Welcome to Wales in 2051

A vision we can achieve, told through a series of characters living in 2051

Over the next few weeks, Camille Løvgreen and Dr Karolina Rucinska will share six stories to inspire the existing generation to take a creative approach to solving issues that previous generations have left for us.

Inspired by CAST’s social visions of low-carbon futures report, the manifesto by the Ministry of Imagination, Ciprian Sipos’ posts about future jobs, and Climate Outreach, Karolina and Camille hope to show readers that everyone can play a huge role in achieving a sustainable present and future.

More importantly, through these stories, they want to focus on the role of skills and enabling environments to illustrate that we need all kinds of ideas, people, and institutions working together as one creative hive mind. These stories make up part of Karolina’s and Camille’s current work on green skills, alongside a series of green skills events and advice sessions.

Here is what they said:

“Nothing moves us like a good story. Through storytelling, we can imagine the future we are working towards, build hope and momentum, and come together to take collective action. These six characters and their setting let us talk, creatively, about big ideas without using big words. This makes it possible for everyone to see how they fit into the current and future world visions.” – Karolina

“The idea of exploring these characters through an imagined society with different operating structures and a different priority on the way we live is not only to imagine what a healthy coexistence between people and planet may look like, but to explore how quality of life can improve with a deeper connection to the people around us.” – Camille 

What can you expect?

The stories start by setting the scene for what it is like to live in Wales in 2051. 

Each week, they introduce a character who describes their day. In doing so, they talk about things that have always mattered to us as human beings: home, food, community, education, health, safety, and a sense of belonging. 

These characters are:

  • Adi – a civil engineer with an expertise in environmental resilience
  • Cameron – a young school boy, friend of Adi and son of Luke
  • Luke – a family man and business owner
  • Aman – a community farmer
  • Cleo – a doctor
  • Gwen-Eddo – a policy-maker 
  • The narrator, whose name is unknown, who works as a correspondent for a leading news agency

Each story leads on to the next, showing how we are all connected directly and indirectly and can positively influence each other’s lives.

They kick off the story by setting the scene in which a correspondent sends a message to editors of a leading news agency about the tour around Wales in…2051!

Read on for the first edition in the series…

Setting the Scene

In this first post, Karolina and Camille outline the world as they see it in 2051.

It’s 2051, just a year after what leaders of the past called the Net Zero deadline. Although the emissions continued to reduce over the decades, only a few benefitted from the shift to low-carbon economies. Why? Worldwide, the transition was a disaster. There was a lack of planning, of imagination and foresight, of inclusion and system thinking. Everything that was not meant to happen…happened. Between 2024 and 2035, the world experienced mass unemployment, instability, closure of borders, the collapse of ecosystems, barren agricultural fields, reversal of human rights, and the collapse of economies.

A year after the big two-oh-five-zero, a leading news agency correspondent visited nations worldwide to see how they were doing. Most people had forgotten what 2050 was about, but a few remembered. 

Here is the reporter’s correspondence to the editors:

I have made it at last. 
As you know, Wales, like other nations, was not spared. But…after a decade of the Great Discontent, when everything seemed to be going wrong, from the economy to the environment to social systems, they did something spectacular – and yet pretty simple. Here is what I have been able to gather so far. 
Firstly, they – that is, everyone from school teachers to policymakers to community leaders and influencers – took the lessons from what had gone wrong. Some outcomes were their own doing, and some were not. In fact, many were the result of actions by previous generations, some going back hundreds of years! Because there was nobody left from those generations to blame, a farmer called Aman told me, it was a blessing in disguise. They could move past talking about the problems facing their communities, and towards taking action to fix them. One of the inspiring people I met, Adi, said, “We knew there was no point in just talking about our problems any longer. We couldn't change the past, and we are living in the reality of them today.”
Secondly, they went back to the recommendations their predecessors had made over the decades and decided to finally implement them, keeping in line with the principles of sustainable development. Their leaders, from all political parties, communities and businesses, adopted the mantra, “We are better than division, we are better than fear, and greed; we are a nation of sanctuary to people and nature, we can't live without nature and we can't rebuild lives without people.” I thought this was pretty inspiring, but I wasn't sure how real it was. 
Well, I saw for myself that they implemented the Well-being of Future Generations Act, which they had dug up from decades-old documentation, to its full! They started by acting on what mattered to them the most. One of the leaders, a business owner named Luke, told me: “When we remind ourselves we are the homo resilient, living here in service of this planet and honouring the past and the present, we achieve all and more than our predecessors dreamt about.”
I know what you are thinking: "Ah, of course someone would say that if they knew they were going to be interviewed by a leading news agency.” I thought that too, but just wait until you hear more. 
Sorry for this short message. But having spent just one day here, I think these folks have mastered the art of the possible. 
This is all I have to say for now. I will update you again in a week!

Would you like to know more about Wales in 2051? Next week’s story follows Adi, a civil engineer, who spends a day showing the news correspondent around. 

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