24/09/2019
The future has come to meet us. And it hurts as hell.
With the largest climate mobilization in history as the backdrop, Financial Times publishes this video. Let that rest with you for a while, savor the significance.
We are sensing a new unyielding, ferocious momentum and agency. The environmental consequences of human development have shown us that we hold immense power. Yet we are left feeling impotent when it turns against us.
How can we create sense of caring about the future that is deep-rooted enough that we simply can't help ourselves from acting to preserve it?
We first have to realize that we are on our own. It is us, and it is now. We are emerging from an industrial and technological revolution that equally saved and doomed us. We made science and technology an external force, disconnected from our humanity in much the same way as we used to think of gods. The responsibility was simply not ours.
Technology, industry and science are as human as culture, philosophy and art. They will be key in creating the culture and value shift that we will need to see. So, to open the eyes of our collective consciousness we need to flood the future with every drop of humanity we have left. In a future of information, automation and artificial intelligence we need to make room for our stories, feelings, emotions and experiences. We need to paint them with our colours. Then maybe we will stop questioning and ignoring and start cleaning up our own mess. We are responsible, we are alone (it is us), we are powerful.
'The future has come to meet us'. Ahead of the UN Climate Summit the FT and The Royal Court collaborate on a short drama exploring inaction on climate change. Actress Nicola Walker, transmitting news from 2050, asks why we 'never really learnt how to talk about this'.