The future is being written, and we are all the authors.

Over the past 3 months, Abundant Climate Action Institute and Futurist Circle ignited a spark of collective imagination through "Climate Futures" events held on a storm-swept summer afternoon in Beijing (June 14) and a mild spring evening in Shanghai (April 23). Attracting around 70 participants from diverse backgrounds – climate related non-profits, sustainable businesses, education, tech, and the arts – these gatherings invited explorers to step away from daily noise. Guided by the "Dreams & Disruptions" futures thinking cards, they embarked on a journey to co-create potential climate futures.

1. Co-Creation Through Play: Touching the Edges of Tomorrow

Starting from random signals of climate disruption (e.g., "sustained 40°C heat," "global internet collapse," "extreme drought"), participants formed groups to envision societal landscapes 10, 30, or even 100 years ahead. Through collective storytelling, complex and vivid potential futures emerged:

• Beijing Storylines:

1. Order Restored by Tech Dependence: Rising seas drown coasts; drones and sentient AI become lifelines in inland refuges, managing water scarcity, food crises, and aging populations, fostering "mutual-aid economies" and rural revival.

2.  Virtual Havens & Shadows of Control:AI predicts weather perfectly, enabling migration between climate zones and life in the metaverse. Yet, tech reliance worsens job loss, inequality, and ecological disconnect, sparking conflict over rare metals.

3. Dome-Cages & Crumbling Hierarchies: Passing environmental tipping points force humans into tech-controlled dome cities under AI surveillance and "National Happiness Indexes." Social strata flip; AI factions splinter . A "black swan" virus pushes order to the brink.

   
   

• Shanghai Storylines:

1. Precarious Balance Under Triple Crisis: Mega-drought, famine, water-as-gold, labor shortages, and AI misuse create a society on a knife-edge, nearing a breaking point.

2. Purification Tech & "Enlightened" AI Rule: Revolutionary water tech becomes both lifeline and battleground. A super-AI, trained on millennia of wisdom, emerges as Earth's steward, coordinating disaster prevention and ecological healing, profoundly reshaping humanity.

3. Climate-Controlled Digital Utopia: Perfectly managed climate enables digital immortality alongside natural retreats; circular economies maximize resources (even relinquished bodies). Yet, deep unease simmers beneath this "utopia" about the cost of absolute control.

4. Underground refugues & internet outage: heatwaves across the surface of the planet drove communities to refuges underground, in the space or in oceans. Technological advances became the hope for better lives, while all the sudden a major internet outage hit…

These stories are not prophecies, but thought experiments. They reveal: **The future is not a single destiny, but the sum of countless choices; crises are often catalysts for rebuilding order; technology acts as a mirror, reflecting humanity's definitions of self, nature, and coexistence.

2. Deep Resonance: Participant Insights & Epiphanies

The events sparked profound reflection and connection:

• Breaking Free, Reclaiming Imagination: Vivian (Shanghai) described the game allowing her to "set aside urgent daily issues... gaze upon a longer, more winding river of time," realizing the future is "the sum of choices, the result of interwoven imagination and action." Another participant felt it "forced my mind, stiffened by the daily grind, to jump out!" likening the atmosphere to "elements converging, smelted at high heat into an alloy."

• Questioning Scale & Essence: Facilitator Jiajun (Shanghai), reflecting on the century-spanning utopia, noted, "A 100-year scale is too hard to grasp, potentially stifling creativity... Is a 'pleasant' climate truly friendly to all species? Futures thinking helps us improve the *present*." This echoes Futurist Circle co-founder Louis Zheng's core idea: Futures thinking breaks free from imposed "second-hand futures" to create desirable ones, understanding the power of "blue hope" (vague belief) transforming into "active hope."

• Facing Anxiety, Rewriting Inner Narratives: Abundant Climate's Li Yan shared how climate workers often feel trapped in metaphors like a "hopeless marathon" or a "downhill run without brakes." She proposed a shift: Updating inner metaphors to "joyful ecological gardener" or "mycelial network" – planting seeds of symbiosis in hardened soil. She stressed, "Feeling pain for the world is healthy... but anxiety is an unhealthy relationship with the future. We can learn to manage pain, not be consumed by anxiety." This requires "exercising the muscle of positive imagination," consciously seeking hopeful signals.

• The Magic of Story & Power of Connection: Sci-fi author Stanley Chen Qiufan (Shanghai panel) profoundly stated, "Hope springs from every conscious choice." "Pain connects us," he added, vital for understanding shared fate. He advocated for new narratives linking climate change with well-being and "harmony between heaven and humanity," because "the story you believe in influences the choices of those who resonate with it." Louis Zheng also emphasized how different narratives shape different future models, underscoring the need for positive, sustainable, empathetic stories.

3. What is "Climate Futures"? – Core Reflections

These events embodied the "Climate Futures" concept, addressing a core need: —Forging a path for hopeful, actionable future thinking beyond cold data and apocalyptic fear.

Its essence includes:

1.  Expanding Climate Narratives: Moving from singular scientific targets (e.g., % or tons of CO2 reduction) to tangible life scenarios (e.g., life in Chaoyang District 2030); shifting from disaster narratives to plural, localized future stories that spark positive imagination.

2.  Scanning Signals, Seeking Patterns: Detecting signals of change and understanding dynamics within socio-technical systems to navigate action.

3.  Shifting Identity & Metaphor: Transitioning from "climate savior/redeemer" to "I am part of the Earth/climate system," seeking pathways for self and civilization. Updating deep metaphors driving action (e.g., from "hopeless marathon" to "ecological gardener") to dissolve anxiety and find strength.

4.  Looking Beyond Short-Term KPIs: Guarding against narrow focus on "cold" emission metrics; valuing actions that seed systemic, deep transformation, involving diverse stakeholders (including non-human) over longer timescales.

4. Authoring Tomorrow: Next Steps & Invitation

The Beijing-Shanghai journey is just the beginning. Abundant Climate and Futurist Circle invite more partners to join as co-authors of a resilient, hopeful climate future:

• Open Experience Sessions (2-3 hours):For anyone curious about climate futures, using card games and co-creation to experience futures thinking and spark action ideas.

• Deep-Dive Workshops and/or Open Courses (1-2 days): For professional organizations and businesses in climate/sustainability, tackling specific challenges (e.g., transition paths, strategic foresight) using diverse futures tools to expand imagination, scan trends, and explore solutions.

• Co-Creating a "Climate Futures" Gene Pool: Collecting more narrative fragments to weave meaning; popularizing futures thinking tools; deep co-creation with partners on foresight and internal transformation.

The future is not a fixed destination awaiting us, but an open canvas shaped by present choices, collaboration, and imagination.** Whether amidst downpours or gentle spring nights, when we gather, letting ancient narrative power connect our thoughts, we practice a crucial ability: transforming panic into story, using story to drive action, and reshaping the tomorrow we desire.

Join us in writing the next chapter!