Episode 105
Live from Beyond Oil 2025: Actionable Hope in a Changing Climate Future.
In this special episode of Stories for the Future, I moderate a panel at the Beyond Oil Conference 2025: Changing Climate Futures conference in Bergen.
Our theme: Actionable Hope in a Changing Climate Future.
We talk about what hope does when the world feels like it’s unraveling — and what it looks like when hope becomes something you act on.
In this episode you’ll hear voices from science, media, creative arts and strategy — and come away with ideas for how to lean into hope, not just as a feeling, but as a modality of change.
👥 Panel & Conference Links
Here are the people on the panel and links to their work so you can dive deeper:
- Kikki Flesche Kleiven — Director of the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research, University of Bergen. Marine geologist by training; leads a large interdisciplinary climate‑research centre.
- Petter Gulli — Founder & Chief Hope Officer at 12YEARS; an outspoken climate optimist, strategist and author of HOPE – A practical guide for climate optimists.
- Thea Emilie Maubach‑Vindnes — Spokesperson for the media initiative Verdens Beste Nyheter (“The World’s Best News”), and also affiliated with the civil‑society group Changemaker. Verdens beste nyheter
- Anne Beate Hovind — Chair of the Future Library project. This is a century‑long literary/art project where 1,000 trees were planted in Nordmarka, and each year one author contributes a manuscript, to be published in 2114. About the project: https://www.futurelibrary.no/ futurelibrary.no
- Conference reference: Beyond Oil 2025: Changing Climate Futures — An interdisciplinary, international biennial conference hosted by the Centre for Climate and Energy Transformation (CET) at the University of Bergen.
- Conference website: https://www.uib.no/en/cet/173079/beyond-oil-2025-changing-climate-futures
Want to be a guest on Stories for the future: Beyond the Bubble? Send Veslemoy Klavenes-Berge a message on PodMatch.
You can always find more information about the podcast and my work on storiesforthefuture.com
Transcript
Welcome to Stories for the Future, the podcast about visionary ideas, urgent change, and the people daring to shape a better future.
Speaker A:I'm beslemajlavnesparge as always, and today's episode is something a little different and quite special, I would say.
Speaker A: ing a panel at The Beyond Oil: Speaker A:The session was called Actionable Hope in a Changing Climate Future and it brought together voices from climate, science, media, business and the arts, all exploring how we find energy to act in a world that often feels overwhelming.
Speaker A:I will admit stepping into an academic setting like this, a bit outside my usual world, at least for many, many years, had me more nervous than expected, at least for the first few minutes.
Speaker A:I'm editing that part out so you won't hear it, but it really was a surprise to me because I thought that I don't know anyone here so there's no need for me to be nervous.
Speaker A:But that was exactly what I worse so isn't it interesting how our bodies and nerves sometimes just place us a little trick, but anyway, it's in.
Speaker A:It's also interesting regarding the different worlds that we work in and move between, how the settings can kind of surprise you a little bit.
Speaker A:After I had settled my nerves a little bit, my panel was so great and the conversation that followed was really interesting.
Speaker A:Warm, honest and energizing.
Speaker A:I would say.
Speaker A:The panel, so knowledgeable and talking about hope from so diverse angles, really left me with a kind of hope that actually feels doable.
Speaker A:Let me now briefly introduce them.
Speaker A:Kiki Kliven, the Director of the Bjergnes center for Climate Research Pete Gurley, Chief Hope Officer and founder of 12 years Thea Emilia Maubakwindenaj from Vardensbestenijeter or World's Best News in English and Anne Beate Hoven, Chair of the Future Library Trust.
Speaker A:And you will hear them explain a little bit more about their work and themselves in the conversation.
Speaker A:So hope you enjoy it.
Speaker A:Let's dive in.
Speaker A:So to kick it off, I would love to hear from all of you what hope actually looks like in your work.
Speaker A:What does it mean to you in your work, not just in theory, but in practice.
Speaker A:And while you answer this question, please feel free to tell us a little bit more about your work so that we can understand the link between your work and hope.
Speaker A:So let's kick it off with you Kiki.
Speaker A:As our climate scientist, you're close to what is happening on the day to day basis.
Speaker A:You see them the black and White all the bad things happening, what does.
Speaker B:Hope look like for you?
Speaker B: r since I graduated my PhD in: Speaker B:I'm a field scientist, I'm a marine geologist, work with past climate changes.
Speaker B:So we go out in the ocean, we core deep sea sediments and we look at what's natural variability, how the earth actually is changing on a natural timescale as opposed to the really fast rapid changes that we're seeing now that's never been observed before.
Speaker B:And we convey that at the Bjorkno center we're both reconstructing, we're observing climate as it is changing today.
Speaker B:And we're also using climate models to show various future pathways.
Speaker B:So as the director of the center I'm meeting people from the grandparents climate action to the CEO of BP who I recently spent a lot of time with.
Speaker B:So that's a huge range of people that you meet and very different stories that being told to these groups.
Speaker B:And what it is about for me is translating the knowledge and sciences into action.
Speaker B:That's really what we want to try to do.
Speaker B:And my job is really showing that every ton of CO2 that we do not emit, that we avoid and that every adaptive thing we do matters, that's kind of creating hope.
Speaker B:And in a way my work, it's not just a feeling, it's a strategy.
Speaker B:Hope is a strategy working towards that.
Speaker B:And in my work with climate science and social communication, hope looks like when people understand that their action matters not just because we're going to fix the climate overnight, but because it's building momentum, momentum for transformation that we need we barely started is underway but it's not enough.
Speaker B:So, so you can see hope in many ways very sort of local is to see how knowledge is being integrated in shaping Bergen for a warmer, wetter, wilder future.
Speaker B:Actually putting the knowledge in the ground with what piping we need and how we're going to get rid of over water and how we're going to safekeep our little town.
Speaker B:So that's just like to see how we're using the knowledge locally but it also to see businesses that are aligning with net zero strategies or is to see which I want to talk about a little bit later, something that I just witnessing how future architects are using this knowledge when they're learning how to design houses for the future.
Speaker B:But I want to share one very short story and I'm going to do it very fast because I got challenged recently about giving people more hope.
Speaker B:So this is fun.
Speaker B:I get invited to this.
Speaker B:They call it high level meetings.
Speaker B:And this is where I met this BP CEO.
Speaker B:And everybody in the room had blue suits on or blue vests.
Speaker B:Vests are very in these days.
Speaker B:So it was just me and a room full of the top business leaders from the Nordic countries, mostly Norway.
Speaker B:And I was asked to give an update on the climate status, basically emissions, temperature, explaining why we have marine heat waves, the situation in Europe, Mediterranean this summer.
Speaker B:So it was really hardcore climate sciences that I conveyed.
Speaker B:Not a story of hope, a story of challenges.
Speaker B:A story of how 10 years after the Paris Agreement, this is where we're at.
Speaker B:And when I was finished, there was one question.
Speaker B:What is this blue suit?
Speaker B:People dare to ask me?
Speaker B:And I got really mad and I couldn't flick him off because you don't do that when you're 55 or somebody says that's exactly when you can do it.
Speaker B:But they stood up.
Speaker B:He stood up and he said, but you're not.
Speaker B:Why aren't you providing us any hope?
Speaker B:You're just like, all your curves are negative.
Speaker B:You got to give us hope and you got to have some positive stories at the end of your talk.
Speaker B:And I was like, how dare you?
Speaker B:You're like, you're like.
Speaker B:You represent billions dollars in the room, thousands of employees.
Speaker B:You're sitting on all the power.
Speaker B:You're supposed to give me hope.
Speaker B:And I was like, you got to turn this around.
Speaker B:So that's also a challenge, right?
Speaker B:That doesn't make me so hopeful.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Let's continue with you.
Speaker A:Thea, you're the youngest in the panel, so it's very interesting to hear your perspective on this.
Speaker C:Did you hear that?
Speaker D:Sorry.
Speaker E:Yes.
Speaker E:So I'm the spokesperson for the World's Best News, or which is an information campaign that has the goal of spreading positive news about, or just news about the positive effects and the change that are happening in the world.
Speaker E:And so it's based on the fact that we view the news and the media that you get today to be heavily reliant on the big red titles.
Speaker E:And it's all about breaking news, and it's all about wars and crisis and everything that's extremely negative.
Speaker E:And so we try to not take away from the negative news because obviously we need to know what's really happening in the world, but we also deserve to know the positive changes that are happening and global development, it takes time.
Speaker E:And so we try to zoom a bit out and look at the wider picture and give People the news that we think they deserve to hear and to try to work against the apathy that we see happening in that way.
Speaker E:And so hope, in a really big way is the basis of all that I do and that we do.
Speaker D:As.
Speaker E:We are called the world's best news.
Speaker E:It's obviously a quite hopeful title, but I think it's really important to have the hope while looking at and dealing with the crisis that is happening, because climate change is real and war is real, and all the crisis that the world is facing are real.
Speaker E:But in order to fight against them and in order to have the courage to stand up and to keep working, we need to know that there are other people out there that are also working to make a change.
Speaker E:And so, yeah, I would say hope is the basis of everything that I do in this work.
Speaker A:Yes, this is right up your alley, Peter.
Speaker A:I know.
Speaker A:You have literally made hope your job title.
Speaker A:Hope is your job title and also your conference, your book.
Speaker A:Yes, Hope is a big.
Speaker A:Yeah, Red.
Speaker C:It's a brand.
Speaker A:Chief Hope Officer, what does it look like for you?
Speaker C:Well, I could just say what she said and we can go.
Speaker C:No, but, yeah, I think for me it's.
Speaker C:I mean, I came from advertising, 30 years in advertising, or the turbo of a consumerism, as I like to call it.
Speaker C:And I think one of the reasons I quit my job was that I couldn't do that anymore.
Speaker C:Of course.
Speaker C:But the thing is that I also saw that I thought the environmental organizations were not communicating in the right way.
Speaker C:So my mission is that then I have a mission.
Speaker C:Then it came to when I wrote a book called A Practical Guide for Climate Optimists.
Speaker C:I found my own mission, which is we must make people want to take part, and we have to make it easy for them to contribute.
Speaker C:And we're not doing any of those.
Speaker C:So I actually also could say we have to motivate people to.
Speaker C:And that's not your leaders.
Speaker C:I mean, fuck them, honestly.
Speaker C:They're supposed to give us hope.
Speaker C:They're supposed to give their hope.
Speaker C:They're supposed to give everybody else hope.
Speaker C:But we.
Speaker C:I think we have to show people that things is possible.
Speaker C:I think there is.
Speaker C:So we can.
Speaker C:And I think we can create hope.
Speaker C:Not a flimsy, airy, wary kind of hope, but constructive hope.
Speaker C:I've collected some research from Generation Said.
Speaker C:This is your generation, by the way, who says that?
Speaker C:And I have to read this.
Speaker C:I have to read.
Speaker C:It says that Generation Said it's more likely to mobilize through hope, concrete solutions and a sense of Agency than through true doom and gloom.
Speaker C:Fair provided that hope is credible and actionable.
Speaker C:And then it has to be concrete.
Speaker C:And I think that too much doomsday, it's not going to work.
Speaker C:We have to show real progress and a greater future, that a greater future is actually possible without fossils.
Speaker C:And so I think because or else we're going to get people not just giving up.
Speaker C:And I think the most scary thing now is in the most important fight we're all going to fight is the fight against.
Speaker C:There's nothing I can do about this.
Speaker C:I think Hannah Ritchie from Our World in Data, who wrote a wonderful book called not the End of the World, can recommend that one.
Speaker C:She said, if you're already screwed, what's then the point in trying?
Speaker C:So we need to give people that kind of hope.
Speaker C:So what does hope like for me?
Speaker C:Seeing people getting energized, seeing the light.
Speaker C:I mean, I did a speech for.
Speaker C:I did a speech for young people, I did speech for the grandparents.
Speaker C:Climate action on Saturday and having them see the light in their eyes coming up.
Speaker D:Oh, wow.
Speaker C:I got energized now.
Speaker C:And that's what I see in my work.
Speaker C:That's what I'm trying to do.
Speaker C:I'm trying to show people what we can do.
Speaker C:I talk a lot about innovation, things happening, the real concrete stuff.
Speaker C:So not to make people sit back and go, oh yeah, it's already fixed.
Speaker C:But not to make people say, hey, why are we not doing more of that?
Speaker C:Why are we not doing more of that?
Speaker C:How can Sweden do this and we not.
Speaker C:How come I have to find a word in English first and then Norwegian first and then translate it and it's just renewable energy.
Speaker C:I'm trying to find Sefrin.
Speaker C:Sorry, but how come the whole world is moving so fast on that and we're doing nothing here?
Speaker C:I want that kind of stuff to happen because.
Speaker C:And people ask if there's still a light in the tunnel, why are we not heading for that light?
Speaker C:Because there is a light, but they need to see that light or they will not do anything.
Speaker C:So, yeah, I think just energizing people.
Speaker C:And I do every Monday I do a LinkedIn post called a More Positive News Morning.
Speaker C:I do that every Monday now where I list eight to 12 things that went well in the world previous week and then I can rant for the rest of the week, but I do that every Monday.
Speaker C:And who's the people thanking me for that?
Speaker C:That's interesting.
Speaker C:That's sustainability professionals.
Speaker C:All the people I know.
Speaker C:I'm not doing it for the talk audience.
Speaker C:I'm doing it for those people who say, I need those posts every Monday because I'm working with sustainability and I'm starting to feel in despair.
Speaker C:We need to get that hope amongst our own people.
Speaker C:Because if we give up, there's no hope left.
Speaker C:Okay, I think I'll stop there.
Speaker A:Okay.
Speaker A:To round it off, Anna Biata, you have this really long time horizon.
Speaker A:So what does that have to say for your.
Speaker A:How hoped pops up in your work?
Speaker D:It's quite comforting, honestly.
Speaker A:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker D: my professional Life, but in: Speaker D:She's Scottish and I think there's also people connecting to Scotland here, I heard.
Speaker D:And she proposed this artwork called the Future Library.
Speaker D:And she made it up and I had to make it happen.
Speaker D:But when she proposed to me, it's going to last for 100 years.
Speaker D:I almost.
Speaker D:Oh, no, please don't propose that.
Speaker D:And she said, we're going to grow a forest.
Speaker D:And we do.
Speaker D:Now there is a forest outside Oslo where we are growing a forest with 1,000 trees.
Speaker D:And there is a silent room in the new public library in Oslo made out of the trees that we cut before we planted new ones.
Speaker D:And we commissioned one author every year for 100 years.
Speaker D:We have 12 authors now, meaning it's been going on for 12 years.
Speaker D: unpublished and unread until: Speaker D:Nobody can read what they're writing.
Speaker D:First one was Margaret Atwood.
Speaker D:And we have Hong Kong that won the Nobel Prize.
Speaker D:We got her long before the Swedes.
Speaker D:And then just to mention, and also the last one we commissioned is Amitav Ghosh, whom I'm sure you know who is.
Speaker D:And so they have to come to Oslo.
Speaker D:They are writing this secret manuscript.
Speaker D:They come to Oslo and we go walk into the forest together.
Speaker D:It's a basic ritual and it's the most important part for the authors to walk into that forest.
Speaker D:And there's a really, really emotional ritual happening there.
Speaker D:But what's interesting about this work and as I have a 100 year contract with the municipality of Oslo, which means it is possible to commit politicians across budgets, across political parties interest and across elections.
Speaker D:It is possible.
Speaker D:So just to mention.
Speaker D:And what's interesting about this work is that it resonates with people all over the world.
Speaker D:And being together with researchers, I don't know what to say because I've been listening and it's so complicated.
Speaker D:But of course, what is that about?
Speaker D:It's across ethnicities, borders, religions, everything.
Speaker D:So for me, at least until you've done research on this, I say it's about basic human needs and that we are in need of now, that we share, that we have in common.
Speaker D:And then I want to say, what is hope?
Speaker D:What does it look like?
Speaker D:And I'm very much.
Speaker D:When the Guardian wrote an editorial about this work some years ago, and they wrote the Guardian's view on future library hope in practice, I practice.
Speaker D:I do it every day.
Speaker D:And combined with Margaret Atwood that what she taught me is about practical utopias.
Speaker D:I believe in practical utopias because practical utopias are within reach.
Speaker D:I'm done with visions almost, because I need those practical utopias.
Speaker D:So on a personal note, I think that every day, every morning, like you do, what I say is that both relational, because I think we need to go back to the relational parts of this.
Speaker D:So every time I meet one, I think, you are my practical utopia today.
Speaker D:And physically, I believe in creating beautiful things.
Speaker D:Another thing I just want to put, and then I finish, is that I think it seems like hopefully can be organized in a way, which means building communities.
Speaker D:Relational.
Speaker D:And I'm learning this now following on Instagram.
Speaker D:What's happening in the us it makes me so hopeful.
Speaker D:Not the Trump side, I'm sorry, but what I'm seeing of how seven and a half million, maybe 8 million people actually mobilized, starting local, between you and me, and then building up, and then suddenly there were 8 million.
Speaker D:Thank you for that.
Speaker A:Yeah, thank you.
Speaker A:Thank you all.
Speaker A:Great start.
Speaker A:I would like to go a bit deeper into a term that I personally feel very connected to, which is urgent optimism.
Speaker A:It's kind of.
Speaker A:I strongly feel what that is about myself.
Speaker A:So this tension between feeling the urgency of the crisis and still finding a way to keep going and looking at you, Kiki, because I can just imagine how that you must feel this urgency all the time.
Speaker A:So how do we hold both the pressure to act now and the stamina to stay hopeful in the long run?
Speaker A:So, Pete, let's start with you now.
Speaker A:How do you stay urgent without tipping over?
Speaker C:Oh, my God.
Speaker C:Well, I think.
Speaker C:Well, it's quite simple for me in one way, because I do subscribe to all these newsletters giving me positive news.
Speaker C:But I think it's hard.
Speaker C:I mean, it's really hard.
Speaker C:You want to give up sometimes.
Speaker C:This is not possible.
Speaker C:People are.
Speaker C:And I think that's something I didn't say earlier on when I said that we have to fight the fact that we have to fight the notion of there's nothing I can do about that.
Speaker C:I think Nina Figueres said it, and the UN climate boss, I think.
Speaker C:Yeah, she said on a podcast half year ago, I listened to it, and she said that we're past climate denial.
Speaker C:Nowhere is climate change deniers anymore.
Speaker C:We are in the second denial.
Speaker C:And that is.
Speaker C:It's, yes, climate change is real, but there's nothing we can do about that.
Speaker C:And I think it's not really hard to get the urgency because just read the news, you see it all the time, and you have to just try to remind people around you all that stuff.
Speaker C:But for me, and then I just need to see if I can put a positive twist to it because, I mean, I believe in what you said, right.
Speaker C:I think that hope can be created by actually showing people that something is actually happening somewhere.
Speaker C:We can.
Speaker C:Because this is happening.
Speaker C:This is happening.
Speaker C:The problem is, of course, living in Norway with oil on that.
Speaker C:You get an election and then you look at the politicians after the election and say, okay, what's gonna happen now?
Speaker C:Not sure if I answered your question, but I'm more sitting panels than like this.
Speaker C:The more politician I get, I guess.
Speaker A:So, Kiki, as a climate scientist, we talked about it before.
Speaker A:I can just imagine wanting to almost scream because the world is talking about.
Speaker A:You feel that it's so urgent that we should only be working on this in a way.
Speaker A:That is how I feel sometimes that we're talking about so unnecessary stuff.
Speaker A:How do you deal with it?
Speaker A:And you mentioned this, the blue suits, you want to scream at them.
Speaker B:Well, I think a lot of people, they think that I'm a very optimistic and very happy person.
Speaker B:And very often I am.
Speaker B:But actually, I get really angry.
Speaker B:I get extremely moody.
Speaker B:I get pissed more often angry than I'm happy.
Speaker B:And I don't think people always know that.
Speaker B:They think, oh, she must be very social.
Speaker B:No, I'm not.
Speaker B:I like to go home and be alone.
Speaker B:By that, I mean really alone.
Speaker B:I don't want to be around human beings because I get really tired of human beings married sometimes.
Speaker B:And I got to be honest about that.
Speaker B:I think it's extremely tough to convey just pure science because, you know, these numbers do not lie, right?
Speaker B:And they're rapidly increasing.
Speaker B:You know, I grew up in the 70s.
Speaker B:The CO2 in atmosphere.
Speaker B:I'm going to be a little bit scientific now.
Speaker B:Parts per million.
Speaker B:Does everybody know parts per million?
Speaker B:That's how we measure CO2 molecules in the atmosphere.
Speaker B:Ppm it's like a hot thing.
Speaker B:In the 70s it increased about 1.58 ppm per year every year.
Speaker B:The Keeling curve is famous measurements.
Speaker B:We're doing it, measuring it several places in the world.
Speaker B:Also, also in Svalbard, we're measuring CO2 in the atmosphere.
Speaker B: We've done it since: Speaker B: And before: Speaker B:So we know for a million years that we never had the content of CO2 in the atmosphere that we have now.
Speaker B:So 1.58 every year.
Speaker B:You know what it is now?
Speaker B:3.54 every year, 3.54.
Speaker B:We're leaping.
Speaker B:We're not just increasing, we're leaping year after year.
Speaker B:Hopeful urgency, climate in itself.
Speaker B:We know that we should have had that really rapid urgency in terms of mitigation.
Speaker B:We had to cut so fast.
Speaker B:But at the same time we need to have the endurance to see that we got to be in it for a very long time.
Speaker B:It's not just enough to cut.
Speaker B:If we cut today, sea level is going to continue to rise for 400 years.
Speaker B:So the long term perspective, to be in it to build these future resilient, hopeful, good, safe societies means that we have to be in it for generations.
Speaker B:Somebody's going to read those deposited manuscripts 100 years from now.
Speaker B:2148 years, actually.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So then we're going to look back.
Speaker B:How do we stay in it for such a long time?
Speaker B:So I think it's difficult.
Speaker B:The sense of urgency and at the same time also the endurance to stay in for a long time.
Speaker B:And I think it's right to have emotions.
Speaker B:It's good to have emotions.
Speaker B:It's good to show that you're angry.
Speaker B:It's good to show that you.
Speaker B:You know what?
Speaker B:I've had it now with just misexplaining and trying to come up with new stories.
Speaker B:And a little bit about what you spoke about this morning, Naomi.
Speaker B:I'm also seeing that it's trickling in here too, how all these new stories are coming with, oh, let's get women back to the kitchen.
Speaker B:Let's get the tread wives in.
Speaker B:Let's change this.
Speaker B:It's so expensive.
Speaker D:Expensive.
Speaker B:We should spend our money elsewhere.
Speaker B:I mean, all these stories, they're all made up by somebody, right?
Speaker B:And that is like get me so mad sometimes.
Speaker A:But that's a very good, like.
Speaker A:Let me ask you then you already said it actually, that there is room for anger.
Speaker A:And I also open it up for the rest of you, is there room for anger?
Speaker C:Well, I think there's a misunderstanding about hope, or at least you could define hope in many ways.
Speaker C:And I think, and my definition is that hope is the mother of anger and action.
Speaker C:Because if there's no hope left, I mean, if the water's going to rise and you have a house down there, you're going to move your house, anger is going to be futile because there's nothing you can do with it anymore.
Speaker C:But if there's a glimpse of hope that you can fix it and the politicians are not doing anything, big business not doing anything, then it will start fighting.
Speaker C:So I think we have a definition, discussion about hope in the environmental business.
Speaker C:I guess I don't think Greta Thunberg agrees with me, but I think that hope can fuel anger, hope can fuel action, and that's the only hope I believe in.
Speaker C:And I think, of course, we're allowed to be angry.
Speaker C:And I wanted to say something which is a little bit of despair for me as well, is that in this world now, it's going to be harder than ever to convince people.
Speaker C:I mean, it's so obvious to us, right?
Speaker C:It's so obvious, and still they're not doing it.
Speaker C:You want to run your head into a wall.
Speaker C:And then we have, like you said, also we have the strong men now.
Speaker C:We got Putin, Trump, Netanyahu.
Speaker C:You have all these things happening at the same time.
Speaker C:And we have to prick the.
Speaker C:And I hear people who used to talk about climate say, no, we have to fix the fence first.
Speaker C:That narrative is changing in Norway now.
Speaker C:Friend of mine said, no, we have to do that.
Speaker C:We have to put climate to the side for a while.
Speaker C:What do you say about that?
Speaker C:Climate scientist?
Speaker B:No, I've heard those.
Speaker B:Put it aside because there's a war.
Speaker B:Put it aside because there are other things that matter.
Speaker B:Well, it's a crisis multiplicator, right?
Speaker B:All crises are enhanced because of climate.
Speaker E:Yeah, about the anger part, I definitely think there's room to be angry.
Speaker E:And as for myself as well, I'm not an optimistic, positive person.
Speaker E:Somebody once said to me, well, you must be the most positive person ever.
Speaker E:And my fiance was standing behind me and he laughed out loud.
Speaker E:I'm not.
Speaker E:I'm not full of hope.
Speaker E:I'm really not.
Speaker E:A lot of my hope is built on anger.
Speaker E:I am.
Speaker E:We've already joked that I'm the youngest one in this panel.
Speaker E: I am born in: Speaker E:And my reason for being Here and why I am a part of this climate movement is based.
Speaker E:VANGER I don't think I should have had to be a part of this fight already As a young person, and especially when I was younger.
Speaker E:It's a huge responsibility that we place upon young people to scream and to protest and to make sure politicians are not putting this to the side.
Speaker E:Because I truly believe that if we lose, if we had lost those voices, then it would have been put aside even further back than right now.
Speaker E:I think we depend on those voices that we shouldn't necessarily have to depend on.
Speaker E:So there's definitely room for anger.
Speaker E:But I also think that anger can be a very good thing.
Speaker E:And I think that we need to come together in that anger and not sit just by ourselves and be angry, but realize that that anger can lead to hope and it can lead to action.
Speaker E:But I still dream of a world where I didn't have to be so angry so early.
Speaker D:Yeah, I saw your question when you sent that and I was thinking, well, I'm not so into anger anymore.
Speaker D:It's probably an age thing, by the way, but I can get very angry, of course.
Speaker D:But I'm also into our perception of time.
Speaker D:And that is something that has been challenged me through the Future library project.
Speaker D:Because one thing is the deep time really understanding what is deep time and what that means to us, but also my presence on earth, which is more, I'm thinking more and more now that it's 100 years ahead.
Speaker D:It's about grandchildren growing up.
Speaker D:And it's also I come from a farm which is very old.
Speaker D:My last name Norwegian we don't understand.
Speaker D:Hovind is typical farm, anything Viking, graves and stuff.
Speaker D:And that means 100 year backwards.
Speaker D:So my presence is not while I'm living, but it's actually 200 years maybe.
Speaker D:And that is also changing how I think and how I approach life.
Speaker D:And so for me it's the intergenerational kind of justice perspective that is also quite mobilizing.
Speaker D:I'm thinking, for instance, when you're initiating a project that you cannot finish, you have to trust the coming generations.
Speaker D:That is something very committing in a different way, but it's very mutual.
Speaker D:This is something I will address in talks and when I communicate about a project because they need to trust us.
Speaker D:Not yet born, but they need to trust us, which means that we have to start this cross generational projects.
Speaker D:That takes time.
Speaker D:It's not only short termism, but long termism that they need to trust us, that we actually start and care now for them to have something to finish.
Speaker D:Do you understand?
Speaker D:But I can get really mad too.
Speaker D:But not so often with future library.
Speaker D:Actually.
Speaker A:Let'S continue a little bit with that because time is a topic here and hope often stretches between the future we imagine and what we do right now.
Speaker A:So the balance between that.
Speaker A:How do we stay connected to the bigger picture without losing the momentum in the day to day?
Speaker A:So for instance, Tian, you're kind of like you're in the now, you're in the future.
Speaker A:So how do you see imagination as a kind of a form of action?
Speaker A:And how do you use that in your work all the time?
Speaker D:You can get me going now because again, I'm quoting Margaret Atwick because when she was commissioned to write a manuscript for us, she was quoted in the New York Times or something that she said, the world needs some powerful news stories telling us how the world needs to change and how we can change with it.
Speaker D:So I'm thinking about future literacy, constantly future skills.
Speaker D:I think art and culture is so much needed now to build resilience, because that has to do with imagination.
Speaker D:Because as long as we can imagine, we can also create.
Speaker D:So this is why I think that layer of sensing.
Speaker D:We had a discussion in one of the breakouts today about sensing.
Speaker D:The.
Speaker D:The bodily experience that needs to be connected so that people connect emotionally.
Speaker D:I'm sure now that a lot of researchers are thinking, oh, that's so complicated how this is connected.
Speaker D:So please start researching on it, because we need it.
Speaker D:There's some experience, at least from the field, that there is something here with a layer that art and culture and imagination is a very important future skills.
Speaker A:Yes.
Speaker D:Does it make sense?
Speaker A:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker D:This is something I really want to tell.
Speaker A:Yeah, I agree so much.
Speaker A:And Peter, we talked about this before, how important it is for us to be able to imagine the future that we really want to live in.
Speaker A:And you inspired me this summer.
Speaker A:I told you because you had this scenario that you are.
Speaker C: And also we got: Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker A:And I'm sure you academics, you have a better word for this, but I heard this word truetopia, like not utopia, but true topia.
Speaker A:Something which is more realistic, but it's a world that we want to live in.
Speaker A:So can you share a little bit about that?
Speaker C: That's the thing I did in: Speaker C:That was okay.
Speaker C:No, I don't have it here, but it was just.
Speaker C: and then to make a vision of: Speaker C:So I just did a vision of Christian Radik entering Arndalsuka, where Norway's first minister of circularity, Ingrid Liland from mdg from the Green Party went up on deck where she met Gudi Melby from another Green Party and she was head of innovation in Norway.
Speaker C:And then the boat was steered by one from her and one from.
Speaker C:From labor and one from Hera.
Speaker C:And we had a.
Speaker C:And it was just to provoke some thoughts.
Speaker C:What would happen if kind of the centrics and the environmental parties went together and made a common vision?
Speaker C:I think that's what I'm trying to say is that I think one of the problem is that in this room and in this institution there is one language.
Speaker C:In business there's one language.
Speaker C:In the environmental movement there is one language, and out there other people.
Speaker C:There are many different languages as well, but there's one language in a way.
Speaker C:And we don't share the same language.
Speaker C:We don't share the same vision.
Speaker C:I'm into vision, so I really understand what you were saying.
Speaker C:I thought it was really interesting, but I think that the.
Speaker C:But I don't call it vision, what you said.
Speaker C:I didn't think it.
Speaker C:Pictures of the future.
Speaker C:Can we envision or picture a common future?
Speaker C:And I think we kind of need to get academia, students, people and business and environmental movement together and politicians to agree on it.
Speaker C:If we were able to make.
Speaker C:Make and mean.
Speaker C:This is the Beyond Oil conference, right?
Speaker C:We're talking about Beyond Oil.
Speaker C:So what's after oil?
Speaker C:If you ask any Norwegians, they have no fucking.
Speaker C:Sorry, no idea.
Speaker C:Really?
Speaker C:I don't think there's no.
Speaker C:I don't think there's there any idea.
Speaker C:Oh, we have this oil fund and every.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:What's going to bore ourselves to death?
Speaker C:I mean, it should be a vision or a shared picture of a shared future.
Speaker C:Because then we could say, hey, didn't we agree?
Speaker C:And you could use like the Democratic people panels.
Speaker C:What do you call that in English?
Speaker C:Falkopanel.
Speaker C:You can do that to make democracy something that people could take more part of.
Speaker C:And if you could find that kind of vision or picture, people could say, but didn't we all agree that we should go there?
Speaker C:So why are you deciding that we were supposed to do that with business?
Speaker C:Why are you not doing it?
Speaker C:But today there's no clear target or goal except that we know when in 88 years there's going to be some wonderful manuscripts.
Speaker D:Was that.
Speaker A:Yes, very good, Kiki.
Speaker A:I was Thinking about you working on.
Speaker A:You have this.
Speaker A:I'm a geophysicist so I also used to work on this really long time lines, billions of years.
Speaker A:So how does that teach you something?
Speaker A:When you look at the timeline and back in history and into the future what we need to do today in order to get where we want to be.
Speaker A:How do you use back casting?
Speaker A:Is that what it's called?
Speaker A:Okay, what do we need to do today?
Speaker A:How do you use that?
Speaker A:Do you use it in your work?
Speaker B:Climate scientist I wrote a book two years ago together with a history professor here at uab.
Speaker B:We wrote about human history and climate over the last 10,000 years.
Speaker B:You could be really dystopic and go further back in time which shows that our planet is most likely going to do pretty well without us through its natural evolvement.
Speaker B:That's completely dystopic.
Speaker B:Going back in history is also to see how societies respond to natural climate changes.
Speaker B:How do we respond?
Speaker B:The Roman war imperia how they made use of warmer Mediterranean water and more rain to build these really smart society because they could feed armies.
Speaker B:And when you had extra food you also had the possibility to sit down and start thinking.
Speaker B:And when you start thinking you become innovative.
Speaker B:And then other situations where you got rapid volcanoes that would lead to cooling again.
Speaker B:In the circum Atlantic region.
Speaker B:Most societies how they were affected and were your rulers smart?
Speaker B:So they put aside food or grains.
Speaker B:Did they store water?
Speaker B:It's incredible how good we were for instance with water before.
Speaker B:It's enough to take a trip to Algeria and Tunisia and see what doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker B:But what did exist?
Speaker B:The longest aqueduct in the world, 134km into the water sources that were these old sort of stored desert water sources In Africa they don't exist anymore as draft In Tunisia they had enormous water storage capacities fed by these aqueducts.
Speaker B:It doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker B:When are we going to try to find back to some of that knowledge of how we endure and how we build societies?
Speaker B:Because there is actually a lot in history that's telling us that we learn to live with long term weather changes that become climate if it's lasting for a long enough time.
Speaker B:But that we had some inherent knowledge and inherent background that we carried with us that made societies more adaptable and more resilient.
Speaker B:And all of that worked pretty well until everything accelerated around coal, gas and oil later on that's a different story.
Speaker B:But there are.
Speaker B:There are actually real wonderful stories about how we act as societies and some really fun ones.
Speaker B:There were three really bad years in a row in Sweden around year 700, 750.
Speaker B:The first year they slaughtered horses for the gods.
Speaker B:The second year they slaughtered slaves for the gods.
Speaker B:And the third year they took the king.
Speaker B:And then.
Speaker B:And then the rain came the next year and it was good.
Speaker B:And you don't really know what was the reason.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:So some of them are fun to be.
Speaker B:But we seem to have lost part of our history.
Speaker B:Right?
Speaker B:We seem to have done that and I think we should bring that back.
Speaker B:We have something called Klimaton.
Speaker B:Klimaton.
Speaker B:It's a hackathon.
Speaker B:We have a Klimaton and several in the room has been part of that whole art has been part of it.
Speaker B:Various people there has been part of it where we go to municipalities and we pose a question.
Speaker B:For instance, last year it was in Huygesen, south of Bergen.
Speaker B:And the question was, what can we learn from cultural heritage in building and drainage?
Speaker B:And basically how do we safekeep buildings with old traditions?
Speaker B:Over a couple of days we sit and discuss that and bring in necessary knowledge and try to solve these questions.
Speaker B:These kind of what is it?
Speaker B:Gatherings of.
Speaker B:You can call it gatherings of hope, but it's sharing of knowledge and it's also understanding that along the way of becoming one of the richest, most digitized and God knows everything, not the happiest but almost there country in the world.
Speaker B:On the way we lost part of our history.
Speaker B:On the way we lost things that we used to value that we just set aside.
Speaker B:We have to try to find that that's also part of who we are.
Speaker B:And it needs to be part of the future storytelling of what Norway is going to be.
Speaker B:Because we had really good storytellings before we did build up an incredibly strong welfare state.
Speaker B:That's a beautiful story.
Speaker B:We decided that we're going to start using the resources in Norway with hydropower.
Speaker B:That's also a beautiful story.
Speaker B:It built wealth and richness in many countries, many parts of Norway.
Speaker B: ykilana, the Happy story from: Speaker B:Now we have to make that story and we have to decide how are we going to use part of our knowledge and culture to build that stories, but also integrate from other countries because that storytelling is ongoing in the other Nordic countries.
Speaker B:We just decided to keep our brown story going and rolling on.
Speaker B:Unfortunately, we believe still believe in that story.
Speaker A:Yes, I would like to.
Speaker A:Oh, you have some comments.
Speaker D:I just started thinking because I've been listening here all Day and I.
Speaker D:For instance, the previous author to Future Library was Tommy Orange.
Speaker D:I don't know if you know who he is.
Speaker D:He's an indigenous American.
Speaker D:Indigenous.
Speaker D:And he writes about intergenerational traumas and learning about history and storytelling and going backwards, I think also.
Speaker D:And hearing about the oil kind of story, not wanting to realize that it's so embedded in us, the pioneering, proud story about oil, to put it that way.
Speaker D:I also, you know, we were celebrating 200th anniversary of migration to America this year, and it's hardly no one questioning who did we meet there, who was there when we came.
Speaker D:And there's hardly any research done on that part.
Speaker D:There's a book called the Nordic White Whiteness.
Speaker D:And it says amongst a lot of things that we were poor, very poor, but we were on top of the hierocracy of whiteness.
Speaker D:I'm sure that combination isn't that very good, to be honest.
Speaker D:But we need.
Speaker D:So are that kind of stories too, because I think the future is about justice, is, you know, humanism.
Speaker D:We need to question these kind of myths about ourselves too.
Speaker D:I'm sorry to bring that to the.
Speaker A:Thank you.
Speaker A:Peter, did you want to say something or.
Speaker C:No, it's just one thing that I think we.
Speaker C:Maybe I can comment on this as well, because I realized that in some of my.
Speaker C:I do a lot of keynote speeches about consumption.
Speaker D:That's.
Speaker C:I mean, that's coming from advertising.
Speaker C:I talk a lot about consumption and.
Speaker C:And I had this slide which says just a number on it.
Speaker C:It's 176%.
Speaker C: of consumption in Norway from: Speaker C:And then I would look around in the audience and see if there's people who lived.
Speaker C: Who's older than born in: Speaker C:And I say, who was chunden in English?
Speaker D:You're pretty.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker C:Norwegians understand Hoover able to have sex in.
Speaker C: Now, in: Speaker C:What's the word?
Speaker C:Come on.
Speaker D:I'm not sure.
Speaker C:Yeah, it's more than that.
Speaker C:Okay.
Speaker D:Remember, it's a podcast.
Speaker C:It's a podcast.
Speaker C:Oh, my God.
Speaker C:Anyway, the thing is that who was.
Speaker C: own money could buy stuff in: Speaker C:And people go like that.
Speaker C:And I said, okay.
Speaker C:So we had.
Speaker C:We bought a lot of stuff.
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:Was that great?
Speaker D:Yeah.
Speaker C:And everybody agrees.
Speaker C:And I used to do that.
Speaker C:And then someone came up to me, young person come up to me, said, you can't do that.
Speaker C:You can't talk about the future like that.
Speaker C:No the parts like that, we're not connecting at all.
Speaker C: years ago in: Speaker C:I wouldn't care.
Speaker C:It was like, so we're not connecting.
Speaker C:And I think I said that to the grandparents, climate, action, that we can't talk about the past.
Speaker C:We have to talk about a future inspired by the past.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker C:About methods, about things we did, but we can't.
Speaker C:We seem to too often, in my opinion, to go backwards and talk about, oh, yeah, you remember when we were young and we're not connecting.
Speaker A:Do you want to comment?
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker C:You don't have to agree with me.
Speaker B:No.
Speaker E:But I do agree because my generation will never experience that past.
Speaker E:And there is a lot of things that we have to change about the way we behave.
Speaker E:Our habits, our spending habits, how much water we use.
Speaker E:There's a lot of things that we are expected to change about the way that we live.
Speaker E:And we will not be able to just use and use and buy and buy in the same way that was possible, that was done before.
Speaker E:And so I think we need to learn from the past and bring with us the important things that history has brought us.
Speaker E:But it's also extremely difficult.
Speaker E:It's extremely important to connect together about this shared future because we need everyone to be involved if we are to change the way we are going to behave in the way the world is going to move.
Speaker E:And we can't wait another generation like we were able to do before.
Speaker A:I will let Thea, the youngest in the panel, have the last word because she is, of course, totally right.
Speaker A:We can't wait another generation.
Speaker A:That is not an option.
Speaker A:What stood out to me most was the honesty in this conversation and also the acknowledgement that hope is isn't always easy, but it's essential that anger and urgency have a place and that actionable hope can be found in many places and has many forms.
Speaker A:I really enjoyed both the panel conversation and the conference in general.
Speaker A:So many interesting topics, great researchers presenting their work, and an absolutely fantastic atmosphere all through the two days.
Speaker A:One thought that stayed with me afterwards, though, was this.
Speaker A:While we talked a lot about systems change, I couldn't help noticing how few people from the oil and gas industry itself were in the room.
Speaker A:The very systems that were trying to shift and the people in the center or between the beyond and the oil.
Speaker A:It left me wondering again, as I was, as I always do, how do we create spaces where all voices can meet and feel welcome?
Speaker A:Across sectors, ideologies and bubbles of different sizes to imagine new paths forward together.
Speaker A:This is the big, big question for me at least.
Speaker A:So if this episode sparked something in you, please consider sharing it with someone you think needs a little light in the tunnel.
Speaker A:Or better yet, someone who might help build that tunnel forward.
Speaker A:Links to everything will be in the show.
Speaker A:Notes as always, thank you for listening to Stories for the Future.
Speaker A:Stay hopeful and keep imagining the world we want to live in.
Speaker A:Take care and see you next time.
