I’ve been talking about Possitopian approaches to the future for a few years now. However, it is sometimes misinterpreted, for example with people mispronouncing it ‘Positopia’, assuming it means positive thinking. It’s become one of our six principles of Climate Museum UK, but as our team of members grows, there’s a need for us all to have a sense of ownership of the concept, allowing our own personal interpretations to shape Possitopian practice. I’m happy for it to evolve but also felt it important to clearly explain my own thinking.

We decided to make an explainer video for the Cosmia Festival of science fiction & speculative arts. To prepare for that we held a team discussion, and the following article sums up my responses to their questions.

The Possitopian approach to future thinking expands the cone of the possible future, draws on geophysical realities and data, and also applies imagination to help you imagine future scenarios which are potentially worse or better than you might allow yourself to think.

It’s definitively not being ‘Positopian’ i.e. only positive about the future. Because catastrophic climate impacts are already coming 20-80 years earlier than modelled, the Voros ‘cone of futures’ is far too narrow and linear.

The cone is wide open, from now, with events happening beyond our imagining and requiring imagination beyond our norms.

The Probable scenarios are extremely bad. The Preferable scenarios are extremely ideal, and this causes conflict between different visions, just like Leave and Remain positions have hardened. There is also conflict between the few people whose habit is mostly to imagine the Probable (or who have experienced it) and those who imagine the Preferable.

Possitopian methods aim to braid the two, to close the gap, to create a viable path for humanity (or for communities) amidst the shifting and uncertain realm of the Possible. This requires more frequent and sustained imagining of scenarios, bringing together people with different views, combining the imagination with hard evidence or existing solutions, and more design of safe and creative ways to lay down the stepping stones to forge the viable path.

To add more detail, here are my responses to Beckie’s questions:

What led you to choose possible as the lead word for possitopia?

It was a response to the ‘cone of the future’ diagram where the ‘possible’ is the widest range of scenarios that you can imagine, including those you can’t or don’t want to imagine. It’s possible in the sense of ‘anything could happen’. Both the Preferable future and the Probable future lie inside this wide cone. The less linear and uncertain our world becomes, the wider that cone of possibility grows. We need a new diagram that shows it wide open.

Why do we need to focus on the future?

We don’t need to focus more on the future. We can’t help it. We just need to do it better. We need to widen our thinking when we do it. There’s already a movement for long-term thinking but I think we need wider thinking of possibilities, as much if not more.

All actions and decisions are conceived in relationship to what you’ve experienced or learned already (past), how you’re feeling now and what you anticipate (future). People can get stuck. If you only remember the dark aspects of the past and anticipate the future only to be bright, your decision-making will be skewed. And vice versa. Political and business progress is based on the myth that the future can only get better. When people have experienced or anticipate trauma, they may feel that the future can only get worse. Either way, fixed narratives about the future – whether it’s gloomy or rosy – are not helpful because they stop you from seeing possibilities, or seeing how other people might see things.

Why is imagining possitopian futures important?

There isn’t really such a thing as a ‘possitopian future’ because a possitopian approach generates multiple and shifting possibilities. A future vision is a temporary object to think with, and we need to practice holding two or more at once. What is important is creating opportunities for people (e.g. organisations) to be anticipatory, or to imagine the future, in possitopian ways, which means expanding the cone of possibility beyond what is desirable or thought to be likely, and enabling people to imagine fractal or multiple scenarios. Anticipatory practice, done in a possitopian way, applies as much to planning tomorrow as it does to planning 10 years or more. Above all, we need to practice, to make time for conversation so that when unexpected events occur, or we need to look further ahead, we are more in accord or prepared.

Can you discuss the problems of utopian and dystopian thinking?

What are the common patterns of thought in these areas and why/how does possitopian thinking offer a different path?

Possitopian thinking maybe offers a field rather than a path. It helps you resist predefined or hackneyed visions. We already know images of dystopia and utopian from movies and advertising. There may well be utopian and dystopian patterns which form out of cultural tropes (e.g. tech will save us) and psychological states. Possitopian approaches don’t try to create a third trope but to overcome fixed, limited and binary ways of thinking. Many people might flip from dystopian to utopian visions – drawing on what culture has offered them – depending on their feelings at any moment. Possitopian practice allows us to imagine new possibilities by talking and weaving together rather than flipping helplessly.