Call For Essays: The Future of Green

What does environmentalism look like in the 21st century?

Earlier this year, leading environmentalist Mark Lynas apologised for his role in opposing genetically modified crops, telling a group of academics “I was wrong”. This November, director Robert Stone releases Pandora’s Promise, a film that urges environmentalists to embrace nuclear energy. What’s going on? Are these just blips, or is the green movement undergoing a sea change?

Futures Exchange is looking for essays that answer the question: What does 21st century environmentalism look like? Can a love of high science, technology, and design transport environmentalism away from its image of hairshirt vegans and recast it as the lifestyle choice of an energy- and resource-intensive generation? We want your views on topics such as:

• Did we fail to prevent the environmental catastrophe that 1970s Greens forewarned? If so, should environmentalism focus on surviving the apocalypse instead of preventing it?
• How do we harness the power of science and technology to meet environmentalist goals?
• Does environmentalism need big enemies like nuclear and GM to rail against? How does it express itself without these?
• Do lab-grown burgers offer the potential for zero-carbon meat production?
• Is international consensus and action on green issues (carbon footprints, fishing quotas, poaching) too difficult or even impossible? If so, how can citizens exploit an interconnected world to organise their own efforts?
• Is de-extinction an exercise in environmentalism, or nostalgia?
• Can the goals of environmentalism be assimilated into design challenges? Can we redesign the inner workings of our world so that it looks just the same, but acts greener?
• Is environmental destruction a symptom of too much technology, or not enough?
• What does “natural” mean in an age of geo-engineering and synthetic biology? How does this shape our view of conservation?
• Can a smartphone ever be green? Or are some of our current fixations simply incompatible with environmentalism?
• Are we over-reliant on technological fixes? Is the iPads-for-Africa meme more about ideology than intervention?
• Are plastic bag taxes an example of genuine green policies or populist pseudo-environmentalism?
• Five years after his last Viridian letter, is Bruce Sterling’s bright green design movement dead, or just sleeping?