Alex Steffen (born c. 1968 in Oakland, California) [1] [2] is an American futurist [3] and advocate of 'bright green environmentalism' who writes and speaks about sustainability and the future of the planet. He emphasizes the importance of imagining persuasive, positive possible futures: "It's literally true that we can't build what we can't imagine,... The fact that we haven't compellingly imagined a thriving, dynamic, sustainable world is a major reason we don't already live in one." [4]
From 2003 to 2010, Steffen was executive editor at the website Worldchanging . Worldchanging practiced "solutions-based journalism". The non-profit organization announced that the goal of its work was to highlight new solutions to what the editorial team saw as the planet's most pressing problems, rather than to spread news of those problems or critiques of their causes.[ citation needed ]
The site won or was nominated for a number of awards and prizes, including winning the Utne Independent Press Award (2005), finalist for a Webby for Best Blog (2006), finalist for a Webby for Best Magazine and Bloggie awards for Best Group Weblog and Best Writing for a Weblog (2007), won the Green Prize for Sustainable Literature for its book, won Organic Design Award, Prix Ars Electronica nominee, and in 2008 was named a Webby Official Honoree.[ citation needed ]
In November 2006, Steffen published a survey of global innovation, Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st century ( ISBN 978-0810930957), with a foreword by Al Gore, design by Stefan Sagmeister and with an introduction by Bruce Sterling. A new, updated edition, with a foreword by Van Jones and an introduction by Bill McKibben, was published in 2011.[ citation needed ]
In 2012, Steffen released Carbon Zero: Imagining Cities That Can Save the Planet, [5] a book which explored the innovations and policy changes that a North American city would need to make to become carbon neutral.[ citation needed ]
In 2013, he became "Planetary Futurist in Residence" at the design company IDEO. [6]
In 2016, Steffen successfully ran a crowd-funding campaign for The Heroic Future, a three-part series of documentaries on how we might imagine a sustainable future. The theme was "you cannot build what you cannot imagine". The series was filmed in front of a live audience over three nights in September 2016 at the Marines' Memorial Theatre in San Francisco. [7]
In 2017, following the election of President Donald Trump, Steffen modified his style to a form of "anticipatory journalism", taking the same themes as The Heroic Future and setting them in the near future, post-Trump. This series of newsletters are titled The Nearly Now. [8]
Steffen is a frequent public speaker and has spoken at TED, [9] Poptech, Design Indaba, Amsterdam's PicNic, The Royal Geographical Society [10] and New Delhi's Doors of Perception. [11] As well as keynote addresses at industry events like the AIGA [12] and IDSA [13] national conferences, O'Reilly's Emerging Technologies (eTech), [14] FOO Camp and the Business Expo Bright Green held during the Copenhagen Climate Summit. [15] Steffen has given keynote speeches at three different South by Southwest conferences (SxSW). [16] He has also spoken at universities including Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Stanford and the London School of Economics. [17]
The Viridian Design Movement was an aesthetic movement focused on concepts from bright green environmentalism. The name was chosen to refer to a shade of green that does not quite look natural, indicating that the movement was about innovative design and technology, in contrast with the "leaf green" of traditional environmentalism. The movement tied together environmental design, techno-progressivism, and global citizenship. It was founded in 1998 by Bruce Sterling, a postcyberpunk science fiction author. Sterling always remained the central figure in the movement, with Alex Steffen perhaps the next best-known. Steffen, Jamais Cascio, and Jon Lebkowsky, along with some other frequent contributors to Sterling's Viridian notes, formed the Worldchanging blog. Sterling wrote the introduction to Worldchanging's book, which is considered the definitive volume on bright green thinking. Sterling formally closed the Viridian movement in 2008, saying there was no need to continue its work now that bright green environmentalism had emerged.
Techno-progressivism, or tech-progressivism, is a stance of active support for the convergence of technological change and social change. Techno-progressives argue that technological developments can be profoundly empowering and emancipatory when they are regulated by legitimate democratic and accountable authorities to ensure that their costs, risks and benefits are all fairly shared by the actual stakeholders to those developments. One of the first mentions of techno-progressivism appeared within extropian jargon in 1999 as the removal of "all political, cultural, biological, and psychological limits to self-actualization and self-realization".
TED Conferences, LLC is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". It was founded by Richard Saul Wurman and Harry Marks in February 1984 as a technology conference, in which Mickey Schulhof gave a demo of the compact disc that was invented in October 1982. Its main conference has been held annually since 1990. It covers almost all topics—from science to business to global issues—in more than 100 languages.
Sir Jonathon Espie Porritt, 2nd Baronet, CBE is a British environmentalist and writer. He is known for his advocacy of the Green Party of England and Wales. Porritt frequently contributes to magazines, newspapers and books, and appears on radio and television.
Jon Lebkowsky is an American web consultant/developer, author, and activist who was the co-founder of FringeWare Review. FringeWare, an early attempt at ecommerce and online community, published a popular "magalog" called FringeWare Review, and a literary zine edited by Lebkowsky called Unshaved Truths. FringeWare's email list, called the FringeWare News Network, established an international following for the organization, which also opened a store in Austin, Texas.
An eco-city or ecocity is "a human settlement modeled on the self-sustaining resilient structure and function of natural ecosystems", as defined by Ecocity Builders. Simply put, an eco-city is an ecologically healthy city. The World Bank defines eco-cities as "cities that enhance the well-being of citizens and society through integrated urban planning and management that harness the benefits of ecological systems and protect and nurture these assets for future generations". Although there is no universally accepted definition of an 'eco-city', among available definitions, there is some consensus on the basic features of an eco-city.
Worldchanging was a nonprofit online publisher that operated from 2003 to 2010. Its strapline was A bright green future. It published newsletters and books about sustainability, bright green environmentalism, futurism and social innovation.
Bright green environmentalism is an environmental philosophy and movement that emphasizes the use of advanced technology, social innovation, eco-innovation, and sustainable design to address environmental challenges. This approach contrasts with more traditional forms of environmentalism that may advocate for reduced consumption or a return to simpler lifestyles.
The Great Green Wall, officially known as the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, also known as the Three-North Shelterbelt Program, is a series of human-planted windbreaking forest strips (shelterbelts) in China, designed to hold back the expansion of the Gobi Desert, and provide timber to the local population. The program started in 1978, and is planned to be completed around 2050, at which point it will be 4,500 kilometres (2,800 mi) long.
Green growth is a concept in economic theory and policymaking used to describe paths of economic growth that are environmentally sustainable. It is based on the understanding that as long as economic growth remains a predominant goal, a decoupling of economic growth from resource use and adverse environmental impacts is required. As such, green growth is closely related to the concepts of green economy and low-carbon or sustainable development. A main driver for green growth is the transition towards sustainable energy systems. Advocates of green growth policies argue that well-implemented green policies can create opportunities for employment in sectors such as renewable energy, green agriculture, or sustainable forestry.
350.org is an international environmental organization addressing the climate crisis. Its stated goal is to end the use of fossil fuels and transition to renewable energy by building a global, grassroots movement.
Karen Christiana Figueres Olsen is a Costa Rican diplomat who has led national, international and multilateral policy negotiations. She was appointed Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in July 2010, six months after the failed COP15 in Copenhagen. During the next six years she worked to rebuild the global climate change negotiating process, leading to the 2015 Paris Agreement, widely recognized as a historic achievement.
Worldchanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century is a book about environmental concerns and practical actual responses. It is a compendium of the solutions, ideas and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future. In November 2006, Worldchanging published a survey of global innovation, with a foreword by Al Gore, design by Stefan Sagmeister and an introduction by Bruce Sterling. It has received praise, was a winner of the 2007 "Green Prize" for sustainability literature, and is being translated into French under the title Change Le Monde, German and several other languages. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., the publisher of the hardcover edition, listed it among their 50 best selling titles in July 2008.
Green urbanism has been defined as the practice of creating communities beneficial to humans and the environment. According to Timothy Beatley, it is an attempt to shape more sustainable places, communities and lifestyles, and consume less of the world's resources. Urban areas are able to lay the groundwork of how environmentally integrated and sustainable city planning can both provide and improve environmental benefits on the local, national, and international levels. Green urbanism is interdisciplinary, combining the collaboration of landscape architects, engineers, urban planners, ecologists, transport planners, physicists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and other specialists in addition to architects and urban designers.
Cavan Huang is a creative director, designer, and design educator. He attended McGill University in Montreal where received his BA in history and urban planning. Huang then studied at Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island, where he received his MFA in graphic design in 2005. He creates digital ideas, products and experiences that make meaningful impact for brands and organizations. Much of his inspiration comes from the details of cities, lights, traffic, sounds, and people. Huangs work can be found in Contemporary Graphic Design, The New York Times, Ad Age, a PBS documentary, the Time Warner Center, AIGA, TED, Cannes Lions, the Webby Awards, and the White House.
Jamais Cascio is a San Francisco Bay Area–based author and futurist.
Climate change education (CCE) is education that aims to address and develop effective responses to climate change. It helps learners understand the causes and consequences of climate change, prepares them to live with the impacts of climate change and empowers learners to take appropriate actions to adopt more sustainable lifestyles. Climate change and climate change education are global challenges that can be anchored in the curriculum in order to provide local learning and widen up mindset shifts on how climate change can be mitigated. In such as case CCE is more than climate change literacy but understanding ways of dealing with climate
Solarpunk is a literary and artistic movement, close to the hopepunk movement, that envisions and works toward actualizing a sustainable future interconnected with nature and community. The "solar" represents solar energy as a renewable energy source and an optimistic vision of the future that rejects climate doomerism, while the "punk" refers to do it yourself and the countercultural, post-capitalist, and sometimes decolonial aspects of creating such a future.
Stuart Candy is an Australian futurist and designer. Candy is a Fellow of the World Futures Studies Federation, Museum of Tomorrow. He is the first Research Fellow of The Long Now Foundation. His work deals with futurism and designing experiential futures through immersive storytelling.
Span is an American multidisciplinary studio in Chicago, Illinois, specializing in identity design, branding, exhibition design, environmental graphics, motion graphics, interactive design, and publications. It was founded in 2020 by Bud Rodecker and John Pobojewski who both worked at the design studio Thirst with Rick Valicenti. In 2023, Nick Adam became Associate Partner.
Alex Steffen ... the 41-year-old
Alex Steffen, the executive editor of www.worldchanging.com, ... Mr. Steffen, 40
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