At Urgent Optimists, we look back from ten years into the future (2033) and remember what it’s like to live in an imagined world of a “zero waste” future that’s likely to happen based on signals of change. Here’s an example.
And for this future scenario, we imagine a world where throwing your garbage is a thing of the past that your children would only wonder what it’s like to take the trash out. In this zero waste future, Jane McGonigal describes it to illicit feel-good emotions.
So good, in fact, that psychologists have invented a new word, “zerophoria,” to describe the positive emotion that defines life in a zero-waste society. Zerophoria is a combination of joy, pride, and resourcefulness. It’s a lightness of being that comes from wasting nothing and leaving no trace be- hind. This new feeling is a healing balm for the days of climate change anxiety. And the trillions of dollars that governments previously spent every year to bury and burn trash is now spent instead on better things: education, health care, infrastructure, and universal basic income.
Jane McGonigal on “Road to Zerophoria” scenario from the Urgent Optimists
I’ll take on a ten-day journey on the Road to Zerophoria. Feel free to read my journal entries based on daily prompts from the Urgent Optimist community.
Curious about what we do at the Urgent Optimists? Here’s an invitation. I hope you’ll join us.
jessa 