www.thesolutionsjournal.org  |  January-February 2016  |  Solutions  |  11

Envisioning

We meet today to speak of great ancestors.

Here in 2115, we may find it hard to understand that a century ago, many people actually believed there was nothing we could do to stave off the planetary crisis we faced. Many had given up. Many did too little. Some even lived in denial of increasingly loud warnings from the world’s scientists, or refused, on ideological grounds, to even consider change.

Humanity made calamitous mis-takes in the 20th and early 21st centuries, sometimes in the name of progress, but more often springing from inattention, ignorance, or simple shortsighted greed.

The losses were staggering.We live today surrounded by the 

legacy of those mistakes, of that care-lessness. The missing ice and rising seas, the burnt forests, the growing deserts, the toxic places, the tens of thousands of vanished plants and animals, the weather chaos we all experience, the conflicts over water and food, and the refugees they’ve created. We’ve lost so much. We came far too close to losing nearly everything. If things went on as they were, we might have.

Instead, we live today on a heal-ing planet. Yes, much has been lost, but much was saved or restored or reinvented, and what was saved and healed and made anew has become a powerful legacy.

Those gifts became the seedbeds from which sprouted our new world. That we have so much left from which to coax a long and bountiful tomorrow is no accident. Those seeds of hope were saved and planted and tended to by people who made the decision that they would live as if the future mattered. As if nature mattered. As if we mattered.

These were visionary people. Responsible people. Courageous people. All around the world, our best ancestors took up the challenge of leaving a different, bolder legacy, one not of error and loss, but of leadership, stewardship, and innovation.

On every continent and in every sea, some of our most important wild places were made safe. Ecological restoration was begun. Species were saved. In the face of planetary catastro-phe, the tide was turned.

Forests have begun once again to cover the Earth. The oceans teem with renewed life. In every community, people and nature are being recon-nected. We live, again, in a world of whales, tall trees, and awe-struck children.

Our prosperity has found its rightful role within that living planetary fabric. Our great cities, our 

This article is part of a regular section in Solutions in which the author is challenged to envision a future society in which all the right changes have been made.

A Talk Given at a Conservation Meeting One Hundred Years From Now…by Alex Steffen

Mark The sun sets over a solar farm in Ontario, Canada.

Steffen, A. (2016). A Talk Given at a Conservation Meeting One Hundred Years From Now… Solutions 7(1): 11–13.thesolutionsjournal.com/2016/1/a-talk-given-at-a-conservation-meeting-100-years-from-now

12  |  Solutions  |  January-February 2016  |  www.thesolutionsjournal.org

Envisioning

global industries, our science, and our inventiveness have all grown past their destructive adolescence. They’ve matured within the bound-aries of our single, small world. We’ve discovered, of course, that living within our limits has made us more inventive than we were when we believed there were no limits. Science, engineering, design, technol-ogy: all have grown more creative when faced with constraints. We are richer now than we were then, in every sense of wealth.

Our cities have become the engines of a bright green prosperity. Our ancestors began by planning and building ecological cities for billions more people. That work made possible innovative leaps in development and transportation. It helped rebuild slums into great neighborhoods, and develop entirely new districts that redefined the limits of urban ecology. Walkable neighborhoods, green buildings, and low-carbon infrastructure have made our cities more livable, but they’ve also made our cities far lighter on the planet. Though more than eight billion people now live in cities, their footprint is tiny compared to people a century ago.

Our cities now, like cities then, depend upon their interconnection with nature. Now, however, we recognize the value of the natural systems that support our lives, and we safeguard it. The rivers that give us our water have been protected and restored. On the farms that feed us, soil is conserved and biodiversity woven into our fields and orchards. Well-tended forests give us wood and fiber. Wetlands guard our cities from rising waters.

Our world, of course, is powered wholly by clean energy now. Near every city can be found long rows of wind turbines, blades spinning slowly 

in the breeze, or fields of solar panels glittering in the sun. Carbon dioxide, meanwhile, is now being drawn back down out of the air, as forests regrow and carbon capturing crops are plowed back into our soil. The chemistry of the atmosphere is beginning, very slowly, to return to balance. We suffer tremendous disasters from the climate change already set in motion, of course, but restoring our climate is beginning to feel less like a dream than a plan of action.

Our common humanity and shared world has continued to inspire us to do better by one another and by our own descendants. These are still tough times for many, and we still must struggle to make our societies rugged in the face of chaos and erosion. Yet, we do not live in the apocalyptic hell many once seemed to think was our destiny. We have grappled with tremendous poverty, inequality, poor health, 

tyranny, failed states, ignorance, and despair—and if we haven’t yet succeeded in making a world where everyone’s basic needs are well met, the intent to do so no longer seems utopian. When you have met great challenges and won, you become less willing to accept the idea that some problems can never be overcome. Our ancestors gave us the early vic-tories that today give us the strength to keep striving for not just a better world, but a fairer one.

If today, in the 22nd century, we live in an era of optimism and hope, it is because some of our ancestors, in the dawn of the 21st, lived in a time of clar-ity and commitment.

When they understood the plan-etary crisis they faced, their answer was not cynicism or surrender, but to seek out others and together meet that crisis with action.

When they rose in the morning, they put their hands to not only the 

Forgemind ArchiMedia The cities of 2115 are powered entirely by clean energy from wind turbines and solar panels.

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Envisioning

common tasks of providing for their families and communities, but to the exceptional work of honoring their kinship with those who would live in generations to come, and laboring on our behalf to leave a bright green world.

When they sat to eat together, they not only nourished their bodies, they nourished their connection to Earth itself, and reminded themselves that humanity lives within this planet, not apart from it.

When they looked at the world, they taught themselves to see with fresh eyes, eyes that saw the world not as a thing, but as a vast, intricate dance of flows and systems, seasons and cycles. They understood that we are only a small part of all that. They understood that we’re all in this together.

When they dreamt, they dreamt of rain and forests, rivers and prairies, oceans and reefs, of fishing and farm-ing and of lives lived outdoors. They dreamt of stewardship and healing, wonder and discovery. They dreamt of humanity coming home again.

When they took council together, they felt the hopes of their childrens’ childrens’ children keeping them com-pany. They made ambitious plans.

When they rose to speak, they spoke not for themselves, but for human possibility and the renewed bounty of life on Earth. They spoke for bold action. They got to work, know-ing time was short.

Where these ancestors gathered, heroes gathered.

And when they departed, they had given us back our future. 

AcknowledgmentsThis letter was given as the keynote speech at the Nature Conservancy’s 2015 Annual Trustee Meeting. Thank you to the Nature Conservancy for giving me that opportunity. Bùi Linh Ngân

Imagine Betterby Solitaire Townsend

How did you do it the future asks? With your outdated customs and old-fashioned clothes. How did you do it? Without much science or sense. Did you do it for us?

Not for you, we answer, at least not at first.Amongst our bling and bravado we built a tomorrow,of beauty and fairness and super smart systems.Our disposable culture created up-cycling.Some selfied whilst some starved, yet less starved than ever before.Grand sweeping propellers caught energy from air,whilst we burnt more oil than all of our past.How did we do it? We talked and we tinkered.About kittens and catastrophes in the same breath.We engaged and invented.And believed our own stories.

But how was it possible the future asks? How could you be both? The best and the worst. We learn about you in school, but we don’t quite believe. That people obsessed with their stuff could invent circularity? Or whilst grubbing for money you ended the worst poverty?

You don’t really get us, you happy descendants.We stood on the cusp between better and worse,but passionately wished to avoid the whole question.Distracted by baubles and divided by ethos.Isolated, unequal, silly and dangerous.We stood in the gutter, whether obese or dirt poor.But enough of us started to shout, cry or build.From anger or passion or joy in inventionOf technology and language and new ways of being.Not noble, not smart not even that visionary.We managed to build the basis for better.Better energy, better food, better lives and more living.Better systems, institutions, business and believing.

All true, says the future. We live here and thank you. The beauty and brilliance of all we enjoy Are gifts from those people who cried, built and shouted. With your outdated customs and old-fashioned clothes. How kind, today answers, you deserve what we left you.

But one question for those who enjoy our bequeathing.What wonders and follies will you leave behind you?With your new modern customs and fashionable clothes.