magazine focus agree on one thing: we need better stories about a better future - as an alternative to the lack of vision of our time. Lino Zeddies shows us what this could look like with his novel "Utopia 2048" [2]. The main ingredient of his story: a tasty future that is actually tangible and does without doomsday scenarios.
Zeddies has already experienced a lot of what the future could look like himself, in a fragile form. He puts these pieces of the puzzle together in his story to form a big whole: a real utopia. His two main characters wake up in the year 2048 after 30 years of self-imposed coma sleep. In the book, you cycle with them on bike highways through a greener Berlin, travel to Sweden in a zeppelin and spend a virtual day at Singapore Zoo with a good friend.
In this interview, Lino Zeddies talks to us not only about the background to his novel, but also about the next steps towards this future.
Oh, if only everything could stay like this...
We would have been there long ago, in a better future, if change were easier for us. And our comfort zone wouldn't be so cozy for us. Of course, we don't want climate collapse or species extinction either. Wrapped up in vague fears of change and loss, we often lose our imagination. We lack the incentive - the reward.
Katharina Rogenhofer, the young face of the Austrian climate movement, knows how to tell good stories about this reward. For example in the book: "If nothing changes, everything changes" [3]. She shows what awaits us if we take a bold stand for our future now. Her specialty: interweaving personal stories with climate information in an authentic and emotionally moving way.
In this interview, she tells us about the moments of happiness she looks back on after three years of full-time climate activism, how to crack visionless politicians and what she is particularly looking forward to in a climate-friendly world.
Stone Age ahead?
Speaking of visionless politics. Is sustainability really taking us back to the Stone Age? Of course not. In this article, we confront this prominent fear of the future and have fun uncovering facets of the Stone Age that are actually contemporary and suitable for revival.
The future at a glance
The "Future Wallpaper" makes visible what many find difficult to imagine(see article). The snippets of the wallpaper were collected in discussions with climate heroes and scientists. People were asked who have concrete ideas about what is sustainable and what is not. The resulting images and stories whet the appetite for more (see article). Bring on this future!
Fantasy workout
Would you like to have other images of the future in your head? No problem, the future is open to you. As long as you keep your imagination trained accordingly.
In this article, we therefore present a simple workout that will help you to think about your own world in a more 'liveable' way. It only takes a few minutes and a little imagination to get started. You can train anywhere: in the queue at supermarket checkouts, when walking your four-legged friend, at train stations, in waiting rooms, etc.
Our imagination is a valuable treasure that we always have with us. If we train this power in full awareness, we unleash its magic. It is possible that reality will catch up with us at some point.
"Be careful what you wish for. It could come true."
(wisdom of life)
[1] Kim, Kyung Hee (2011): The Creativity Crisis: The Decrease in Creative Thinking Scores on the Torrance Tests of Creative Thinking, Creativity Research Journal, 23(4), 285-295.
[2] Rob Hopkins (2021). Imagine... Löwenzahn Verlag.
[3] Lino Zeddies (2021). Utopia 2048.
[4] Katharina Rogenhofer (2021): If nothing changes, everything changes. Zsolnay publishing house
