What I Want
I choose a future without unnecessary wars and violence. I want it to be one in which Nature flourishes, and I can walk in the hills and woods and listen to the birds. I need a tomorrow where the rivers sparkle with life, and there are beavers in the streams creating new wetlands.
I would like a new education system for young people that is full of inspiration and the joy of learning, one where they begin to understand what is really important in life. I would like a way of learning where the children gain empathy and compassion and the ability to work together without competition. I would like them to learn that we are part of Nature, and to know that for us to thrive we need to watch over it and appreciate its gifts.
I want equality and justice, and people to be free to be themselves as long as they are not harming others.
You will, no doubt, want something different, but I have learned already in your responses to my blog, that it will be a difference full of thought and caring.
But I see no way of getting there…
There is no roadmap to a future like that: no vision of creating something better that will allow people to be happy and fulfilled – no way to reach The Future We Choose.
Unless we create it!
I am choosing to branch out a little. I am creating a new project. It will be called The Future We Choose. I hope also to continue my blog with its intention to encourage everybody to have hope and to be active.
I believe that if we don’t choose our future somebody else will. We will be at the mercy of investors and billionaires who want to build data centres, support fossil fuels or come up with crackpot technological schemes to take carbon out of the atmosphere. (These are likely to do more harm than good.)
At the same time the dangers of inertia are enormous.
Which Way Are We Going?
- We can choose to carry on with the lifestyles we have.
- We can let somebody else decide for us.
- We can choose to act and take some sort of control of our future.
I want to go for number 3.
It will not be easy! Talking to friends, they say, “it can’t be done … external forces are too strong … money speaks in this world … I am only one person … ‘They’ have all the power … ” and so on.
I believe we can and must decide what we want our future to look like.
If not –> disaster!
We Have Already Done Amazing Things
Before I tell you what my project will look like, I want to remind you of how far we have already come. This is what we are capable of if we put our minds to it.
- Global temperature rise predictions for 2100 are now a degree lower than they were ten years ago. They have decreased from around 3.6°C to 2.6°C, thanks to the Paris Agreement’s impact. (2.6° is definitely not sufficient but a 3.6° increase would have been catastrophic.)
- A recent report on renewable energy sources shows that renewable sources are growing quickly and will play a vital role in tackling Climate Change. According to them approximately one seventh of the world’s energy mix comes from renewable energy. “Note that this is based on renewable energy’s share in the energy mix. Energy consumption represents the sum of electricity, transport, and heating.” Globally about one third of our electricity comes from renewables. Ember Energy shows that “since 2000, renewables have expanded from 19% to more than 30% of global electricity, driven by an increase in solar and wind from 0.2% in 2000 to a record 13.4% in 2023.”
- Climate Farmers are showing that Regenerative Agriculture is gaining momentum across the globe. From the long list of benefits it brings for farmers to its ability to combat modern-day challenges, it’s easy to understand why. Not only does this style of agriculture repair our depleted soils, enhance biodiversity and mitigate the effects of climate change (with the soil’s ability to draw down carbon from the atmosphere) but it means farmers practising regenerative agriculture can generate new revenue for their climate efforts.
- According to the Global Rewilding Alliance, rewilding is happening everywhere! The following from their website are just words. But do look at their examples and any others you can find. I find them so exciting. “Communities on every continent are responding to a deep, positive, visceral drive to support Nature’s recovery. We are coming together under the shared vision to be Nature’s guardians and good ancestors to coming generations.”
Perhaps those things don’t seem very significant to you. As I always say “it is too little and too slow.” But it is happening, humanity has struggled and fought and argued and we are making a difference. Let’s build on that. But let’s do it now.
Full Speed Ahead
I have only mentioned a few aspects of our progress, but I believe I have shown in my blog that there are very many good things happening. We just need to persuade our politicians to act faster.
My New Project
I hope you will join me in this project as I need your ideas and opinions.
WE NEED A PLAN AND A VISION
In my search for an existing plan as to how humankind will move forward, I have found nothing concrete.
I have found government emissions targets, projects on saving the oceans and biodiversity, books and organisations that are hoping to end both Capitalism and never-ending growth and so on. All good stuff.
But I have found nothing on the vision we need to create a better future.
Not only do we need a plan for the obvious things, but we need to decide issues like “how will we run our cities? how will we school our children? what values do we need for a more peaceful future? how will we tackle inequality? what is important to us – – – – – – – what do we want?”
Project Details
Phase 1 will be an interactive Facebook Page, where you can tell me what you think will make a better future, and allowing me to collect your ideas.
Phase 2 will be a website to collect some of the really interesting, hopeful things that people are already doing to achieve a better tomorrow.
Phase 3 will be contacting politicians to say. “This is what people really want to see in their future.” I hope to find a way of working with them to create momentum and a vision people can believe in.
Do, please, let me know what you think about this idea. Thank you.
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Photos by Doreen Hosking and by Denys Nevozhai and Julian Hochgesang on Unsplash
I love this Doreen. Thank you. So helpful and inspiring. Let me know how I can support you.
Thank you Christina for your kind comments. I am working on setting up a FaceBook Group page for discussions.
I know that won’t work for everybody but I have to start somewhere. I will send you an invitation when it is ready
and perhaps you would like to join. Thanks again.
Thank you for this inspiring piece.
You are right: we have a fairly clear idea of what we no longer want, yet we speak much less about what we genuinely want to build.
I believe that a project like yours could become a place where we develop a shared language for talking about what it means to live well and to dwell responsibly on this Earth.
For centuries, progress has largely been equated with economic growth, material comfort, and technological mastery. Today, many people intuitively feel that these measures are no longer sufficient, yet we have not found a new set of guiding principles. Perhaps the first step is to rediscover the values that can guide a civilization: our relationship with the living world, the quality of our human relationships, beauty, contemplation, cooperation, a sense of moderation, gratitude, and responsibility toward future generations.
Such a vision could emerge through an ongoing conversation among people from many different backgrounds: scientists, artists, philosophers, farmers, educators, citizens, young people, and elders. A vision imposed from above always risks becoming an ideology; a vision created together can remain alive and continue to evolve over time.
Finally, I believe your project raises a fundamental question: what kind of human beings do we want to become? The ecological crisis is certainly a climate crisis, but it is also a crisis of how we inhabit the world. If we can rediscover a more intimate relationship with Nature, many other transformations may follow.
Thank you for your kind response. I have sent you an email privately.
Comment *You are so great Doreen. I can see that lately I started to give up. Can we still stop this? A Facebook group to exchange ideas and support each other sounds like a great idea!!
Dear An, I am sorry not to have responded sooner. We have been on holiday with the family. I understand how you feel.
There are days that I just want to cry, especially when I think about our politicians! They are so lacking in vision
and sense. Sometimes they are greedy or corrupt. But I feel our world is beautiful and I don’t want to give up on that.
I may be wrong and humanity may not survive but I have to fight. I keep thinking of Michelangelo and all the wonderful
Italian painters and their work and I am dammed if I will give up on that.
Don’t stop what you are doing. You have grandchildren now. I think of mine and their future and I get angry. Perhaps that is
good, I don’t know but thank you so much for your encouragement. It is really important to me.
Hello Doreen,
I hear you Doreen, as I have seen you. It resonates with me who you are and what you write, envision. A Grandmother indeed rightfully concerned.
The needed changes which start with people, may not be able to manifest it self even the will or intent is there. What is or could be, the Key to unlock the gate to our truthfull innerself?
Being a Being of nature, (ecology, creation) mankind is killing, evolved with a conciousness but it may not be possible to think our way trough it. Maybe it does not have to.
I am on a short holiday and will come back to you. Thank you for being out there Doreen and keep me, and others, walking my path to.
Hello Hubertus, thank you for your comments. Sorry it took a while to respond. I have been on holiday with my family.
I really don’t know if I can make any difference at all but I feel I want to try. There are so many people out there that care
and so many wonderful projects. I am not naive, I understand the science and I know where we are. But I want to be part of that fight.
This is such a beautiful world we live in. I think there are two parts to all of us, one where we don’t want to change and we think of ourselves. The other part is the good part where we live in a community and care about other people.
I hope to find the second part. We will see!
Thank you so much for your support Hubertus. It means a lot to me. You are a kind man and the world needs more people like you.
Doreen, I so appreciate you creating a space for us to hold these sacred visions of what we wish to become as a people and where we want to be headed!
My mentor Elise Boulding, a Quaker and scholar-activist who was a major developer of the field of Peace & Conflict Studies (and wrote a fabulous book: Cultures of Peace!) always said we cannot improve our society unless we have both a clear vision of where we are headed, and then figure out together HOW to get there. You are offering us a place to do both! Thank you so much.
Dear Sherry, my apologies for not getting back to you sooner. That was not very polite of me as I appreciate
everybody’s comments. I am working on my new project and I hope to get to the next phase soon.
I will get back to you. In the meantime, thank you for taking the time to respond to my blog. It means a lot to me.