Futuring for Sustainability: notes on lectures, tutorials and articles
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Course
Futuring for Sustainability (GEO22427)
Institution
Universiteit Utrecht (UU)
This summary contains everything you need for the exam. It provides you with:
1. Notes on lectures 1-7
a) Including the summary notes of the mandatory articles per lecture
2. Notes on the tutorials 1-5
a) Including the links to YouTube
Notes on the lectures – Futuring for sustainability
Lecture 1
Our last decade to prevent 1.5C warming (that is what scientists tell us if we do not act quickly).
None of the models have predicted the forest burns at the coast of Australia. There is a commitment
gap (political commitments). This paint a picture for policy that might be too optimistic. “we need to
be very afraid of the future” is a message that is implicitly everywhere.
The reality of climate change is here, but our future remains
unwritten. We stand at a crossroad where our actions can still
make a difference. Stratospheric aerosol injection: we can
spray aerosols, so less aerosols can settle in the atmosphere
(limit the amount of warming). This causes a emission-cut, so
we need to cool our planet to bend the curve. So this is about
CO2 removal. This would be an effective solution but time for
other efforts to take hold. Also, other negative side effects
could emerge if the method is not used is a optimal manner.
But this topic is very controversial, so there can be
said some to every point. We first need to
understand the system.
Political story – it’s not just a scientific perspective
and necessity. There is a climate goal; limit global
warming to 2-1.5 degrees. Policy is aiming to get to
this goal. Inflation reduction act of Biden in the US.
He took a photo with an electric Hummer. But in
reality, we are heading above our targets. But at
the same time the use of renewable energies (wind
and solar energy is getting cheaper) is increasing
(energy transition). Clean energy says nothing
about fossil fuels. Carbon dioxide removal is done
in Iceland, and in 2050 we want to do this on a
massive scale (new technologies have to be scalable). But these are all assumptions, in the models
and theories. Some developments give hope, some raise worry.
Our current path of CO2 emissions is proportionally rising, but with the change towards renewable
energy sources we cut our emissions and stabilize the curve. If we do CO2 removal, we will bend the
curve.
,Who are we saving the planet for? Humans? Europeans? Who’s interest are we playing for?
Dramaturgies
The art of making drama’s and placing them properly on the stage; dramatic compositions and
representation. In all assumptions is a certain undertone, layers in the assumptions (wearing a suit,
statements, body characteristics). The layering of meanings and assumptions is how we do politics. It
is about interest, scientific facts, theater plays, etc. Performance is a practice and an epistemology, a
creative doing, a methodological lens, a way of transmitting memory and identity, and a way of
understanding the world.
- Who says what? Whose can make their voice heard?
o Persons
- How are things heard? And how are things said? What conventions guide/police expression?
o Discources, frames
- Where are things being expressed? And in what format?
o Stages, sites, locations, mis-en-scene
- To whom are things being said? And how do they get to interact?
o The difference between ‘audience’ and ‘publics’
Judith Butler – social action requires a performance which is repeated. By repeating the assumptions,
we don’t see it anymore. The repetition of meaning goes all the way down to everything we do in
science. Neutrality is politics and science cannot be done, everyone always has assumptions.
How do we what to live together? It is a political play. What is the social configuration and is there a
technological solution?
David Greaber: ‘the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and
could just as easily make differently’. If we make the world, we can also change it.
People who believe we should have an extreme capitalist world and not social system, only a system
state that are governed by private laws (capitalist anarchist).
Liechtenstein is a small country on the east side of Switzerland built by Austrian men. It is an
absolute monarchy and it is an save haven of capital. A place where people can store their money.
People living there, believe in the capitalist system.
The city of London; the major banks are located there. There is a tiny territory within London
with its own mayor, with its own tax rules. Building business in London.
These places can be the seed of destruction of the EU. They take ideas and inspiration from
the past (capitalist anarchists) to rule the world. They just have city states, the winner takes it all. A
general citizen do not profit from their idea of the future. They do not give about the environment
and sustainability. They are lobbying.
Nobody knows what the actual future will look like, so you have to imagine it. What kind of society do
you want? Some regions have their own imagination of society, utopia:
- Early city we found; every house is exactly the same. A whole society is homogeneous, same
needs, privileges, rights, etc. There is no ‘the way it has always been’; a way of shutting down
discussions. There are so much more possibilities.
- 2
,What is reality, and inevitability?
Futuring
Attempts at shaping the space for action by identifying and circulating images of the future, a process
by which relationships between past, present and future are enacted. The future must not only be
perceived, it must be shaped. We need to think very critically about the future, and how we want to
give shape to it. What is realistic, plausible and possible?
Tutorial 1
15 years is a short time of period. Some are pessimistic, some are optimistic. Technology may offer
solutions. There is a contradiction between a natural and technological fix for the climate solution.
- Dramaturgies
When you can scientifically prove things, it is a fact. Your narrative and perspective causes difference
in truth. It is not about truth but theories. Based on your own experiences and knowledge, you form
truth.
Authority plays a role. It matters how you present it. Being right it doesn’t means everyone believes it
(truth claims). It is about making things true by performance. Social processes are being done
because people believe in something.
- Futuring
Scenario thinking is about the script for the future. Different scenarios with different approaches.
Imagine pictures about the future. Your own experiences build your future image. Another factor is
money for example or strict policy implications.
Interstate system - competition makes it hard to implement policy over different territories.
Economic growth goes with more emissions, but by the circular system you can compensate. It is
used again, the value will contain.
What will the world look like in 25 years on these perspectives:
- Ecology; less biodiversity, extreme conditions
- Economy; driven by neutral energy, more public infrastructure, digital labor, robots for
manufacturing
- Culture; globalization of uniform culture, more consciousness of a sustainable world and
individual actions, slow development
- Politics; polarization on thoughts, VN, stimulate AI
- Technology; AI can provide policies, clashes between different developed countries,
technology can change cultures and politics, negative social effects, not personal anymore
- Geography; China has a prominent role in politics and technology, polarization between core-
periphery, agglomeration economies, spatial distribution
Complexity leads to divergence, inequality, outcomes and paths.
, Articles on lecture
1. Unfreezing the ice by David Graeber
Christopher Boehm says the essence of politics is the ability to reflect consciously on different
directions one’s society could take, and to make explicit arguments why it should take one path rather
than the other. He mentions the Hobbesian hawks and Rousseauian doves; our genetic nature is
Hobbesian, but our political history is described by Rousseau. The driving forces behind human social
evolution is society which is dominated by the hierarchy and powerful leaders and dynasties. This can
be said due to monuments and magnificent burials (others not buried at all). Before humans were
fully self-conscious, they blindly followed traditions and the will of God. Levi Strauss argued that there
was a clear link between seasonal variations of social structure and a certain kind of political
freedom. One season, they dispersed into foraging bands, other seasons they gathered together in
concentrated settlements. This means, that they could experiment with different social structures
within the year. In winter, they lived in hierarchical forms, in summer they split into small mobile
lands. This institutional flexibility reflects stepping outside a given structure, and thus the people were
more creative and capable of imagining alternative social orders.
2. The power of imagination by David Graeber
For Graeber, there were two kinds of imagination. The first was “imaginative identification”. This
refers to the capacity to imagine another’s point of view – the foundation of all caring and supportive
social relations. With another term (interpretive labor) he described the ability to put oneself in
another’s shoes is necessary for a functioning democratic system. The second imagination was
“immanent imagination”. The capacity to imagine, and to bring about, new social and political ways
of being.
Graeber argued that the problem with capitalism is not just that it is exploitative, environmentally
destructive, or unjust but that it depends on immense bureaucracy, which in turn requires a
hierarchical social order. “Creativity and imagination were the fundamental ontological principles” –
that is, we can (and should) creatively produce the world and remake it as we wish. “The ultimate,
hidden truth of the world is that it is something that we make, and could just as easily make
differently.” This means that if we had made the world as the way it is, we can also change/shape the
future.
Lecture 2
Question from the literature: what are sociotechnical imaginaries? And what does coproduction
mean?
The white jackets are a symbol of science;
don’t silence the science. The politicians are
not neutral, scientists are. But if they protest
they take a side (Scientist Rebellion). Watch:
Undeniable: the climate emergency network
by Peter Kalmus on Twitter -> if we don’t act,
we are heady toward a fucking catastrophe.
This might be dangerous, because speak up as
a ‘neutral’ scientists could less validate their works. This is controversial, because everybody has the
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