Reflections

Wide awake at 4 am, I walk through empty hotel corridors as I wait for the sun to rise over Lima which apparently is the second-driest world capital after Cairo. Home to more than ten million people, Lima again reminds me how starkly different most people’s everyday life is from my own tranquil existence at the shores of Nydalasjön. Always a sucker for contrasts, the adrenaline rush traffic along Costa Verde last night made it evidently clear that this is indeed a world away from Umeå.

After reading another pessimistic research paper about the future, I was very happy to see that Jon’s new book is now officially announced by Polity. As FM-2030 once pointed out, this should be a time of radical optimism, not backsliding into Retrotopia. Despite all the immense challenges that we are facing, it is important to remember that our collective potential as a species is far greater than at any previous time in history, now all we need is political agency and determination.