SMART Futures for a Flourishing World

2021 | Philosophy, Psychology & Social Sciences

We know we have to change but the question is how. Many of us feel powerless to solve the looming climate crisis, water crisis, food crisis, ocean pollution crisis and all other challenges that are enumerated by the 17 global sustainable development goals.

How do we get to a safe, just space for humanity? We see the clock ticking as Covid Pandemic lingers on and as we enter the “climate decade,” the ten-year period where our actions will determine the kind of world our children will live in.

How do we move from a state of ‘future shock’ to ‘future sense’? If we can build Smart cars, clothes, houses, cities and so on can we find a way to create smart futures? How might we find our way to sharing a flourishing future?

'SMART Futures for a Flourishing World' helps us see glimpses of our aspirational futures as far afield as the year 3000, and lays out a path for our journey to global sustainability.

Dr. Claire A. Nelson combines lessons from her career focused on international development and sustainability engineering with her personal experience in systems change making to share how show how a few, seemingly simple questions can create the conditions for improved design thinking and lead to significant transformational change.

Using stories of aspirational futures as a guide, SMART Futures takes us on a journey through myth and speculative fiction tinged with Afrofuturist sentiments that offer a decolonized perspective of preferred futures narratives -- then shows us how asking the right five questions can help us make the paradigm shift needed to achieve a flourishing world.

Praise for SMART Futures for a Flourishing World
"In Smart Futures for a flourishing World, you meet an imaginative power that goes beyond the most of expected horizons. In this fairy tale from the long and not so long distant future, Claire Nelson, not only force us to think through some basic social political perspectives" - ERIK F. ØVERLAND PH.D., PRESIDENT, WORLD FUTURES STUDIES FEDERATION

"What emerges is a set of design truths that should capture our attention and activate us to mobilize. Dr. Nelson weaves a compelling perspective on our collective future as a single human race and establishes a visionary and principled foundation of sustainability, morality, agency, resilience, and technology, that is inspirationally moving." - PROFESSOR KEMPER LEWIS, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, UNIVERSITY OF BUFFALO

"This book is a unique seed of hope accompanied by exclusive nourishment of Dr.Claire Nelson's matchless wisdom. The result is this audacious volume that bonds us all at the primal level of chills that accurate prophesies send down our spine. Yet it maintains a gentle sense of humor poking fun at,while warning in no uncertain terms against our shortsighted, misguided priorities." - PROFESSOR SIRIN TEKINAY, CHAIR, GLOBAL ENGINEERING DEANS COUNCIL

"This visionary synthesis of our current global situation uses the tools of science fiction, prophecy, and policy analysis in combination to make a compelling description of where we are and where we could get to, in terms of making a good future for humanity." - KIM STANLEY ROBINSON, BESTSELLING SCIENCE FICTION AUTHOR

Claire A. Nelson (Author)