Events

When we think of climate, the stories we tell about the future are bad: megastorms, crop failures, and heat waves loom over us. These narratives are compelling, but can leave us feeling hopeless, helpless and disillusioned. To motivate broad-based change in the present, we need visions of positive climate futures grounded in both science and local geographical and cultural particularities. We need stories of change that bridge the urgent imperative for global coordination with values, resources, and community action, envisioning transformation that grows bottom-up and bottom-out, rather than top-down. In the wake of the COP28 U.N. climate change summit, join us for the launch of a collection of such stories: The Climate Action Almanac, presented by Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination and the ClimateWorks Foundation. This event is presented in partnership with Future Tense and ASU’s Convergence Lab.

Visualizing our future is critical to motivating wise choices today. In this endeavor, speculative fiction is a powerful complement to scientific projections. The final event in the Woodwell Climate Research Center’s series “Beyond 1.5” explores success and failure through the eyes of creative thinkers and invites audiences to activate their own imaginations.

If we hope to achieve the global will and cooperation needed to meet the challenges of the climate crisis, we need stories of hope and transformation, not just disaster and deprivation. These stories should be rooted both in local realities and scientific insights. If we can inspire communities around the world to imagine their own positive climate futures, we can begin to imagine and undertake the work it will take to rebuild the world’s economies and cultures on more sustainable foundations. The Climate Imagination Fellowship, presented by the Center for Science and the Imagination at Arizona State University, aims to create positive stories about the future that catalyze action in the present. Join fellows Libia Brenda, the first Mexican woman to be nominated for the Hugo Award, and Vandana Singh, a speculative fiction author and professor of physics, for a conversation about storytelling, hope, and climate justice. The discussion will be moderated by Ed Finn, director of the Center for Science and the Imagination and the Climate Imagination Fellowship.

The UN Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow presents an opportunity for decisive global action amidst escalating climate chaos. Now, more than ever, we need narratives of positive climate futures alongside coordinated interventions in order to ameliorate the crisis. Join the University of Liverpool’s Olaf Stapledon Centre for Speculative Futures and the Climate Imagination Fellows at Arizona State University’s Center for Science and the Imagination for a session dedicated to exploring the stories that might catalyze new understandings and connect narrative interventions to transformations in policy, governance, and culture. During the event, our panelists will respond to questions and provocations posed by an international group of policy thinkers, researchers, and fiction authors.

During the UN Climate Change Conference, or COP26 (1-12 November, 2021), the eyes of the world are on Glasgow, Scotland, where nations, civil-society groups and activists are meeting to determine the shape of global action in the face of the climate crisis. At this moment, perhaps more than any other, we need creatively expansive thinking about possible futures—stories that help us chart a path towards a just, equitable, sustainable global civilization.

Hosted by Future Tense Speakers: Climate Imagination Fellows Libia Brenda, Hannah Onoguwe, and Vandana Singh; novelist Kim Stanley Robinson; UN High-Level Climate Champion Nigel Topping; journalist and climate policy expert Bina Venkataraman

Hosted by the Journal of Science Policy & Governance and the UK Science and Innovation Network Speakers: Climate Imagination Fellows Libia Brenda, Hannah Onoguwe, and Vandana Singh; British Consul General Emily Cloke

Hosted by the British Library Speakers: Climate Imagination Fellows Libia Brenda, Hannah Onoguwe, and Vandana Singh; Guardian culture editor Claire Armitstead