Our starting premises

The situation is dire. The latest science tells us that today’s best efforts to repair the status quo will not avert damaging climate change. And that is not the only issue. Biodiversity loss, inequality and more combine to make one conclusion: a world where 9 billion people trying to live like Western consumers do now will be deeply dangerous.

But we believe a prosperous tomorrow is possible. Throughout history, there have been profound shifts where a new future has been born from a struggling status quo. Such shifts, like the Renaissance or Industrial Revolution, went beyond innovating technologies. Instead, there was a repatterning of how societies are organised and governed, their economic models, societal goals, underpinning culture and beliefs.

Part of what drove past transformations was greater human agency – more people creating, sharing and using more knowledge – plus new, cheap sources of abundant energy. Today AI and renewables could provide the same platform, if only they could be used well. Also, today there exist many examples of emerging institutions and ideas that are attempts at the repatterning needed.

Now is the time for transformation. Now is the time to divert our collective imaginations and resources out of repairing the old – and into creating the new. Each of us have something unique and wonderful to contribute.

And yet, there is no known way forward. We are inspired by history, but today’s shift has to be faster, deeper and more global than anything humankind has ever experienced. Non-linear risks require exponential responses.