Two Paths to 2100
The future is ours, and so is the choice to pick the right path.
Welcome to Two Paths.
This is the space where we’ll be looking at what’s happening in the world and ask one key question: which path are we on?
Path 1 leads to a world where we face the great crises of our time - climate, wars, attacks on democracy - divided, every nation for itself, every man for themselves. Path 2 is a world where we team up and face them together.
Both paths lead to specific futures and both futures are still possible. The choices being made right now - in parliaments, boardrooms, and at ballot boxes - determine which future our children will inherit.
I’m Florian Hohenauer, a communications strategist based in Munich, Germany. My professional mission is to help innovation succeed, my personal mission is to do everything in my power to set us on Path 2.
We’ll start this journey with Two Futures.
Future 1: We tried it on our own - and everyone lost.
Global Warming continued, and escalated. We crossed one tipping point after another. The lies of fossil fuel giants, far-right parties and their media allies blocked meaningful climate policy for decades. "Too expensive, ineffective, impossible, we are hurting our economies" they told us - and too many believed them, and voted accordingly. For a while, life went on much as before. Reckless, comfortable, familiar. But as catastrophes multiplied and even the most "conservative" politicians finally admitted that business as usual was no longer possible, they built walls and fences and stationed soldiers at the borders. To protect our shrinking water reserves. To guard the meagre, drought-stricken or flood-destroyed harvests. Wheat, corn, hops couldn't take the heat. Bread, animal feed, beer - scarce or gone. They wanted to "protect our women and children" from the millions upon millions of climate refugees - with barbed wire and guns. We didn't look over our fences, turned away. We didn't help. Sometimes we shot. There was no solidarity. Not outward, and not inward either. And so the walls crumbled, "Fortress Europe" collapsed first, then "Fortress Germany." Regions are now on their own. Everyone against everyone, and all against ever-worsening crises. Everything is lacking - but above all, hope.
Future 2: We made it. Together.
The climate is no longer warming. Most tipping points were not crossed. It was hard work. We gave up a lot, changed a lot - our energy systems, our food, our habits. Democratic majorities held, just barely. Democratic politicians, after long hesitation, finally shed their fear of the loud minority and acted decisively. It cost a great deal - but we were in solidarity with the vulnerable, at home and in other countries. Stopping climate change was humanity's first great shared project. It brought us closer together. The old divisions are less deep today. We are proud of what we achieved. So proud. So relieved. Yes, it is significantly warmer and there are more natural disasters - but we manage them. After the great transformation, we could dedicate our resources to adapting to the new climate reality. And to research. We bought our innovations time. There have been astonishing breakthroughs. Fusion reactors and quantum computers are working productively, opening up a future that even our science fiction writers at the turn of the millennium didn't dare to dream of. The present is fine, the future will be extraordinary.
Two Paths that lead to distinctive futures. Visual created with Ideogram.ai. © fhohenauer. Permission to download and share, together with this article, granted.
Which path are we on today? I'll be exploring that question - with real examples, real people, and real stakes - in every issue of Two Paths. Subscribe to follow along.