Setting a Story-Telling Context for Scenario Planning

<h2>3.6 Getting in the Mood for Scenario Planning</h2>

It is easy to get caught up in the data and details of scenario planning. But climate change poses particular challenges to our ability to get our heads around complex systems, much less to forecast the future of those systems.

There is a category of people who have already spent time and effort to come up with coherent views of the future. These are writers. Writers of climate fiction in particular have developed different views of potential futures based on climate and energy outcomes ranging from apocalyptic to euphoric. Other writers have assembled optimistic futures built around different technology outcomes.

The ‘opportunity storyline’ is attracting a large following among business and environmental groups seeking to motivate corporate action on climate change. Proponents of this opportunity-based approach believe that it will motivate corporate action and reduce business opposition to material climate change policy. A casual observer of today’s corporate climate change strategy literature might think that global climate change is a good thing, given all the ‘opportunities’ it is creating.

The work described here doesn't necessarily fit into a formal scenario planning exercise. It's possible, though, that you might find it opens your mind to possible futures. That's useful, because in scenario planning we are constantly battling the natural tendency of our minds to assume that the future will simply be an extrapolation of the past.

All readers can access relevant resources in the Climate Web through the links below.

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<li>A <a href="https://webbrain.com/u/1BBA">"Core Library" of "Futures Storytelling"</a> </li>

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<li>The comprehensive <a href="https://webbrain.com/u/18Z0">Climate Fiction Deep Dive</a>  </li>

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