This article is part of our Scenarios Week series, exploring and expanding on the Long Crisis Scenarios. You can find the other articles in the series on our Scenarios Week page.
Just over a week ago, we published our latest work as the Long Crisis Network: the Long Crisis Scenarios.
Created for Local Trust, a UK charitable trust empowering communities to transform lives and spaces, this report presents four potential outcomes that the world could face as it navigates a future in the shadow of coronavirus, each one with its own implications for plotting the way forward at a local, national, and global level.
Making predictions, particularly in a crisis where we’re still finding deep uncertainty in every emerging layer, may be impossible. But there is, nonetheless, a very real need for plausible stories about the future.
In creating these stories, we can create a foundation for decision makers, campaigners, and communities to influence the process of change. As James Goodman, Local Trust’s Director of Partnerships, writes in the foreword to the report, they “look for signals in the noise”.
Taking the Scenarios Further
If you’ve already read the full report, or our previous blog post on Global Dashboard, you will have encountered our four scenarios: The Rise of the Oligarchs, Big Mother, Fragile Resilient, and Winning Ugly.
Having laid out these four routes into our COVID future, identified the possible pathways from one to another, and compared each across the dimensions of power, prosperity, places and people, we’re now opening the dialogue further.
Today, we’re kicking off Scenarios Week, a week of articles from leading thinkers who have formed their own responses to the Long Crisis Scenarios, perspectives on what our world might soon look like, or insights on how we can prepare for an uncertain future. Keep an eye out for our first piece, from Local Trust’s James Goodman, later today.
On Wednesday 3 June, we’ll also be joining Local Trust and The Alternative UK for After COVID, Where Will We Be?, an online discussion of what the future could hold for communities – we hope you’ll join us.
Throughout this week, we will also be continuing the discussion on Twitter, where we tweet under @GlobalDashboard and @TheLongCrisis. Get involved using the #ScenariosWeek hashtag.
