Despite warnings from climate scientists, governments still struggle to plan long-term. “In short, political discourse seems to have no grasp of events beyond the short-term logic of economic forces. This is why our leaders find it so difficult to be honest with voters.” (P2) Leaders brand themselves as realists, who conjure up short-term, practical solutions. Wood argues “this aversion to risk has shortened our depth of field”.
For bottom-up ideas to take hold we can rely on positive feedback, especially now with the internet and the ease it provides in sharing ideas. We can dare to dream bigger and “the horizon of ‘thinkable’ has broadened immensely” (p4).
Global issues are seen as problems not opportunities, “why are we so reluctant to discuss how we would like to live when fossil fuels have gone? More surprisingly, why do we seem unable to imagine how we would like to live?” (P8) And how do we avoid answering with the ideals that have been created for us by advertisers?
We must recognise the difference between unthinkable and unattainable.
“Mapping the boundaries between the ‘thinkable’ and the ‘unthinkable’ will be an important task for ‘micro-utopians’. Generally speaking, for human beings, the ‘unthinkable’ is synonymous with the ‘unattainable’. This suggests that, merely by moving some issues from the category of ‘unthinkable’ to ‘thinkable’ we could achieve what was hitherto seen as ‘impossible’. All of these terms are, to some extent, subject to change, adaptation, and innovation. It is wise to dream beyond what we currently believe to be attainable. Once we have done so, the next step is to co-imagine the dream in a more shareable form. This means exchanging dreams and seeing how they can be conjoined to enhance one another. The third step is to check that we really want what we have dreamed. The fourth step is to see how much of the dream is attainable. The fifth step is to share the task of producing and sharing the dream. If enough people try to connect their 'micro-utopias' together it may be possible to achieve a global 'synergy of synergies' (Fuller, 1975). “ (p13)