I moderate these comments and share details with relevant team members, as well as making them publicly visible here. One episode of the ‘From What If to What Next’ podcast every two weeks, each exploring a different ‘What If’ question Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition Towns movement, and as such has spent the last 15 years nurturing creative local responses to global challenges. It’s given him a rich pool of examples and people to draw on for his latest book, From what is to what if – Unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want. In From What Is to What If, Rob Hopkins spotlights dozens of individuals and organizations around the world who are actually, defiantly doing work to make the world a friendlier, happier, more imaginative, playful, and sustainable place.

From What Is to What If by Rob Hopkins | Waterstones From What Is to What If by Rob Hopkins | Waterstones

We are living through a perfect storm of factors ruinous to the imagination” warns Hopkins. “As we face vast crises that demand imaginative and urgent responses and a reimagining of everything, we are simply not up to it.”However, we can’t always fully access our power of imagination, especially when we need it most, for instance when we face our biggest problems or when are going through the hardest times. One of the reasons for this is that a part of our brain called the hippocampus plays an important role in how our imagination works.

From What Is to What If: Unleashing the Power of Imagin…

Was wäre wenn... wir die negativen Vorstellungen über unsere Welt weglassen und ein positives, kreatives Bild malen, das uns dazu bringt, zum Beispiel die Umwelt zu schützen, das Leben in der Stadt grüner zu machen, die Schule angenehmer usw. Rob Hopkins zeigt in diesem zum Nachdenken anregenden Buch anhand von lokalen Beispielen in verschiedenen Ländern, wie man mehr Mut und Fantasie zeigen und von diesem Traumbild ausgehend Probleme lösen kann. Ich konnte nicht alles nachvollziehen, was der Autor dargestellt hat, aber das Buch ist gut aufbereitet, auch wenn einiges typisch britisch ist wie Internate und Schuluniformen. I’ve come to believe we desperately need stories like this – stories of How Things Turned Out OK – because if there is a consensus about anything in the world at this point, it seems to be that the future is going to be awful. And with good reason. In 2018, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reported that the world’s temperature warmed by 1 degree Celsius over the past century. To avoid exceeding 1.5 degrees, they say, we would need to cut emissions by 45 percent by 2030, and to zero by 2050. ⁵ And their findings are actually pretty conservative. Others argue that even staying below a 2-degree increase would, in reality, for ‘developed’ nations such as those in the EU, necessitate cuts of 12 percent a year, starting now, far beyond the EU’s current target of 40 percent by 2030.⁶ Stories of Transition: How a Movement of Communities Is Coming Together to Reimagine and Rebuild Our World The flip side: This tells us that we can enhance our imagination if we manage to improve the functioning of the hippocampus. Some low-hanging fruits: Get enough sleep, get proper nutrition and enough exercise and make a serious effort to reduce stress. Rob Hopkins has long been a leader in imagining how we could remake our societies for the benefit of nature and humankind. His new book is a powerful call to imagine a better world. It should be widely read and appreciated. -Christiana Figueres, former Executive Secretary, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change; lead negotiator, Paris Climate Agreement

We do have the capability to effect dramatic change, Hopkins argues, but we’re failing because we’ve largely allowed our most critical tool to languish: human imagination. As defined by social reformer John Dewey, imagination is the ability to look at things as if they could be otherwise. The ability, that is, to ask What if? And if there was ever a time when we needed that ability, it is now. ISBN 978-1-60358-905-5 (hardcover) | ISBN 978-1-60358-906-2 (ebook) | ISBN 978-1-60358-907-9 (audiobook) Number of toys: 36 toddlers studied at the University of Toledo in Ohio, age 18-30 months. Kids were provided with 16 toys to play with on first visit but only four toys on their 2nd visit. When kids played with fewer toys, they spent more time with each toy. The quality of play and intensity of imagination was better with fewer toys, with kids being more focused with more sustained attention. Result: fewer toys equals better quality play. Sadly, it seems far easier to imagine almost any dystopian scenario than the possibility that we might actually still have the competence to act, to create something else, to dig ourselves out of the many holes of our own making. The message that ‘it can’t be done’ is strong and pervasive. As Susan Griffin puts it: Day after day, week after week, the climate is changing and biodiversity is fading away. For a long time we tended to look the other way, but now, being on the edge of the cliff forces us to understand that we must act urgently. And because of this emergency it is our utmost duty to join forces. Not only among states, but among mayors, NGOs, associations, companies, and citizens. Among all those who are determined to act here and now.