FutureCoast

Description:

The FutureCoast collaborative storytelling game is a public online/voicemail experience that ran from early February through the end of April 2014, and also includes a series of in-person facilitated experiences which will continue to run over the PoLAR Partnership’s five-year span.  The voicemails you hear at FutureCoast.org are generated by participating members of the public.

Especially in the coastal regions, citizens must deal with the reality of the threat of climate change, and it’s essential for them to participate in the conversation about how their communities can address these challenges. FutureCoast echoes common strategic planning exercises commonly used by corporations and the military, which use “what if?” scenarios to engage people in envisioning and thus preparing for possible futures.  Scientists also increasingly use scenarios and storylines as ways to explore the implications of environmental change and societal choices.

FutureCoast’s open call was the first time to our knowledge that the general public has been asked for their visions of what possibly climate-changed futures may be like.  By framing this player-created storyspace and making the future seem real today, we create an engine for engaging people in “futurethinking”, helping them to visualize and plan for future climate changes. Climate science offers them platforms on which to build their stories. FutureCoast focuses on ways that wide participation in climate change narratives can foster deeper engagement and understanding.

Announcement:

The spring 2014 FutureCoast experience was highlighted by a number of publications, including WIRED, National Geographic, Scientific American, and more.  

Research on the FutureCoast project is currently underway.  We are analyzing trends and patterns in engagement over time as well as the content of participant-generated voicemails from the spring 2014 experience.   Preliminary findings will be shared at the fall 2014 meeting of the American Geophysical Union.

Organization Name:
Writerguy LLC

Project Lead:
Ken Eklund

Key Personnel:
Sara Thacher
Tara Borman
Dee Cook
Michelle Senderhauf
Marie Lamb
Ryan Meyer
Willa Koerner

Project URL:
http://futurecoast.org