A common theme in speculative fiction concerns technological overreach. All manner of scenarios have been developed by science fiction authors and filmmakers, warning of the potential for subjugation, obliteration, or alienation as technologies grow in power and scale. Yet within environmental circles, even though the dangers inherent in technological development are well appreciated, environmental challenges are coming to be defined more and more as technical matters to be resolved via technological means. This article explores some of the meaning and limits of this contemporary environmental techno-optimism, through engagement with the “Culture” novels of Iain M. Banks. The Culture novels chronicle a space-faring, post-scarcity civilization, and stand as a kind of best-case extension, in environmental terms, of humanity’s present technological trajectory. The article wrestles with the potential for great benefit but also extraordinary risk that comes with treading down Banks’ path and outlines the kinds of questions that must be asked and answered in an increasingly technology-saturated world. The article distills lessons from comparing Banks’ novels to the “Biosphere 2” experiment. It also explores a few of the ways in which speculative fiction might be deployed in the classroom to better equip students and citizens to wrestle with existing and emerging technologies and their implications.

Scenario development has been recognized as a potential method to explore future change and stimulate a reflective process that can contribute to more informed decision-making. The assessment process under IPBES (the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services) has however shown that the current predominantly biophysical and economic models and scenario processes for exploring the future of biodiversity, ecosystem services and their contributions to human wellbeing are insufficient to capture the complexity and context-specific nature of the problems facing these sectors. Several important challenges have been identified that require a more in-depth analysis of where more imaginative scenario efforts can be undertaken to address this gap. In this paper, we identify six key characteristics necessary for scenario processes: adaptability across diverse contexts, inclusion of diverse knowledge and value systems, legitimate stakeholder engagement that foregrounds the role of power and politics, an ability to grapple with uncertainty, individual and collective thinking mechanisms and relevance to policy making. We compared four cases of imaginative, arts-based scenario processes that each offer aspects of meeting these criteria. These approaches emphasise the importance of engaging the imagination of those involved in a process and harnessing it as a tool for identifying and conceptualising more transformative future trajectories. Drawing on the existing literature, we argue that there is value in fostering more inclusive and creative participatory processes that acknowledge the importance of understanding multiple value systems and relationships in order to reimagine a more inclusive and just future. Based on this, we reflect on future research to understand the transformative role that imagination can play in altering and enhancing knowledge-making for global assessments, including IPBES. We conclude that creative scenario co-development processes that promote imagination and create an opening for more empathetic responses should be considered as complementary tools within the suite of methodologies used for future IPBES scenario development.

Sustainability transitions tend to be seen as technical, not social, affairs. Mainstream scholars and practitioners do not very often acknowledge environmental and social justice in their transitions work. They seldom recognize rights for racially marginalized people, or the possible existence of rights of Earth. Nor do they query whether they are exaggerating the reach of scientific and technological solutions. By contrast, some recent ecological science fiction writing has begun to place these issues at the center of transitions. In the Broken Earth series, N.K. Jemisin explores Earth through the lens of racial and ecological injustice. She interrogates four themes relevant to transitions. How should we live in a climate-changed world? What role does racial and social subordination play in destroying the environment? What are the dangers of hubris in seeking out a fundamental change through science and technology that cannot be readily controlled after all? How should we think about Earth itself? I conclude with some thoughts on how Earth could be made ‘unbroken’ again through integrating recognition, humility, renewal, and redistribution into transitions.

Participatory Modeling (PM) is becoming increasingly common in environmental planning and conservation, due in part to advances in cyberinfrastructure as well as to greater recognition of the importance of engaging a diverse array of stakeholders in decision making. We provide lessons learned, based on over 200 years of the authors’ cumulative and diverse experience, about PM processes. These include successful and, perhaps more importantly, not-so-successful trials. Our collective interdisciplinary background has supported the development, testing, and evaluation of a rich range of collaborative modeling approaches. We share here what we have learned as a community of participatory modelers, within three categories of reflection: a) lessons learned about participatory modelers; b) lessons learned about the context of collaboration; and c) lessons learned about the PM process. First, successful PM teams encompass a variety of skills beyond modeling expertise. Skills include: effective relationship-building, openness to learn from local experts, awareness of personal motivations and biases, and ability to translate discussions into models and to assess success. Second, the context for collaboration necessitates a culturally appropriate process for knowledge generation and use, for involvement of community co-leads, and for understanding group power dynamics that might influence how people from different backgrounds interact. Finally, knowing when to use PM and when not to, managing expectations, and effectively and equitably addressing conflicts is essential. Managing the participation process in PM is as important as managing the model building process. We recommend that PM teams consider what skills are present within a team, while ensuring inclusive creative space for collaborative exploration and learning supported by simple yet relevant models. With a realistic view of what it entails, PM can be a powerful approach that builds collective knowledge and social capital, thus helping communities to take charge of their future and address complex social and environmental problems.

Over the past decade within Hollywood speculative fiction (SF), the natural environment has become more prominent as a cause of societal collapse. Interstellar, Elysium, Wall-E, Mad Max, and Tomorrowland, as a few examples, all include environmental change and deterioration as prominent plot points, rather than merely as settings. I analyze the political and ideological tenor of these films with a discourse framework to assess the influence of certain real-world discourses, as well as their optimism or pessimism in the context of real-world sustainability transformations. Within this genre, one continues to find a degree of ‘Prometheanism,’ or techno-optimism, but the distinctive discursive influence of the past decade and a half has been the rise of ‘Survivalism,’ a more dystopian or post-apocalyptic discourse. When the environment is prominent as a theme, that is, these films more often explore its destruction—often by humans—and the conditions of existence within such environments.

Mitigation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and adaptation to climate risk are two essential ingredients of climate change policy. Both are needed and co-benefits may exist. Yet, mitigation and adaptation are not usually pursued together. Part of remedying this shortcoming is understanding the relationship between GHG emissions and climate vulnerability reduction and recognizing when and where they trend together. Here, we compare changes in fossil fuel CO 2 emissions per capita and in climate vulnerability scores over the past two decades in 179 countries. We use climate vulnerability scores from the well-established ND-GAIN Country Index, a composite metric constructed from thirty-six indicators covering three components of vulnerability (exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity). We find that 69% of the countries decreased climate vulnerability, while increasing their per capita fossil fuel CO 2 emissions. These countries are successfully reducing climate vulnerability but are increasing their GHG emissions and thus failing in mitigation efforts. In contrast, 23% of the countries have been successful in simultaneously reducing per capita CO 2 emissions and climate vulnerability. Furthermore, in highly vulnerable countries, increasing CO 2 emissions are not correlated with decreasing climate vulnerability. These findings underscore that climate vulnerability reduction may be due only partly to economic development. This finding also changes our prevailing view that increases in CO 2 emissions are associated with vulnerability reduction. Finally, examining mitigation and climate-vulnerability reduction by sector, we show that a majority of countries are able to reduce vulnerability in ecosystem services. Those countries and sectors with positive trends provide examples for others to follow, as solutions at the mitigation-climate vulnerability reduction interface are essential for sustainable economic development.

Cuba’s transition to agroecology is perhaps as widely known as it is misunderstood. In response to the economic crisis of the early 1990s, the Cuban agricultural sector largely departed from the industrial model of food production that it had previously pursued. The subsequent transition towards an agroecological model has been a dynamic and uneven process, elevating Cuba on the world stage as a global leader in sustainable agriculture while at the same time producing unique challenges for Cuban farmers, policy makers, researchers and academics. This article synthesizes and updates contemporary literature on the Cuban agricultural system, paying attention to both successes and shortcomings of agroecology in Cuba to date. In particular, it situates these literatures alongside contributions from academics and practitioners alike, bringing a number of data sets, experiences, and perspectives into conversation in the context of changing realities within Cuba and the nation’s evolving geopolitical relationship with the United States. By analyzing both the historical and contemporary processes through which agroecology has taken root in Cuba, we demonstrate that, despite its uneven and incomplete implementation, such a sustainable agroecological transition holds great, untapped potential. Agroecology in Cuba currently faces pressure from normalizing Cuba-US relations, with potentially profound implications for agriculture in both countries. But increasing opportunities are also emerging for investment, collaboration, knowledge exchange, and solidarity. In this paper, we provide an overview of the evolution of the Cuban agroecology movement; analyze the state of food security and challenges to food sovereignty on the island today; outline US-Cuba policy changes occurring since December 2014 that may affect the agrifood sector; and conclude with recommendations for supporting agroecology – for food security, food sovereignty, and sustainability – under this new and evolving relationship. Please refer to Supplementary Materials , Full text Spanish version of this article , for a full text Spanish version of this article .

The main constraint to sustainable agrarian development in Cuba has been a poorly balanced agrobiodiversity in its agroecosystems. This is the result of mainstream agrarian policy that focuses on sugarcane monocropping, following the principles of modern agriculture as promoted over the last 50 years. This paper discusses the development of a new Index of Agrobiodiversity (IDA), a tool used to identify the extent to which agroecosystems are sustainable, based on their agrobiodiversity. It describes the research carried out to identify the index components, how the index was developed and how its efficiency was assessed. The paper also presents a practical experience whereby agroecosystems from Cuba’s urban agriculture movement were measured. Our analysis suggests that the Index of Agrobiodiversity is a valid proposal: its main success lies in the fact that few material and human resources are needed, and that the required information is generated through the work of local farmers themselves. Moreover, the results can encourage farmers to increase agrobiodiversity in their agroecosystems. Please refer to Supplementary Materials , Full text Spanish version of this article , for a full text Spanish version of this article .

Cuba’s experience in sustainable agriculture and agroecology has been the subject of much international attention, particularly as advocates of agroecology aim to demonstrate the feasibility of implementing alternatives to industrial agriculture on a national scale to support ecological resilience, food security, food sovereignty, and human wellbeing. Such attention has increased since relations between the U.S. and Cuba began to normalize, stimulating speculation as to how this will affect Cuba’s advances in sustainability. The Special Feature Cuba Agrifood Systems in Transition analyses the nuances of agroecological development in Cuba. We emphasized amplifying the voices of locally-based researchers and practitioners by targeting manuscript invitations to Cuban scholars and publishing in both Spanish and English. We outline the process, challenges and goals of this unique endeavor and introduce seven articles, all contributions from Cuba except for one, which is a collaboration between U.S. based and Cuba based scholars. These articles unpack some of the complexities of Cuba’s agrifood system transition and draw on specific information and experiences to discuss successes and challenges of this transition. We thus underline the instructive value of the Cuban experience regarding the path to agrifood system sustainability and hope to spark new collaborative opportunities as scholars and citizens around the world look to develop agrifood systems that will sustain human society long into the future. Please refer to Supplementary Materials , Full text Spanish version of this article , for a full text Spanish version of this article .

This paper presents a review of relevant literature and research on the potential of silvopastoral systems for milk and meat production in Cuba. This work emphasizes the contribution of trees in pasture systems, which are known to improve the plant community as well as increase the productive efficiency of steers, reproductive females and dairy cattle. Results from this research suggest that, due to the association effect, both the availability of dry matter and the total protein content of gramineous plants is increased in pastoral systems that incorporate trees while also maintaining pasture. In systems of gramineous plants that have been mixed with Leucaena leucocephala and that support cows of average potential, it is possible to obtain milk production of 10 kg/cow/day in addition to live-weight gains of 0.500–0.600 kg/animal day –1 in Cebú cattle. This work concludes that the use of silvopastoral systems is a viable option for the production of milk and meat under low-input conditions, such as those in Cuba. Please refer to Supplementary Materials , Full text Spanish version of this article , for a full text Spanish version of this article .

Humanity has never lived in a world of global average temperature above two degrees of current levels. Moving towards such High-End Climate Change (HECC) futures presents fundamental challenges to current governance structures and involves the need to confront high uncertainties, non-linear dynamics and multiple irreversibilities in global social-ecological systems. In order to face HECC, imaginative practices able to support multiple ways of learning about and experiencing the future are necessary. In this article we analysed a set of arts-based activities conducted within the five-year EU-funded project IMPRESSIONS aimed at identifying transformative strategies to high-end climate change. The exploratory artistic activities were carried out alongside a science-led participatory integrated assessment process with stakeholders from the Iberian Peninsula. Our arts-based approach combined a range of performative, visual and reflexive practices with the ambition to reach out to more-than-rational but also practical elements of HECC futures. Our study suggests that the arts-based approach helped to bring out new ways of seeing, feeling and interpreting the world which may support the development of individual and collective sensibilities needed to address HECC.

Multilateral efforts are essential to an effective response to climate change, but individual nations define climate action policy by translating local and global objectives into adaptation and mitigation actions. We propose a conceptual framework to explore opportunities for polycentric climate governance, understanding polycentricity as a property that encompasses the potential for coordinating multiple centers of semiautonomous decision-making. We assert that polycentrism engages a diverse array of public and private actors for a more effective approach to reducing the threat of climate change. In this way, polycentrism may provide an appropriate strategy for addressing the many challenges of climate governance in the Anthropocene. We review two Chilean case studies: Chile’s Nationally Determined Contribution on Climate Change and the Chilean National Climate Change Action Plan. Our examination demonstrates that Chile has included a diversity of actors and directed significant financial resources to both processes. The central government coordinated both of these processes, showing the key role of interventions at higher jurisdictional levels in orienting institutional change to improve strategic planning and better address climate change. Both processes also provide some evidence of knowledge co-production, while at the same time remaining primarily driven by state agencies and directed by technical experts. Efforts to overcome governance weaknesses should focus on further strengthening existing practices for climate change responses, establishing new institutions, and promoting decision-making that incorporates diverse social actors and multiple levels of governance. In particular, stronger inclusion of local level actors provides an opportunity to enhance polycentric modes of governance and improve climate change responses. Fully capitalizing on this opportunity requires establishing durable communication channels between different levels of governance.

In this article, I explore four California-based eco-utopias: The Earth Abides ( George Stewart, 1949 ), Ecotopia ( Ernest Callenbach, 1975 ), Pacific Edge ( Kim Stanley Robinson, 1990 ), and Snow Crash ( Neal Stephenson, 1992 ). All four novels were written during, and deeply informed by, the Cold War (Although published in 1992, Snow Crash was clearly written toward the end of the Cold War and in the shadow of Soviet implosion), against a backdrop of imminent nuclear holocaust and a doubtful future. Since then, climate change has replaced the nuclear threat as a looming existential dilemma, on which a good deal of writing about the future is focused. Almost 70 years after the appearance of The Earth Abides, and 40 years after the publication of Ecotopia, eco-utopian imaginaries now seem both poignant yet more necessary than ever, given the tension between the anti-environmental proclivities of the Trump Administration, on the one hand, and the tendency of climate change to suck all of the air out of the room, on the other. And with drought, fire, flood, wind and climate change so much in the news, it is increasingly difficult to imagine eco-utopias of any sort; certainly they are not part of the contemporary zeitgeist—except in the minds of architects, bees and futurists, perhaps. But does this mean there is no point in thinking about them, or seeking insights that might make our future more sustainable? This article represents an attempt to revive eco-utopian visions and learn from them.

This article explores how the Welsh Government’s recent policy innovations in climate change and environmental sustainability can be read in terms of their imaginative capacity for transformation. The Welsh Government is one of only a few governments in the world to have a legal duty to sustainable development, which includes the pioneering Well-being of Future Generations Act (2015). The legislation has received international attention and praise from the United Nations but, as yet, the Welsh Government’s imaginaries of socioecological transformation have received little scrutiny regarding the kinds of ideas about the future and possibilities for change they set in motion. The article considers imaginaries as providing the very grounds of possibility for transformation, being comprised of stories and narratives about what kinds of futures are possible and desirable, intermingled with emotional-affective “atmospheres” that can promote or hinder people’s engagement with environmental issues. The article focuses on three aspects of the Welsh Government’s imaginaries related to socioecological transformation, namely; resilience and anticipatory discourse, linear time, and “conspiracies of optimism”. A number of tensions are drawn out that highlight how the Welsh Government’s seemingly progressive rhetoric risks being undermined by the conceptions of time and change it employs. Thus, the article contributes to wider critical analyses of how new politics and modes of governance of and for the (proposed) Anthropocene are taking shape.

We present a quantitative analysis of global and regional food supply to reveal the flows of calories, protein and the micro-nutrients vitamin A, iron and zinc, from production through to human consumption and other end points. We quantify the extent to which reductions in the amount of human-edible crops fed to animals and, less importantly, reductions in waste, could increase food supply. The current production of crops is sufficient to provide enough food for the projected global population of 9.7 billion in 2050, although very significant changes to the socio-economic conditions of many (ensuring access to the global food supply) and radical changes to the dietary choices of most (replacing most meat and dairy with plant-based alternatives, and greater acceptance of human-edible crops currently fed to animals, especially maize, as directly-consumed human food) would be required. Under all scenarios, the scope for biofuel production is limited. Our analysis finds no nutritional case for feeding human-edible crops to animals, which reduces calorie and protein supplies. If society continues on a ‘business-as-usual’ dietary trajectory, a 119% increase in edible crops grown will be required by 2050.

John Brunner’s 1972 novel, The Sheep Look Up , is the story of the year leading up to a global ecological and political catastrophe. Set primarily in the United States in an unspecified near future, The Sheep Look Up tells the story of “death by a thousand cuts”: problem upon problem, malfeasance upon malfeasance, which accumulate, reinforce each other and are met only by a failing political and economic system that ultimately collapses under its own weight. This article reflects on themes and topics of the novel that resonate for social science theorists and teachers in the environmental social sciences, including global environmental politics. First, it provides a type of counterfactual analysis. It opens a window into how the world might have been had certain actions not been taken. Second, it provides a warning: how the world might be if we do not act. Third, it provides a model of how a disastrous transition might unfold as social resilience has been worn down. Looking back on the almost fifty years since the novel was written demonstrates how its scenario was averted through concerted government and societal actions, but the article also points out how Brunner’s work has strong resonance with our present – and at different times in the recent past.

This commentary analyzes the ontological character of the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ( 2005 ) and its attempt to imagine business-as-usual and transformative human-environmental futures. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) constitutes the first and most significant attempt by an international political body to incorporate environmental concerns into the field of imaginative scenario building. In addition to its lengthy report on the threatened status of planetary ecosystems, the MA contains extensive “future scenarios” that imagine how human-environmental relations might unfold over the course of the twenty-first century. These scenarios arise out of the lineage of military scenarios generated during the Cold War, and continue to inform UN assessments in the present. This commentary explores how a politico-military concern for security informs the framework of the scenarios, and limits how the MA characterizes the fundamental human act of narration. In the process, the commentary explores alternative ontologies of narration and how these may lead to more transformative narratological interventions.

Colleges and universities have played a critical role in the growing social movement to divest institutional endowments from fossil fuels. While campus activism on fossil fuel divestment has been driven largely by students and alumni, faculty are also advocating to their administrators for institutional divestment from fossil fuels. This article characterizes the role of faculty by reviewing signatories to publicly available letters that endorse fossil fuel divestment. Analysis of 30 letters to administrators signed by faculty at campuses throughout the United States and Canada reveals support for divestment from 4550 faculty across all major fields of inquiry and scholarship, and all types of faculty positions. Of these signers, more than 225 have specific expertise in climate change or energy. An in-depth analysis of 18 of these letters shows that a significantly greater proportion of tenured faculty sign open letters of support for divestment than do not-yet-tenured tenure-track faculty (15.4% versus 10.7%), perhaps reflecting concerns among not-yet-tenured faculty that such support might jeopardize their career advancement. This analysis suggests that faculty support for the divestment movement is more widespread than commonly recognized; this movement is more mainstream, and broader-based, than is often recognized. Revealing the scope and scale of faculty support for fossil fuel divestment may encourage additional faculty to engage, support and endorse this growing social movement that highlights the social impact of investment decisions, and calls upon colleges and universities to align their investment practices with their academic missions and values.

Brazil has global importance for food production and conservation of natural resources. The country has plans to increase yields and commitments to decrease deforestation that require higher productivity. Plans and policies for the growth of Brazilian agriculture, however, have been made without an integrated analysis of the harvest and not supported by a universal metric regarding its efficiency. Applying methods to model flows of energy and matter along food supply chains for agricultural production from 1975 to 2006, we found that crop and cattle harvests and their productivity have increased during the last four decades in consolidated and deforestation frontier regions. Yet in 2006, crop protein production was 20 times larger than cattle protein, using an area 2.6 times smaller than pastures. Crop protein productivity was 0.25 ton.ha –1 with emissions of 2 ton GHG per ton of protein, while cattle productivity was 0.01 ton.ha –1 with emissions of 283 ton GHG per ton of protein. From 1975 to 2006, the portion of crop protein and energy going to feed increased while the portion going to direct human consumption decreased. Our findings suggest that more efficient food systems would be achieved by a combination of intensification of cattle systems, optimization of feed-meat systems and an increase in the share of the consumption of crops as a source of protein. We suggest an initial road map to the expansion of the cultivated area and intensification of agriculture for zero deforestation, efficient and sustainable land use and food systems where cattle pasture intensification is a transition that will last until the expansion of crops replace all pasture present on suitable arable land. During this transition, pasture area will decrease until it is limited only to marginal non-arable lands. Such change could be achieved by a robust strategy that combines penalties and incentives and prevents the risks of a rebound effect for the intensification of agriculture.

The resilience of buildings and food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) to natural or manmade disruptions are closely linked. The resilience of a building goes beyond the safety of its structural elements and must include the resilience of its supporting systems and the services they supply. The resilience of FEWS, in turn, can increase through design elements of a building that affect generation and storage of FEW resources. In this commentary, I discuss increasing the resilience of buildings and their linked FEWS—improving their resistance, absorption, restoration, and adaptive capacities—through new integrated systems design practices. I begin with a discussion of the current state of building design at the FEW nexus. I then use the prior establishment and current use of sustainability design objectives as an analogue to developing and implementing resilience design objectives. I review progress and limitations of specific drivers for increasing resilient design practices, including economic incentives, regulations, extralegal programs and initiatives, and societal incentives. My recommendations for leveraging these drivers to increase resilient design include: for economic incentives, quantify the costs and benefits to make the business case for resilience; for formal regulations, specify increased building requirements with performance-based resilience objectives; for extralegal initiatves, integrate these resilience objectives with existing certification programs and award designs that address FEWS as an integrated network rather than as disparate systems; and for societal incentives, demonstrate public benefit to shift societal perceptions of resilience. Together, these actions will motivate the design of more resilient building and FEW systems to increase their longevity, performance, and robustness.