A Brief History of the Future (2024) s01e03 Episode Script
Once Upon a Time
1
Ari Wallach, voice-over: The way
humans make sense of the world
is through stories.
They help us figure out
what happened in the past
and give us a sense of place
and community and belonging.
It can totally expand
our imagination
and guide our future actions.
There's a reason
the hippocampus,
at the base of our brain,
is both responsible
for emotions
and memory and images,
because the two work
hand in hand
to help us move
throughout the world.
This has been part
of who we are,
and most importantly,
how we transmit knowledge
from generation to generation.
It is cold
and growing colder
as the world slowly dies.
One in 12 people
on the planet
will contract the disease.
Even if they discovered
the cure for infertility,
doesn't matter.
Too late.
Here's the thing.
Almost every movie
that takes place in the future
is a story about
the world gone bad.
In the future,
the polar ice caps
have melted,
and the Earth lies
beneath a watery grave.
There's a "Mad Max"
way of thinking about tomorrow.
A man reduced to
a single instinct--survive.
What happens
when all we see,
all the stories of tomorrow,
are dystopian,
you start forgetting what it is
that you actually do want.
Are the stories that we're
putting out circumscribing,
and in some ways,
creating artificial boundaries
in terms of
what kind of futures
and worlds that we want?
Good morning.
This is your wake-up call.
Just punch
it in all the way.
- Oh.
- Like that.
All right, so we're
gonna spread this out
and split it into four
even pieces.
I know it's hard.
Sharon, I feel
like you're gonna
have to, like--
- Yeah, you're gonna have to
- Help us.
- Ha ha!
- No, you--what do you mean?
Yours is--
yours is a little fat.
It's OK.
Don't redo it too much.
Wallach, voice-over: Our lives
are a collection of stories,
stories about who we are
and where we come from,
stories that help us
make sense of today,
and stories about
what comes next,
but how do our stories about
the past shape our future?
What stories do we need
to hold on to,
and which ones
should we leave behind?
What stories will lead us
to create better tomorrows
for our kids and grandkids,
and which ones are simply
holding us back?
There we go.
All right.
Wherever I go,
I always enjoy
talking to people
about the stories they love,
and today, stopping by
my son's classroom,
I'm reminded just
how foundational
these stories really are.
I wanted to introduce
you guys to my friend Ari.
I love
your purple shoes.
- Oh, thank you.
- You're welcome.
Here's a question.
Who here likes
to watch movies?
Raise your hand.
OK. All right.
I'm just--what's
a movie that you saw lately
that you really liked?
"Lyle, Lyle Crocodile."
- "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile." Yeah?
- "Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter."
Um, I watched "It."
You watched "It"?
- Oh, my gosh! How?
- Horror movie!
I honestly liked "Wall-E,"
because it shows, like,
emotion in a robot,
which is kind of like AI.
What do you love
about movies?
- Yes?
- Um, I like how they're scary.
The actors
show feelings.
Sometimes they're very sad,
and I cry.
What makes a great story?
- Yes?
- The emotions.
Emotions. Yes?
The connection to reality.
Charlotte?
Um, like,
if it has a good plot
and there are things
that, like, change it up
in the story,
and it's not just one thing
where you can predict
what's gonna happen.
Beautiful.
When you think about a movie
that takes place in the future,
what does it,
what does it have to have in it
for it to be a great movie?
Um, I kind of think,
if I was making a movie
in the future,
I would kind of, um,
add, like, things
that we're planning on
trying to make.
Like what?
- Like flying cars.
- Flying cars.
Get in.
Let's play it hard.
Pull up, Anakin!
- Pull up!
- Ha ha ha!
Ooh!
Nice shot, Doc!
Stories are the shortcut
we use to navigate the world,
and the world is just
too complicated to understand.
There's too much data
coming at us,
and we can't notice
and process all that data.
The human mind does not have
that capacity.
So we need shortcuts.
We need to be able
to make leaps over the data.
We say, "What am I broadly
seeing here?
How can I make sense of this?"
And the story is
what makes sense of it.
There's a quote
by Alasdair MacIntyre,
the great Catholic philosopher
at Notre Dame University,
who says,
"I cannot tell you who I am
"or what I'm going to do
"until I tell you the story
or stories
that I am a part of."
All of us believe in
a certain kind of the future
that seems almost inevitable.
And actually,
if we interrogate that,
if we trace that thread back,
the origins of those
are in the first few
very attractive,
shiny images of the future
that we witnessed,
that we consumed.
And somehow, they end up
shaping the boundary
or the contours of what we
think it's going to look like.
But who owns those images
of the future?
Who shaped them?
Who's missing from this story,
and why?
For years,
Hollywood has attracted
the best and brightest
storytellers,
yet only recently
have we begun to understand
just how limited
our stories have been,
in large part because of
who's been able to tell them.
But what would it look like
if more people
began to see themselves
as storytellers,
helping to shape
new narratives, new futures
they can actually
see themselves in?
That's led me here
to meet Rafael Agustin,
an award-winning screenwriter
and author focused on
broadening the boundaries
of what stories are told
and who gets to tell them.
Tell me a little bit
more about you.
It's like
a first date, right?
So, like, we just sat down.
I just--
Scorpio. Long walks
on the beach.
Long walks--I just ordered
two glasses of pinot noir,
and we're getting to know
each other.
Please.
All right, so born
in Ecuador, South America.
Came to
the United States
when I was, like,
seven years old.
And it wasn't
until high school,
when I applied to go
to college and I applied
to get my driver's license
that I discovered
that we were undocumented.
Growing up,
until that point,
did you feel different
in any way?
Did you always feel
kind of aligned
within the communities
that you were in?
Well, the funny thing
is, in Ecuador,
we watched a lot
of American movies
and TV shows
and pop culture.
- Cuidado, Batman!
- Ha ha ha
Hollywood
is the greatest
export we have.
And not only me--
I think it's influenced
an entire globe.
I remember
one of the first movies
that I fell in love with
was, like, this--
I don't want to say "bad,"
because I loved it,
but it was a B action movie
called "American Ninja"
- Yeah.
- Which starred--
I've watched all three
"American Ninjas."
- Very influential.
- So you already know
how important
this movie is.
It's extremely important
on many levels,
but I'll let you go into why.
Heartthrob Michael Dudikoff
changed my life,
because since that moment,
I wanted to be
only two things in my life.
One was a ninja,
and the other one was
American.
I get to public school
in the United States,
when I show up
to my first day of class,
and I'm like,
"Wait a minute.
"What are all these, like,
Asian American kids?
"What are all these
African American kids?
"Like, this doesn't look
like the movies I watch.
This is too much
diversity."
And then I saw, like,
the Mexican American
and Central American kids
and realized
that I look more like them
than the white kids.
And then--so I was,
like, seven years old
when I realized, "Oh, my God,
I'm--I'm not white."
Rafael fell in love
with storytelling
at an early age,
but after only seeing
his community represented
by cliché stereotypes,
he decided to write himself
into a future he didn't see
around him,
first as a screenwriter,
and now by enabling others
to do the same thing
for themselves.
Scene five,
cat, take two.
Filmmaking
has been around,
so what we do is not,
like, revolutionary.
It's the age
that we do it at
and the communities
that we do it at
that is
so revolutionary.
We essentially bring
filmmaking mentors
into the classroom
twice a week
for 90-minute blocks
for an entire school year.
So we guide
the students through
the filmmaking process
from the development
of a concept
all the way
until their premieres,
and we have their premieres
at the Los Angeles
Latino International
Film Festival.
If every student learns
not only that
they can tell their story,
but that they should,
what kind of self-advocacy
and self-respect
is built into them?
How empowered are they
when they realize that
they can actually tell
their own stories?
That's what's so critical
about the work.
It's the social-emotional
empowerment
that's being built.
I went to a historically
marginalized,
low-performing school,
and I watched
9- and 10-year-olds
who look like me
do the work that
I couldn't do,
and I--I nearly
started crying.
So tell me
what it starts to look like
on the other side.
I think the stories
that we tell are
gonna be limitless.
I think our imagination
is gonna be even
more exciting,
because we're seeing
one another for
the first time,
and we're seeing
each other's
humanities, finally.
We have an amazing
opportunity in this moment
to rewrite the stories
that define our time,
to be so much bigger
and more inclusive
for the world
we actually live in
and the one we want to create,
but who wrote the stories
that came before us,
and how far back does
this essential human trait
of storytelling really go?
That's led me to Spain.
I'm here to visit
the Cave of Ardales,
where until recently
it was believed
to contain some of the world's
oldest recordings
ever made by humans.
Thanks to a new discovery here,
some of the markings
in this cave now date back
much, much further.
OK.
Wallach, voice-over: Pedro led
me further into the cave,
explaining that while animal
bones were discovered outside,
human bones were buried deep
inside the heart of the cave.
They believe these early
burial sites were a way
of marking this cave
as belonging to a clan
and connecting them to their
ancestors who came before,
but the most amazing thing
is the discovery
of markings on the walls
that point to
the very earliest forms
of communication.
Wow.
Wallach, voice-over:
What began as information,
ways to communicate
threats or danger,
soon gave way to mythmaking--
art, early religion,
and the very first
recorded human stories.
Over the many centuries since,
our methods of storytelling
have continued to evolve,
but the primal
importance they serve
to our sense of knowing
who we are,
where we belong,
and where we are going
is as strong now
as it's ever been.
In Los Angeles, a team
of artists and engineers
are continuing to push
these methods forward
using AI-enhanced gaming engines
to create the digital worlds
of tomorrow.
We are at Lux.
Lux is one
of the frontrunners
in LED volume
virtual production.
They were early developers,
early adopters
in this tech
and this information.
What exactly is this?
So this is called
an "LED volume."
These are all motion-capture
cameras that are used to track
that camera in 3D space.
It's projecting
in a 3D environment
from a video-game engine.
Give me an idea of how
you actually use this.
A good use case--
"Mandalorian" was a huge one.
That kind of brought it
to the world,
but there's been versions
of this for the last 90 years.
Back in 1930,
they started using
rear projection.
"Just Imagine" and "Liliom"
were the big ones.
Just imagine
the New York of 1980.
They just started
pushing it forward.
And those were called
"motion special effects"
at that time.
From that process,
they kept iterating on it.
Now, instead of shooting
on a blue screen,
you have that environment
that you can see in camera.
So it limits the compositing,
it limits all of those things
that you need to do
in post-production.
So what this does is
you have unbelievable
flexibility.
You're able to
change this
- in a matter of seconds.
- Absolutely.
We can do
a time-of-day change,
and we can make it
early morning, dusk.
And there we are.
- So now it's dusk.
- Yeah.
You can put crews
in a different location
at any time.
You can also shoot
in this all day long,
and that's the beauty of it.
When you were
growing up, you obviously,
you know, went
to the movies,
like most of us,
but then something clicked.
What was it that--
that drew you in?
What was the thing
that caused you to
kind of fall in love?
I was always a big fan
of the underdog story.
That was my thing, you know,
"The Sandlot" and "Rudy."
Since when are you
the quitting kind?
Rudy! Rudy!
There's something
about good storytelling
that connects with the soul.
There's nothing that
moves you as a human
as much as storytelling,
and it goes back in history
thousands of years.
It's to help unlock
and understand
the expression of emotions,
and those are the things
that open us up as humans.
All day long,
film races through the camera
at 90 feet a minute
in scene after scene.
You know,
in the beginning,
you had directors
and directors of photography
that are finding new ways
to tell the story,
finding new ways
to immerse the audience.
We configured the water box
so it was easy to get
the water lapping the lens.
I really wanted this movie
to be just at water level,
the way we are
when we're treading water.
We go from
black and white to color.
We go from no sound to sound.
If I'm a success
in this show,
well, we're gonna move
from here.
We'll have to think
of something else.
And we start to see
all these things build up
to create what we know today,
and so that's
what we're seeing now,
is all these tools
are kind of working together
and expanding this universe
of content creation.
With the adoption
of game engines,
I think there's gonna be
a wide adoption
of the technology advances
and giving opportunities
for people
to explore these worlds,
and that makes it immersive.
How might AI change
storytelling as we know it?
I think you can look at AI
in storytelling as jet fuel.
It's something
that can boost you
to another level
of creative thinking.
It unlocks potential.
We're now not thinking
in this little box,
but we're seeing what happens
when you combine
all these different things
that have been made over time
and put it into your story.
So it is actually tracking
Wallach, voice-over: As these
tools continue to extend
our capacity to create new
worlds and immerse ourselves
in alternate realities,
the question
of what kind of worlds
we choose to build,
what visions of tomorrow
we show ourselves,
is more important than ever
because stories don't
just entertain or inspire us.
They create the basis
for what we see as possible
moving forward.
The mere act of people
coming together
and imagining the future
that looks different
from the conditions
that they are born in
is a deeply political act.
It questions the inherent biases
and power imbalances
that define the systems
that govern our lives.
When you open up
the future as a thing
that we can all imagine
and construct differently,
you're essentially putting
a lot of power and agency
in the hands of people who are,
in the traditional system,
completely left out
of the equation.
One of the dangerous things
about the stories
we're born into
is that we often don't
see them as stories at all.
Decisions people made
long before we got here
can make the world
as it is today seem certain,
even inevitable,
but what stories have
we taken for granted today
that are holding us back
from building better tomorrows,
and what does it mean
to examine these stories
from new perspectives?
I came to Chicago
to meet Ytasha Womack,
a world-renowned author,
Afrofuturist, and dancer,
working to challenge
our relationship to the past
as well as to the futures
we can create.
So, Ytasha,
a lot of your work
takes place in this space
called "Afrofuturism."
What does that mean?
Afrofuturism is a way
of looking at futures
or alternate realities,
but you're doing so
through these
Black cultural lenses.
It's both an aesthetic--
you've seen a lot
of the space imagery reflected
in our architecture--
dance, music, storytelling,
how people gather.
It's also a perspective,
a way of knowing oneself,
and it's, I think, a good way
to facilitate healing
for people who have issues
around the imagination.
It's very different
than how we tell stories,
like, in the West.
Sometimes I see stories
where they act as if,
in order to have
a new beginning,
you have to have
this incredible apocalypse
and begin anew.
A lot of Afrofuturists
kind of acknowledge that
some of those apocalyptic
things have already happened.
Hmm.
When you think
about moments like
the transatlantic slave trade,
colonialism,
people had to think
about liberating themselves
or think about claiming
their own humanity.
We're all kind of
at an intersection
of these histories
and decisions that
a lot of people made
before we even showed up.
Mm-hmm.
There are
certain philosophies
and ideas that shape us,
but it's not about them.
It's about you
and the decisions
you're gonna make now
and the kind of future,
you know,
that you ultimately want.
Thank you for being
here and coming out today.
The purpose of this class is
to think about our futures,
think about our relationships
to dance,
and become
these joy generators.
Wallach, voice-over: Ytasha uses
the ideas of Afrofuturism
and her love of dance
to help people
come to see themselves
as a part of creating
better futures,
bigger than and beyond
their personal past.
She believes that
our own stories,
often formed
by the stories we are told,
too often hold us back
from the futures
we want to see unfold.
So what we're gonna do
quickly--
I'm gonna give you each
a sheet of paper.
I want you to think
about the things
that you want in your life,
in your personal futures,
and just jot them down.
Womack, voice-over: It's fun
to challenge ourselves
to think of other
kinds of worlds.
If you're a person
of African descent
and you're navigating society,
you contend
with perspectives
about who people
feel you are.
You contend
with perspectives
of where they think
you came from,
perspectives of what people
feel you can achieve
or not achieve,
where being yourself,
you're told that
that's problematic.
There are people
who turn to dance
as that space of resilience.
It's a little moment
where you escape,
and it shifts your perspective
enough, maybe,
to come out of it and see
things a little differently.
What's your hope
in terms of the impact?
How does it start
to change things,
and what do you want
to see it do in the world?
There are things
in our society
that say, "Oh, that's not
a story to tell,"
or, "Oh,
that story doesn't fit."
So I think for some people,
you know,
you have to almost
reimagine a past
to connect with the past that
you hadn't been told about,
and then you have to also
imagine a future.
The more we engage
with that,
the more we can sort of
create futures together
that benefit humanity.
Wallach, voice-over: Imagining
a future doesn't just happen
on an individual level,
and what begins
as simply a story
can often go on to inform
the kind of world
we choose to create.
Gateway to
the $155-million wonderland.
From far and near come
countless visitors.
By every mode of travel,
every means of transportation,
they arrive
to view the marvels
of the greatest exposition
in history.
So in 1939,
at the World's Fair,
General Motors sponsored
what was probably
the most amazing
and biggest exhibit
Futurama.
Outstanding exhibits
by leaders of the auto industry.
Sensational is the Futurama
that projects you into 1960.
Now, when
you went to go visit Futurama,
you saw scenes of the future.
An automobile whose
body is made
of a transparent plastic is
a surefire attraction
for the mechanically minded.
Of kitchens
and family rooms
and the workplace
and of parks and buildings
where they basically laid out
what the future would be.
This world of
tomorrow is a world of beauty.
Below us lies a superb
one-direction highway,
bearing streams of traffic
at varying speeds
in separate lanes.
Now, there is
one thing in this exhibit
that, in hindsight,
is totally obvious.
Everywhere you went
in the Futurama exhibit,
there was a four-
or an eight-lane highway,
so embedded within
the story of the future
was a lot of cars.
Now, that totally made sense.
It was General Motors'
exhibit, after all,
but it allows us to see
the power of stories
dictating what you think
is a normal progress
or a normal way of being.
Unfortunately,
when it comes to the future,
I think most of the discourse
and stories
are ones that inspired fear.
Ava!
And the problem with fear
is that it prohibits
transformative action,
and so our capacity
to imagine anything
beyond what keeps us safe
and what we're familiar with
is extremely diminished.
It locks us in the short term.
Hope inspires action.
We urgently need more stories
that can bring us
to that mind space.
When I think of the future,
there are so many forks
in the road.
There are so many good paths
we could take,
so many bad paths we could take.
We could commit ourselves
to extinction,
or we could commit ourselves
to an ecological civilization,
one in which human beings
can continue to thrive
while the living planet is
allowed to sustain itself,
and we have all the tools
necessary to do that.
When it comes to
the biggest stories of our time,
the challenge we face
is in finding ways
to communicate that can
cut through the differences
that divide us,
and in a moment
when these divides seem
to only be growing,
the role of storytelling
is more important than ever.
I came to Texas
to meet Katharine Hayhoe,
an evangelical Christian
and climate scientist
who's focused on
building bridges
to change the story
around climate action
to be a whole lot bigger
and more inclusive
than the one we've been telling.
According
to Pew Research,
the United States is more
politically divided today
than it's been
since the Civil War.
Our political ideology is often
the number-one predictor
of what we hold
as our identity,
and in this type
of divisiveness,
what we see is that
people start to view others
who vote differently
than themselves
as not even human,
as enemies,
rather than
fellow citizens.
So how do we start
bridging these divides
that are tearing
our country apart?
Only if we start
with what we have in common,
not if we begin
with what divides us,
and storytelling is
a huge part of that.
So neuroscientists have found
that when we tell a story,
that people's brainwaves
actually synchronize
with each other, and we
empathize much more strongly,
because we can see ourselves
in that situation,
in that story.
And I'm just trying
to share this information.
Wallach, voice-over: Katharine
spends a lot of her time
these days speaking to people
who don't traditionally
see themselves as a part
of the climate movement.
For her, it's about telling
a story that people can
actually see themselves in.
All of us--almost
all of us, I should say--
have two big problems when
it comes to climate change.
We don't understand why it
matters to me here and now,
and we don't know
what we can do to fix it,
or we think we do know,
and we don't want to do it.
There's names
for these two things.
The first one's called
"psychological distance,"
and the second one is called
"solution aversion."
"You can't eat meat.
You can't drive a truck.
"You can't travel.
You can't have kids.
Everybody has to sacrifice
to fix climate change,"
and I'm like, "Well,
if that's your only solution,
we're never gonna do it."
We've been told
that all climate solutions
involve loss,
sacrifice, suffering,
something being taken
away from us,
rather than gaining anything,
and our human brains are wired
to be more fearful of loss
than we appreciate gain,
and so we're working against
the wiring of our brains.
We need the best choice
to also be the easiest choice
and the most
affordable choice,
the default choice,
the natural choice,
and to make that happen,
we need system change.
I was in the studio,
recording the audio version
of my book.
So I went into the booth,
and I recorded
the first few hours,
and then I came out
to take a break,
and the sound engineer said,
"I didn't realize your book
is about climate change.
I have some questions."
Ha ha ha!
So I said,
"All right, here we go."
So we sat down,
but instead of him
asking me questions,
I started by asking him
questions.
"How long have you
lived here?
Do you have family?"
"Yes, kids and grandchildren."
You know,
"What are the types of things
you enjoy doing here?"
Pretty soon, he was telling me
about how he grew up
going to this lake
to go fishing,
how he wants to take
his grandchildren there,
but how the lake has been
getting warmer,
and it's clogged
with algae now,
and there's not nearly
as many fish,
and there's so much
development around it.
I was listening
to his experiences,
not him listening to mine.
And so when it got to the point
where he had questions,
at that point,
his questions were,
"Well, but what are we
supposed to do about this?
"Because the only
solutions I've heard
are these liberal solutions,
and I'm not a liberal."
So I got a chance to talk
about how there are
conservative
and bipartisan solutions
that people do agree on
and give him some resources
where he could find out
more about that.
The story we're missing is
that of a better future.
Climate change stands between
us and a better future.
It's not just about
avoiding the apocalypse.
It's about
implementing changes
that will clean up
our air and our water
and give us
a safer place to live
and ensure abundant food
for all
and improve our health
and give us that safe world
that we all want.
If we don't visualize
and imagine and tell ourselves
stories of what we want
that world to look like,
how are we ever
gonna get there?
One story we tell ourselves,
which is perhaps the biggest
fairy tale of all,
is the story of infinite growth
on a finite planet,
that we can just keep
growing and growing
and growing the economy,
and somehow,
the world will accommodate that,
and people say, "Well, we're
not asking for the Earth.
We only want 3% growth a year."
Well, 3% growth means a doubling
of all economic activity
every 24 years.
So in the whole
of human history,
that then gets doubled.
Then 24 years later,
it gets doubled again
and again and again,
but of course,
we very quickly start
to bump into
environmental limits.
Wallach, voice-over:
These limits raise all kinds
of questions about the stories
on which
much of the modern world
has been built,
and as it becomes clear
just how unsustainable
this all really is,
what kind of alternative story
can we begin writing
in this moment?
That's led me to London,
where a former sailor
turned economist
named Ellen MacArthur
is working to prove
that a new story
is not only needed,
but possible.
Take me on the journey from
a world record-holding sailor
to circular economics.
How did you get
to this point?
First of all, I never thought
I would be at this point.
You know, when I sailed
when I was four years old,
that was all
I ever wanted to do.
I loved being at sea.
I loved watching all around me.
I loved being connected
to everything around me,
and it was like a drug.
I just wanted to do
more and more,
and that very quickly,
actually,
led me to sail around
the world for the first time
when I was 23 years old.
MacArthur, voice-over:
I am looking forward
to getting out there on my own,
and it's been a great year
racing with the crew
and also racing
on different boats,
but no, I still love
sailing on my own.
This is a massive challenge.
This is the ultimate record,
the fastest
around the world record.
When you sail
around the world on a boat,
you take with you
what you need
for your survival
for three months,
and when you start,
you watch those resources
go down every single day.
There is no more.
What you have is all you have,
and you develop this
overwhelming understanding
of what it is to have
finite resources.
You know what it means
to have no more,
and I suddenly translated
that to the global economy.
We tend to take something
out of the ground,
make something out of it,
and then throw it away,
so that needs
a continuous flow of resources.
That can't run
in the long term,
when we have
a growing world population
and a growing economy.
The more I thought about it,
the more I was
fascinated by it.
I asked a lot
of really dumb questions
to lots and lots of people
in the early days,
just saying,
"So how does this work,
and what's the solution?"
What place are we trying
to get to?
If we know we can't do this,
then we need to do
something different,
so what is that thing?
I don't think linear
economics ever happened
because people were trying
to use up all our resources.
It was a natural progression
from the Industrial Revolution.
Now we know,
in order to satisfy
the needs of ourselves today
and in the future,
the whole economy
has to operate
in that circular way.
What is circular economics?
If you think about
that linear straight line,
if you, by design, turn that
straight line into a circle,
then you look at eliminating
waste and pollution,
you circulate products
and materials,
and you regenerate
natural systems.
So it's not something
you think about at the end,
but as you build the economy,
you design that
into the economy
so that it can run
in the long term.
Some of the best
circular examples
are of carpet manufacturers.
They were completely tied
to buying new raw materials
to make their carpets with,
and those prices
were going up and up and up.
And they said,
"Why do we need to buy
"new raw materials
when we can design
our carpets
in a circular way?"
So they redesigned the carpet.
They designed it
so the base could be
melted down and turned into
the base for the next carpet.
The yarn could be
extracted, re-spun,
turned into the yarn
of the next carpet,
and actually, they offered it
not to be sold, but leased.
So when those trucks come in
to make the carpet,
rather than being filled with
raw materials from a mine
or from an oil well,
they're your carpets
coming back in
to be reprocessed,
and you designed them,
so you know what sits in them,
and you designed them,
so you know
how to get that out of it,
and that would be
that perfect circular example.
What are some
of the challenges facing us
in shifting from linear
to circular economics?
I'd say one
of the biggest challenges
is mindset,
because we've all come
through a linear
education system,
and we've inherited
a linear economy.
It's easy to get buried
in the problem,
but we need to lift our heads
out of the sand
and say,
"Where are we going?
Where do we want to
get to?"
Because life is
about opportunity.
Life is about those goals.
You want to know
what you can do,
and you want to be
part of that.
Wallach, voice-over: I really do
believe we all want
to be a part of the solution,
but it can be hard to know
where to begin,
but what happens when we start
to see problems
as opportunities,
old stories waiting
to be rewritten?
In San Diego, Lou Cooperhouse
is using his love of seafood
to create new forms
of cell-based fish
as one way of helping
to build a more sustainable
relationship
with the natural world.
We're right on the coast,
so in theory,
we just go out
in some boats
and catch a bunch of fish
and bring it in.
Why--why do it this way?
San Diego was actually
considered, at one time,
the tuna capital of the world.
Up out of the hold
come the tuna by the crateful,
on their way to make
a lot of tasty tuna dishes.
During the '30s and '40s,
much seafood was, in fact,
caught off these coasts.
What's happened in the last,
you know, 100 years or so
is the total supply chain
of seafood
has been really compromised.
We have an issue
of microplastics and toxins
and pollutants and mercury.
Wild-capture fisheries
have been flat
for three to four decades.
You know, many fishing
communities around the world
really rely on fishing
as a means
of their economic growth
and prosperity,
so we need a new solution
to feed the planet.
So give me a sense of how
this actually works, right?
You're basically
growing fish?
So from an individual fish,
we are isolating the muscle,
the fat, or the connective
tissue cells,
and we're growing those cells
in large volumes
in what looks like
a stainless-steel vessel
in a microbrewery.
Welcome
to the BlueNalu labs.
This is where we do
a lot of the research.
So once you
find, like, your--your
perfect tuna cell,
you just keep making
more of them?
Exactly. So once you
have the cells,
you don't have to go back
to the animal.
They divide continuously.
They're actually in
a food-safe,
cell-culture media,
and we don't have to use
any animal components.
In nature, bluefin tuna has
a 20% to 50% fat content.
That really is the target
for us to get that nice,
buttery mouthfeel,
that melt-in-your-mouth
texture that's very important
from a sensory perspective.
The supply
of seafood is so fragmented,
so fragile, so vulnerable.
In fact, even America,
we're importing 70% to 85%
of our seafood.
So what we're able
to create in the future is
a secure supply of seafood,
made locally.
This is just
a unique opportunity
in my life, really,
in anybody's life,
to do something
that's so disruptive,
so transformative,
to really create something
that can last for generations.
- Robin, Ari.
- Hey, Ari. Pleasure.
So Chef Robin's with a sushi
restaurant in downtown.
So part of this whole process
for us has been looking
at the conventional
versus our product,
and how we could ultimately
replicate it.
So this, in fact, is
the bluefin tuna
otoro saku block.
So that saku block
is something
that the chef
at the back of the house
would actually utilize
to make nigiri, sashimi,
poke cubes, what have you.
So this creates flexibility
for the chefs
based on whatever
your needs might be.
Mmm.
Wallach, voice-over: Most of us
know big changes are needed
in order to create
the futures we want
to live in and leave behind,
but how will that change
affect our own lives,
what we eat, and how we live?
Lou's work is just one example
of how we can and must
begin telling a new story
about the future,
one defined by creativity
and possibility
rather than fear,
sacrifice, and loss.
- It's otoro.
- Awesome. Ha ha ha!
Glad you enjoyed it.
Wallach, voice-over:
One of the most hopeful things
about this moment is that
the natural world around us
still contains
an extraordinary capacity
to heal itself
if given the opportunity.
That's led me to Scotland,
where a small community
is coming together
to do just that
as they rewrite a new future
for themselves and this land.
The idea
of regeneration,
what does that mean
here in this area?
So Langholm has suffered,
over the past few decades,
a big economic decline.
The textiles industry was
the biggest employer here.
As that industry declined,
there's so many
skilled people
that have lost jobs,
and there's been
a lot of economic heartache
and a lot of economic
difficulties.
So there was
an opportunity there
to look at nature-based
enterprises
and how you could support.
Bringing that power back
into community hands
is an incredibly
powerful symbol.
Wallach, voice-over:
Here in Scotland, a vast amount
of the land is owned by a small
number of wealthy families,
but recently
when a large piece of land
went up for sale,
the people of Langholm
decided to purchase it
together and place it
under community ownership.
Creating
a crowdfunding effort,
they chipped in
everything they could,
and soon, word spread
as people who had never
visited the town contributed,
making it
the South of Scotland's
largest-ever community buyout.
The plan is to create
a nature reserve
to be a center
for rewilding work
while also creating
much-needed jobs,
and ecotourism opportunities
here, as well.
Give me some idea
of the size and scope.
- It's 10,500 acres.
- Wow.
What's amazing about it
is it's continuous.
We've got everything from
globally important peatlands,
ancient woodland,
open moorland,
and obviously,
a beautiful river
that runs all the way
through it.
We also have a lot that's
sort of damaged, modified,
and needs restoration,
so we've got a big job to do.
So where are we now?
So we are at our
community-run tree nursery.
So we have 50,000 trees,
all growing in here,
and these will all be used
to create our new woodland.
Why is there such
a need in Scotland
to plant more trees?
So Scotland,
like the rest of the UK,
is one of the least-forested
countries in the world
and one of the most
nature-depleted countries
in the world, so we've got
all the kind of stages
of a forest growing in here.
Those saplings right there
quite possibly
could be around
in the year 3000.
Well, let's hope
they will be.
If we grow them properly,
keep watering them,
and plant them
in the right places,
then that's
what we really hope.
Really, this project
is about rewilding.
What does it mean to
rewild something like this?
It's been deforested.
It's been drained.
It's been burned.
So what we've got
an opportunity to do now
is rebalance our relationship
with nature and show
that we can get all of those
sort of human benefits,
but also give something back
and heal the land, almost.
We're planting trees.
We're starting
to rewet the land,
put wetlands in,
taking out non-native species,
and we're already seeing
nature coming back.
So it's kind of like
giving it a helping hand.
Wallach, voice-over:
You can't help but feel
the new life in this community,
the pride that people here
feel getting to take part
in shaping a new story about
the future of this town today,
tomorrow, and for
generations yet to come.
While I was in town,
I got to sit down
with a few of the residents,
who have big dreams
for what this means
for the people of Langholm.
What has
the buyout meant
for the community
and for the town,
having this kind
of mission,
right, and vision
for collective ownership?
You get an opportunity
once in a lifetime
to do something
that is beyond yourself.
It's for the future,
and when the land
came up for sale,
we recognized that this was
a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.
What we're hoping to do
through the buyout
of the land,
that will provide
a different offering,
not only to our young people,
but to people from outside
to come and see
what we have done,
what we've managed
to achieve.
We're regenerating the whole
town and the whole community.
Everyone's galvanized.
There's a buzz
about the town again.
People are starting
to see results,
and it's all the small wins,
and the nature reserve's
never gonna be a quick job.
It's a long term,
but we want to secure
a long-term future
for people like Lewis
that will be taking it on.
It gives me a lot of hope
that Langholm,
being as strong a community
as it is, it will regenerate,
it will open up
new opportunities,
and in 10, 20, 30,
or even 50 years' time,
it'll be a thriving town
like it once was.
Wallach, voice-over: What's
happening here in Scotland
is part of a growing movement
around the world
as people discover the part
they can play in healing
the natural world around them
through rewilding,
a reminder of what's
still possible
when we come to see
ourselves as authors
rather than passive observers.
One of the things
about understanding yourself
as part of a story,
whether it's a religion
or a nation or a family,
is you're profoundly aware
of what other people
have done for you.
We should appreciate that,
and we should do better.
For centuries,
a coherent ethnic group
made a nation,
a coherent religious group
made a nation.
So what is an American?
"American" is somebody
who believes in the ideals
that were enshrined
in the Declaration
of Independence
and that believes in
a nation that is working
to achieve those ideals.
And what is that?
That's a story,
and we absorb this story
from the past,
and we believe in it,
and we work towards it.
We become a character
in the story,
and then we teach it
to our children.
Shabbat Shalom.
Who's doing
the wine?
I will.
- Amen.
- Amen.
It is perfect, guys.
Perfect.
Enjoy, everybody.
- How's the salad?
- Perfect.
This is perfect.
Wallach, voice-over:
Like a nation or a people,
my family has a story
that we're in the midst
of writing,
and just like us all,
it's building on
what came before
while looking forward
to what is still yet to come,
a daily reminder
that we are all links
in a much larger chain,
people playing a part
in an unfinished story.
Go into my room
So when we think about
the future that we want,
sometimes it's really
difficult to think about,
and one of the things
that I've learned
is we have to kind of use
our imagination.
We have to use our artistry.
We have to kind of create
that future,
drawing it or writing it down
and really thinking about it.
Wallach, voice-over: So much
of the work before us
in this moment is in finding
ways to tell better stories
about the futures
we want to see unfold,
not just those we wish to avoid
because while dystopian
visions of tomorrow
can entertain,
they leave us feeling
small, passive,
and powerless in the face
of a darkening world up ahead.
The opportunity right now is
in telling new stories
that can unlock
all the hope, imagination,
and creativity we're going
to need moving forward.
I think stories
give us meaning.
It gives us
a sense of ourselves,
and it's building community
because we're all part
of this race.
Who is getting allowed
to tell the stories?
That's where I'm at.
I'm trying to fight
to make sure
there are more creators
of this American
and human tapestry
at the table.
So we have to lead
with the stories
to get behind an idea
to make a change.
We are among
the first generations
to know what the consequences
of our actions are,
and we're among
the last generations
who can do anything about it.
We are called upon
as no generations
have ever been
called upon before.
We have heroes
from previous ages,
the people who stood
against Hitler,
the slave revolts,
the civil rights movement,
the anti-apartheid movement,
the campaign
for women's suffrage,
the independence movements
in many parts of the world,
and in all these cases,
people were called upon
to do something
much bigger than themselves.
Now we are called upon
to do something bigger
than any of that,
to prevent the collapse
of our life-support systems.
This is a task
that calls to us for the sake
of all future populations
as well as all people
who are on Earth today.
It's very important
and urgent for all of us
to get quite creative about
this and roll up our sleeves
and say, "OK, how do I apply
my creativity, my intelligence,
"my skills, my connections,
my networks
towards actually addressing
these challenges?"
That is the call to action
of our times.
We're as influenced
by our ideas of the future
as we are influenced
by our ideas of the past.
We all have some story
as to how we got here,
which influences
the things that we do.
Sometimes you have to step
away from that,
change your story.
If you want to imagine
new futures,
you have to entertain
new possibilities.
We always say in the office,
"We'll know
when we've succeeded
"when the children
that grow up here are like,
'This is ours,
and this is ours to shape.'"
It's looking at a legacy
for future generations.
It's looking beyond us.
Wallach, voice-over: What makes
stories unbelievably powerful
is they have the ability to
connect us with one another,
to connect us to the past,
to connect us to the present,
and to connect us to the future,
and we have to remember that,
when we tell these stories
about who we are
and where we want to go,
they actually become
a compass to guide our actions
as individuals,
as members of families,
as nations, and as a species
on planet Earth.
Ari Wallach, voice-over: The way
humans make sense of the world
is through stories.
They help us figure out
what happened in the past
and give us a sense of place
and community and belonging.
It can totally expand
our imagination
and guide our future actions.
There's a reason
the hippocampus,
at the base of our brain,
is both responsible
for emotions
and memory and images,
because the two work
hand in hand
to help us move
throughout the world.
This has been part
of who we are,
and most importantly,
how we transmit knowledge
from generation to generation.
It is cold
and growing colder
as the world slowly dies.
One in 12 people
on the planet
will contract the disease.
Even if they discovered
the cure for infertility,
doesn't matter.
Too late.
Here's the thing.
Almost every movie
that takes place in the future
is a story about
the world gone bad.
In the future,
the polar ice caps
have melted,
and the Earth lies
beneath a watery grave.
There's a "Mad Max"
way of thinking about tomorrow.
A man reduced to
a single instinct--survive.
What happens
when all we see,
all the stories of tomorrow,
are dystopian,
you start forgetting what it is
that you actually do want.
Are the stories that we're
putting out circumscribing,
and in some ways,
creating artificial boundaries
in terms of
what kind of futures
and worlds that we want?
Good morning.
This is your wake-up call.
Just punch
it in all the way.
- Oh.
- Like that.
All right, so we're
gonna spread this out
and split it into four
even pieces.
I know it's hard.
Sharon, I feel
like you're gonna
have to, like--
- Yeah, you're gonna have to
- Help us.
- Ha ha!
- No, you--what do you mean?
Yours is--
yours is a little fat.
It's OK.
Don't redo it too much.
Wallach, voice-over: Our lives
are a collection of stories,
stories about who we are
and where we come from,
stories that help us
make sense of today,
and stories about
what comes next,
but how do our stories about
the past shape our future?
What stories do we need
to hold on to,
and which ones
should we leave behind?
What stories will lead us
to create better tomorrows
for our kids and grandkids,
and which ones are simply
holding us back?
There we go.
All right.
Wherever I go,
I always enjoy
talking to people
about the stories they love,
and today, stopping by
my son's classroom,
I'm reminded just
how foundational
these stories really are.
I wanted to introduce
you guys to my friend Ari.
I love
your purple shoes.
- Oh, thank you.
- You're welcome.
Here's a question.
Who here likes
to watch movies?
Raise your hand.
OK. All right.
I'm just--what's
a movie that you saw lately
that you really liked?
"Lyle, Lyle Crocodile."
- "Lyle, Lyle Crocodile." Yeah?
- "Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter."
Um, I watched "It."
You watched "It"?
- Oh, my gosh! How?
- Horror movie!
I honestly liked "Wall-E,"
because it shows, like,
emotion in a robot,
which is kind of like AI.
What do you love
about movies?
- Yes?
- Um, I like how they're scary.
The actors
show feelings.
Sometimes they're very sad,
and I cry.
What makes a great story?
- Yes?
- The emotions.
Emotions. Yes?
The connection to reality.
Charlotte?
Um, like,
if it has a good plot
and there are things
that, like, change it up
in the story,
and it's not just one thing
where you can predict
what's gonna happen.
Beautiful.
When you think about a movie
that takes place in the future,
what does it,
what does it have to have in it
for it to be a great movie?
Um, I kind of think,
if I was making a movie
in the future,
I would kind of, um,
add, like, things
that we're planning on
trying to make.
Like what?
- Like flying cars.
- Flying cars.
Get in.
Let's play it hard.
Pull up, Anakin!
- Pull up!
- Ha ha ha!
Ooh!
Nice shot, Doc!
Stories are the shortcut
we use to navigate the world,
and the world is just
too complicated to understand.
There's too much data
coming at us,
and we can't notice
and process all that data.
The human mind does not have
that capacity.
So we need shortcuts.
We need to be able
to make leaps over the data.
We say, "What am I broadly
seeing here?
How can I make sense of this?"
And the story is
what makes sense of it.
There's a quote
by Alasdair MacIntyre,
the great Catholic philosopher
at Notre Dame University,
who says,
"I cannot tell you who I am
"or what I'm going to do
"until I tell you the story
or stories
that I am a part of."
All of us believe in
a certain kind of the future
that seems almost inevitable.
And actually,
if we interrogate that,
if we trace that thread back,
the origins of those
are in the first few
very attractive,
shiny images of the future
that we witnessed,
that we consumed.
And somehow, they end up
shaping the boundary
or the contours of what we
think it's going to look like.
But who owns those images
of the future?
Who shaped them?
Who's missing from this story,
and why?
For years,
Hollywood has attracted
the best and brightest
storytellers,
yet only recently
have we begun to understand
just how limited
our stories have been,
in large part because of
who's been able to tell them.
But what would it look like
if more people
began to see themselves
as storytellers,
helping to shape
new narratives, new futures
they can actually
see themselves in?
That's led me here
to meet Rafael Agustin,
an award-winning screenwriter
and author focused on
broadening the boundaries
of what stories are told
and who gets to tell them.
Tell me a little bit
more about you.
It's like
a first date, right?
So, like, we just sat down.
I just--
Scorpio. Long walks
on the beach.
Long walks--I just ordered
two glasses of pinot noir,
and we're getting to know
each other.
Please.
All right, so born
in Ecuador, South America.
Came to
the United States
when I was, like,
seven years old.
And it wasn't
until high school,
when I applied to go
to college and I applied
to get my driver's license
that I discovered
that we were undocumented.
Growing up,
until that point,
did you feel different
in any way?
Did you always feel
kind of aligned
within the communities
that you were in?
Well, the funny thing
is, in Ecuador,
we watched a lot
of American movies
and TV shows
and pop culture.
- Cuidado, Batman!
- Ha ha ha
Hollywood
is the greatest
export we have.
And not only me--
I think it's influenced
an entire globe.
I remember
one of the first movies
that I fell in love with
was, like, this--
I don't want to say "bad,"
because I loved it,
but it was a B action movie
called "American Ninja"
- Yeah.
- Which starred--
I've watched all three
"American Ninjas."
- Very influential.
- So you already know
how important
this movie is.
It's extremely important
on many levels,
but I'll let you go into why.
Heartthrob Michael Dudikoff
changed my life,
because since that moment,
I wanted to be
only two things in my life.
One was a ninja,
and the other one was
American.
I get to public school
in the United States,
when I show up
to my first day of class,
and I'm like,
"Wait a minute.
"What are all these, like,
Asian American kids?
"What are all these
African American kids?
"Like, this doesn't look
like the movies I watch.
This is too much
diversity."
And then I saw, like,
the Mexican American
and Central American kids
and realized
that I look more like them
than the white kids.
And then--so I was,
like, seven years old
when I realized, "Oh, my God,
I'm--I'm not white."
Rafael fell in love
with storytelling
at an early age,
but after only seeing
his community represented
by cliché stereotypes,
he decided to write himself
into a future he didn't see
around him,
first as a screenwriter,
and now by enabling others
to do the same thing
for themselves.
Scene five,
cat, take two.
Filmmaking
has been around,
so what we do is not,
like, revolutionary.
It's the age
that we do it at
and the communities
that we do it at
that is
so revolutionary.
We essentially bring
filmmaking mentors
into the classroom
twice a week
for 90-minute blocks
for an entire school year.
So we guide
the students through
the filmmaking process
from the development
of a concept
all the way
until their premieres,
and we have their premieres
at the Los Angeles
Latino International
Film Festival.
If every student learns
not only that
they can tell their story,
but that they should,
what kind of self-advocacy
and self-respect
is built into them?
How empowered are they
when they realize that
they can actually tell
their own stories?
That's what's so critical
about the work.
It's the social-emotional
empowerment
that's being built.
I went to a historically
marginalized,
low-performing school,
and I watched
9- and 10-year-olds
who look like me
do the work that
I couldn't do,
and I--I nearly
started crying.
So tell me
what it starts to look like
on the other side.
I think the stories
that we tell are
gonna be limitless.
I think our imagination
is gonna be even
more exciting,
because we're seeing
one another for
the first time,
and we're seeing
each other's
humanities, finally.
We have an amazing
opportunity in this moment
to rewrite the stories
that define our time,
to be so much bigger
and more inclusive
for the world
we actually live in
and the one we want to create,
but who wrote the stories
that came before us,
and how far back does
this essential human trait
of storytelling really go?
That's led me to Spain.
I'm here to visit
the Cave of Ardales,
where until recently
it was believed
to contain some of the world's
oldest recordings
ever made by humans.
Thanks to a new discovery here,
some of the markings
in this cave now date back
much, much further.
OK.
Wallach, voice-over: Pedro led
me further into the cave,
explaining that while animal
bones were discovered outside,
human bones were buried deep
inside the heart of the cave.
They believe these early
burial sites were a way
of marking this cave
as belonging to a clan
and connecting them to their
ancestors who came before,
but the most amazing thing
is the discovery
of markings on the walls
that point to
the very earliest forms
of communication.
Wow.
Wallach, voice-over:
What began as information,
ways to communicate
threats or danger,
soon gave way to mythmaking--
art, early religion,
and the very first
recorded human stories.
Over the many centuries since,
our methods of storytelling
have continued to evolve,
but the primal
importance they serve
to our sense of knowing
who we are,
where we belong,
and where we are going
is as strong now
as it's ever been.
In Los Angeles, a team
of artists and engineers
are continuing to push
these methods forward
using AI-enhanced gaming engines
to create the digital worlds
of tomorrow.
We are at Lux.
Lux is one
of the frontrunners
in LED volume
virtual production.
They were early developers,
early adopters
in this tech
and this information.
What exactly is this?
So this is called
an "LED volume."
These are all motion-capture
cameras that are used to track
that camera in 3D space.
It's projecting
in a 3D environment
from a video-game engine.
Give me an idea of how
you actually use this.
A good use case--
"Mandalorian" was a huge one.
That kind of brought it
to the world,
but there's been versions
of this for the last 90 years.
Back in 1930,
they started using
rear projection.
"Just Imagine" and "Liliom"
were the big ones.
Just imagine
the New York of 1980.
They just started
pushing it forward.
And those were called
"motion special effects"
at that time.
From that process,
they kept iterating on it.
Now, instead of shooting
on a blue screen,
you have that environment
that you can see in camera.
So it limits the compositing,
it limits all of those things
that you need to do
in post-production.
So what this does is
you have unbelievable
flexibility.
You're able to
change this
- in a matter of seconds.
- Absolutely.
We can do
a time-of-day change,
and we can make it
early morning, dusk.
And there we are.
- So now it's dusk.
- Yeah.
You can put crews
in a different location
at any time.
You can also shoot
in this all day long,
and that's the beauty of it.
When you were
growing up, you obviously,
you know, went
to the movies,
like most of us,
but then something clicked.
What was it that--
that drew you in?
What was the thing
that caused you to
kind of fall in love?
I was always a big fan
of the underdog story.
That was my thing, you know,
"The Sandlot" and "Rudy."
Since when are you
the quitting kind?
Rudy! Rudy!
There's something
about good storytelling
that connects with the soul.
There's nothing that
moves you as a human
as much as storytelling,
and it goes back in history
thousands of years.
It's to help unlock
and understand
the expression of emotions,
and those are the things
that open us up as humans.
All day long,
film races through the camera
at 90 feet a minute
in scene after scene.
You know,
in the beginning,
you had directors
and directors of photography
that are finding new ways
to tell the story,
finding new ways
to immerse the audience.
We configured the water box
so it was easy to get
the water lapping the lens.
I really wanted this movie
to be just at water level,
the way we are
when we're treading water.
We go from
black and white to color.
We go from no sound to sound.
If I'm a success
in this show,
well, we're gonna move
from here.
We'll have to think
of something else.
And we start to see
all these things build up
to create what we know today,
and so that's
what we're seeing now,
is all these tools
are kind of working together
and expanding this universe
of content creation.
With the adoption
of game engines,
I think there's gonna be
a wide adoption
of the technology advances
and giving opportunities
for people
to explore these worlds,
and that makes it immersive.
How might AI change
storytelling as we know it?
I think you can look at AI
in storytelling as jet fuel.
It's something
that can boost you
to another level
of creative thinking.
It unlocks potential.
We're now not thinking
in this little box,
but we're seeing what happens
when you combine
all these different things
that have been made over time
and put it into your story.
So it is actually tracking
Wallach, voice-over: As these
tools continue to extend
our capacity to create new
worlds and immerse ourselves
in alternate realities,
the question
of what kind of worlds
we choose to build,
what visions of tomorrow
we show ourselves,
is more important than ever
because stories don't
just entertain or inspire us.
They create the basis
for what we see as possible
moving forward.
The mere act of people
coming together
and imagining the future
that looks different
from the conditions
that they are born in
is a deeply political act.
It questions the inherent biases
and power imbalances
that define the systems
that govern our lives.
When you open up
the future as a thing
that we can all imagine
and construct differently,
you're essentially putting
a lot of power and agency
in the hands of people who are,
in the traditional system,
completely left out
of the equation.
One of the dangerous things
about the stories
we're born into
is that we often don't
see them as stories at all.
Decisions people made
long before we got here
can make the world
as it is today seem certain,
even inevitable,
but what stories have
we taken for granted today
that are holding us back
from building better tomorrows,
and what does it mean
to examine these stories
from new perspectives?
I came to Chicago
to meet Ytasha Womack,
a world-renowned author,
Afrofuturist, and dancer,
working to challenge
our relationship to the past
as well as to the futures
we can create.
So, Ytasha,
a lot of your work
takes place in this space
called "Afrofuturism."
What does that mean?
Afrofuturism is a way
of looking at futures
or alternate realities,
but you're doing so
through these
Black cultural lenses.
It's both an aesthetic--
you've seen a lot
of the space imagery reflected
in our architecture--
dance, music, storytelling,
how people gather.
It's also a perspective,
a way of knowing oneself,
and it's, I think, a good way
to facilitate healing
for people who have issues
around the imagination.
It's very different
than how we tell stories,
like, in the West.
Sometimes I see stories
where they act as if,
in order to have
a new beginning,
you have to have
this incredible apocalypse
and begin anew.
A lot of Afrofuturists
kind of acknowledge that
some of those apocalyptic
things have already happened.
Hmm.
When you think
about moments like
the transatlantic slave trade,
colonialism,
people had to think
about liberating themselves
or think about claiming
their own humanity.
We're all kind of
at an intersection
of these histories
and decisions that
a lot of people made
before we even showed up.
Mm-hmm.
There are
certain philosophies
and ideas that shape us,
but it's not about them.
It's about you
and the decisions
you're gonna make now
and the kind of future,
you know,
that you ultimately want.
Thank you for being
here and coming out today.
The purpose of this class is
to think about our futures,
think about our relationships
to dance,
and become
these joy generators.
Wallach, voice-over: Ytasha uses
the ideas of Afrofuturism
and her love of dance
to help people
come to see themselves
as a part of creating
better futures,
bigger than and beyond
their personal past.
She believes that
our own stories,
often formed
by the stories we are told,
too often hold us back
from the futures
we want to see unfold.
So what we're gonna do
quickly--
I'm gonna give you each
a sheet of paper.
I want you to think
about the things
that you want in your life,
in your personal futures,
and just jot them down.
Womack, voice-over: It's fun
to challenge ourselves
to think of other
kinds of worlds.
If you're a person
of African descent
and you're navigating society,
you contend
with perspectives
about who people
feel you are.
You contend
with perspectives
of where they think
you came from,
perspectives of what people
feel you can achieve
or not achieve,
where being yourself,
you're told that
that's problematic.
There are people
who turn to dance
as that space of resilience.
It's a little moment
where you escape,
and it shifts your perspective
enough, maybe,
to come out of it and see
things a little differently.
What's your hope
in terms of the impact?
How does it start
to change things,
and what do you want
to see it do in the world?
There are things
in our society
that say, "Oh, that's not
a story to tell,"
or, "Oh,
that story doesn't fit."
So I think for some people,
you know,
you have to almost
reimagine a past
to connect with the past that
you hadn't been told about,
and then you have to also
imagine a future.
The more we engage
with that,
the more we can sort of
create futures together
that benefit humanity.
Wallach, voice-over: Imagining
a future doesn't just happen
on an individual level,
and what begins
as simply a story
can often go on to inform
the kind of world
we choose to create.
Gateway to
the $155-million wonderland.
From far and near come
countless visitors.
By every mode of travel,
every means of transportation,
they arrive
to view the marvels
of the greatest exposition
in history.
So in 1939,
at the World's Fair,
General Motors sponsored
what was probably
the most amazing
and biggest exhibit
Futurama.
Outstanding exhibits
by leaders of the auto industry.
Sensational is the Futurama
that projects you into 1960.
Now, when
you went to go visit Futurama,
you saw scenes of the future.
An automobile whose
body is made
of a transparent plastic is
a surefire attraction
for the mechanically minded.
Of kitchens
and family rooms
and the workplace
and of parks and buildings
where they basically laid out
what the future would be.
This world of
tomorrow is a world of beauty.
Below us lies a superb
one-direction highway,
bearing streams of traffic
at varying speeds
in separate lanes.
Now, there is
one thing in this exhibit
that, in hindsight,
is totally obvious.
Everywhere you went
in the Futurama exhibit,
there was a four-
or an eight-lane highway,
so embedded within
the story of the future
was a lot of cars.
Now, that totally made sense.
It was General Motors'
exhibit, after all,
but it allows us to see
the power of stories
dictating what you think
is a normal progress
or a normal way of being.
Unfortunately,
when it comes to the future,
I think most of the discourse
and stories
are ones that inspired fear.
Ava!
And the problem with fear
is that it prohibits
transformative action,
and so our capacity
to imagine anything
beyond what keeps us safe
and what we're familiar with
is extremely diminished.
It locks us in the short term.
Hope inspires action.
We urgently need more stories
that can bring us
to that mind space.
When I think of the future,
there are so many forks
in the road.
There are so many good paths
we could take,
so many bad paths we could take.
We could commit ourselves
to extinction,
or we could commit ourselves
to an ecological civilization,
one in which human beings
can continue to thrive
while the living planet is
allowed to sustain itself,
and we have all the tools
necessary to do that.
When it comes to
the biggest stories of our time,
the challenge we face
is in finding ways
to communicate that can
cut through the differences
that divide us,
and in a moment
when these divides seem
to only be growing,
the role of storytelling
is more important than ever.
I came to Texas
to meet Katharine Hayhoe,
an evangelical Christian
and climate scientist
who's focused on
building bridges
to change the story
around climate action
to be a whole lot bigger
and more inclusive
than the one we've been telling.
According
to Pew Research,
the United States is more
politically divided today
than it's been
since the Civil War.
Our political ideology is often
the number-one predictor
of what we hold
as our identity,
and in this type
of divisiveness,
what we see is that
people start to view others
who vote differently
than themselves
as not even human,
as enemies,
rather than
fellow citizens.
So how do we start
bridging these divides
that are tearing
our country apart?
Only if we start
with what we have in common,
not if we begin
with what divides us,
and storytelling is
a huge part of that.
So neuroscientists have found
that when we tell a story,
that people's brainwaves
actually synchronize
with each other, and we
empathize much more strongly,
because we can see ourselves
in that situation,
in that story.
And I'm just trying
to share this information.
Wallach, voice-over: Katharine
spends a lot of her time
these days speaking to people
who don't traditionally
see themselves as a part
of the climate movement.
For her, it's about telling
a story that people can
actually see themselves in.
All of us--almost
all of us, I should say--
have two big problems when
it comes to climate change.
We don't understand why it
matters to me here and now,
and we don't know
what we can do to fix it,
or we think we do know,
and we don't want to do it.
There's names
for these two things.
The first one's called
"psychological distance,"
and the second one is called
"solution aversion."
"You can't eat meat.
You can't drive a truck.
"You can't travel.
You can't have kids.
Everybody has to sacrifice
to fix climate change,"
and I'm like, "Well,
if that's your only solution,
we're never gonna do it."
We've been told
that all climate solutions
involve loss,
sacrifice, suffering,
something being taken
away from us,
rather than gaining anything,
and our human brains are wired
to be more fearful of loss
than we appreciate gain,
and so we're working against
the wiring of our brains.
We need the best choice
to also be the easiest choice
and the most
affordable choice,
the default choice,
the natural choice,
and to make that happen,
we need system change.
I was in the studio,
recording the audio version
of my book.
So I went into the booth,
and I recorded
the first few hours,
and then I came out
to take a break,
and the sound engineer said,
"I didn't realize your book
is about climate change.
I have some questions."
Ha ha ha!
So I said,
"All right, here we go."
So we sat down,
but instead of him
asking me questions,
I started by asking him
questions.
"How long have you
lived here?
Do you have family?"
"Yes, kids and grandchildren."
You know,
"What are the types of things
you enjoy doing here?"
Pretty soon, he was telling me
about how he grew up
going to this lake
to go fishing,
how he wants to take
his grandchildren there,
but how the lake has been
getting warmer,
and it's clogged
with algae now,
and there's not nearly
as many fish,
and there's so much
development around it.
I was listening
to his experiences,
not him listening to mine.
And so when it got to the point
where he had questions,
at that point,
his questions were,
"Well, but what are we
supposed to do about this?
"Because the only
solutions I've heard
are these liberal solutions,
and I'm not a liberal."
So I got a chance to talk
about how there are
conservative
and bipartisan solutions
that people do agree on
and give him some resources
where he could find out
more about that.
The story we're missing is
that of a better future.
Climate change stands between
us and a better future.
It's not just about
avoiding the apocalypse.
It's about
implementing changes
that will clean up
our air and our water
and give us
a safer place to live
and ensure abundant food
for all
and improve our health
and give us that safe world
that we all want.
If we don't visualize
and imagine and tell ourselves
stories of what we want
that world to look like,
how are we ever
gonna get there?
One story we tell ourselves,
which is perhaps the biggest
fairy tale of all,
is the story of infinite growth
on a finite planet,
that we can just keep
growing and growing
and growing the economy,
and somehow,
the world will accommodate that,
and people say, "Well, we're
not asking for the Earth.
We only want 3% growth a year."
Well, 3% growth means a doubling
of all economic activity
every 24 years.
So in the whole
of human history,
that then gets doubled.
Then 24 years later,
it gets doubled again
and again and again,
but of course,
we very quickly start
to bump into
environmental limits.
Wallach, voice-over:
These limits raise all kinds
of questions about the stories
on which
much of the modern world
has been built,
and as it becomes clear
just how unsustainable
this all really is,
what kind of alternative story
can we begin writing
in this moment?
That's led me to London,
where a former sailor
turned economist
named Ellen MacArthur
is working to prove
that a new story
is not only needed,
but possible.
Take me on the journey from
a world record-holding sailor
to circular economics.
How did you get
to this point?
First of all, I never thought
I would be at this point.
You know, when I sailed
when I was four years old,
that was all
I ever wanted to do.
I loved being at sea.
I loved watching all around me.
I loved being connected
to everything around me,
and it was like a drug.
I just wanted to do
more and more,
and that very quickly,
actually,
led me to sail around
the world for the first time
when I was 23 years old.
MacArthur, voice-over:
I am looking forward
to getting out there on my own,
and it's been a great year
racing with the crew
and also racing
on different boats,
but no, I still love
sailing on my own.
This is a massive challenge.
This is the ultimate record,
the fastest
around the world record.
When you sail
around the world on a boat,
you take with you
what you need
for your survival
for three months,
and when you start,
you watch those resources
go down every single day.
There is no more.
What you have is all you have,
and you develop this
overwhelming understanding
of what it is to have
finite resources.
You know what it means
to have no more,
and I suddenly translated
that to the global economy.
We tend to take something
out of the ground,
make something out of it,
and then throw it away,
so that needs
a continuous flow of resources.
That can't run
in the long term,
when we have
a growing world population
and a growing economy.
The more I thought about it,
the more I was
fascinated by it.
I asked a lot
of really dumb questions
to lots and lots of people
in the early days,
just saying,
"So how does this work,
and what's the solution?"
What place are we trying
to get to?
If we know we can't do this,
then we need to do
something different,
so what is that thing?
I don't think linear
economics ever happened
because people were trying
to use up all our resources.
It was a natural progression
from the Industrial Revolution.
Now we know,
in order to satisfy
the needs of ourselves today
and in the future,
the whole economy
has to operate
in that circular way.
What is circular economics?
If you think about
that linear straight line,
if you, by design, turn that
straight line into a circle,
then you look at eliminating
waste and pollution,
you circulate products
and materials,
and you regenerate
natural systems.
So it's not something
you think about at the end,
but as you build the economy,
you design that
into the economy
so that it can run
in the long term.
Some of the best
circular examples
are of carpet manufacturers.
They were completely tied
to buying new raw materials
to make their carpets with,
and those prices
were going up and up and up.
And they said,
"Why do we need to buy
"new raw materials
when we can design
our carpets
in a circular way?"
So they redesigned the carpet.
They designed it
so the base could be
melted down and turned into
the base for the next carpet.
The yarn could be
extracted, re-spun,
turned into the yarn
of the next carpet,
and actually, they offered it
not to be sold, but leased.
So when those trucks come in
to make the carpet,
rather than being filled with
raw materials from a mine
or from an oil well,
they're your carpets
coming back in
to be reprocessed,
and you designed them,
so you know what sits in them,
and you designed them,
so you know
how to get that out of it,
and that would be
that perfect circular example.
What are some
of the challenges facing us
in shifting from linear
to circular economics?
I'd say one
of the biggest challenges
is mindset,
because we've all come
through a linear
education system,
and we've inherited
a linear economy.
It's easy to get buried
in the problem,
but we need to lift our heads
out of the sand
and say,
"Where are we going?
Where do we want to
get to?"
Because life is
about opportunity.
Life is about those goals.
You want to know
what you can do,
and you want to be
part of that.
Wallach, voice-over: I really do
believe we all want
to be a part of the solution,
but it can be hard to know
where to begin,
but what happens when we start
to see problems
as opportunities,
old stories waiting
to be rewritten?
In San Diego, Lou Cooperhouse
is using his love of seafood
to create new forms
of cell-based fish
as one way of helping
to build a more sustainable
relationship
with the natural world.
We're right on the coast,
so in theory,
we just go out
in some boats
and catch a bunch of fish
and bring it in.
Why--why do it this way?
San Diego was actually
considered, at one time,
the tuna capital of the world.
Up out of the hold
come the tuna by the crateful,
on their way to make
a lot of tasty tuna dishes.
During the '30s and '40s,
much seafood was, in fact,
caught off these coasts.
What's happened in the last,
you know, 100 years or so
is the total supply chain
of seafood
has been really compromised.
We have an issue
of microplastics and toxins
and pollutants and mercury.
Wild-capture fisheries
have been flat
for three to four decades.
You know, many fishing
communities around the world
really rely on fishing
as a means
of their economic growth
and prosperity,
so we need a new solution
to feed the planet.
So give me a sense of how
this actually works, right?
You're basically
growing fish?
So from an individual fish,
we are isolating the muscle,
the fat, or the connective
tissue cells,
and we're growing those cells
in large volumes
in what looks like
a stainless-steel vessel
in a microbrewery.
Welcome
to the BlueNalu labs.
This is where we do
a lot of the research.
So once you
find, like, your--your
perfect tuna cell,
you just keep making
more of them?
Exactly. So once you
have the cells,
you don't have to go back
to the animal.
They divide continuously.
They're actually in
a food-safe,
cell-culture media,
and we don't have to use
any animal components.
In nature, bluefin tuna has
a 20% to 50% fat content.
That really is the target
for us to get that nice,
buttery mouthfeel,
that melt-in-your-mouth
texture that's very important
from a sensory perspective.
The supply
of seafood is so fragmented,
so fragile, so vulnerable.
In fact, even America,
we're importing 70% to 85%
of our seafood.
So what we're able
to create in the future is
a secure supply of seafood,
made locally.
This is just
a unique opportunity
in my life, really,
in anybody's life,
to do something
that's so disruptive,
so transformative,
to really create something
that can last for generations.
- Robin, Ari.
- Hey, Ari. Pleasure.
So Chef Robin's with a sushi
restaurant in downtown.
So part of this whole process
for us has been looking
at the conventional
versus our product,
and how we could ultimately
replicate it.
So this, in fact, is
the bluefin tuna
otoro saku block.
So that saku block
is something
that the chef
at the back of the house
would actually utilize
to make nigiri, sashimi,
poke cubes, what have you.
So this creates flexibility
for the chefs
based on whatever
your needs might be.
Mmm.
Wallach, voice-over: Most of us
know big changes are needed
in order to create
the futures we want
to live in and leave behind,
but how will that change
affect our own lives,
what we eat, and how we live?
Lou's work is just one example
of how we can and must
begin telling a new story
about the future,
one defined by creativity
and possibility
rather than fear,
sacrifice, and loss.
- It's otoro.
- Awesome. Ha ha ha!
Glad you enjoyed it.
Wallach, voice-over:
One of the most hopeful things
about this moment is that
the natural world around us
still contains
an extraordinary capacity
to heal itself
if given the opportunity.
That's led me to Scotland,
where a small community
is coming together
to do just that
as they rewrite a new future
for themselves and this land.
The idea
of regeneration,
what does that mean
here in this area?
So Langholm has suffered,
over the past few decades,
a big economic decline.
The textiles industry was
the biggest employer here.
As that industry declined,
there's so many
skilled people
that have lost jobs,
and there's been
a lot of economic heartache
and a lot of economic
difficulties.
So there was
an opportunity there
to look at nature-based
enterprises
and how you could support.
Bringing that power back
into community hands
is an incredibly
powerful symbol.
Wallach, voice-over:
Here in Scotland, a vast amount
of the land is owned by a small
number of wealthy families,
but recently
when a large piece of land
went up for sale,
the people of Langholm
decided to purchase it
together and place it
under community ownership.
Creating
a crowdfunding effort,
they chipped in
everything they could,
and soon, word spread
as people who had never
visited the town contributed,
making it
the South of Scotland's
largest-ever community buyout.
The plan is to create
a nature reserve
to be a center
for rewilding work
while also creating
much-needed jobs,
and ecotourism opportunities
here, as well.
Give me some idea
of the size and scope.
- It's 10,500 acres.
- Wow.
What's amazing about it
is it's continuous.
We've got everything from
globally important peatlands,
ancient woodland,
open moorland,
and obviously,
a beautiful river
that runs all the way
through it.
We also have a lot that's
sort of damaged, modified,
and needs restoration,
so we've got a big job to do.
So where are we now?
So we are at our
community-run tree nursery.
So we have 50,000 trees,
all growing in here,
and these will all be used
to create our new woodland.
Why is there such
a need in Scotland
to plant more trees?
So Scotland,
like the rest of the UK,
is one of the least-forested
countries in the world
and one of the most
nature-depleted countries
in the world, so we've got
all the kind of stages
of a forest growing in here.
Those saplings right there
quite possibly
could be around
in the year 3000.
Well, let's hope
they will be.
If we grow them properly,
keep watering them,
and plant them
in the right places,
then that's
what we really hope.
Really, this project
is about rewilding.
What does it mean to
rewild something like this?
It's been deforested.
It's been drained.
It's been burned.
So what we've got
an opportunity to do now
is rebalance our relationship
with nature and show
that we can get all of those
sort of human benefits,
but also give something back
and heal the land, almost.
We're planting trees.
We're starting
to rewet the land,
put wetlands in,
taking out non-native species,
and we're already seeing
nature coming back.
So it's kind of like
giving it a helping hand.
Wallach, voice-over:
You can't help but feel
the new life in this community,
the pride that people here
feel getting to take part
in shaping a new story about
the future of this town today,
tomorrow, and for
generations yet to come.
While I was in town,
I got to sit down
with a few of the residents,
who have big dreams
for what this means
for the people of Langholm.
What has
the buyout meant
for the community
and for the town,
having this kind
of mission,
right, and vision
for collective ownership?
You get an opportunity
once in a lifetime
to do something
that is beyond yourself.
It's for the future,
and when the land
came up for sale,
we recognized that this was
a once-in-a-lifetime
opportunity.
What we're hoping to do
through the buyout
of the land,
that will provide
a different offering,
not only to our young people,
but to people from outside
to come and see
what we have done,
what we've managed
to achieve.
We're regenerating the whole
town and the whole community.
Everyone's galvanized.
There's a buzz
about the town again.
People are starting
to see results,
and it's all the small wins,
and the nature reserve's
never gonna be a quick job.
It's a long term,
but we want to secure
a long-term future
for people like Lewis
that will be taking it on.
It gives me a lot of hope
that Langholm,
being as strong a community
as it is, it will regenerate,
it will open up
new opportunities,
and in 10, 20, 30,
or even 50 years' time,
it'll be a thriving town
like it once was.
Wallach, voice-over: What's
happening here in Scotland
is part of a growing movement
around the world
as people discover the part
they can play in healing
the natural world around them
through rewilding,
a reminder of what's
still possible
when we come to see
ourselves as authors
rather than passive observers.
One of the things
about understanding yourself
as part of a story,
whether it's a religion
or a nation or a family,
is you're profoundly aware
of what other people
have done for you.
We should appreciate that,
and we should do better.
For centuries,
a coherent ethnic group
made a nation,
a coherent religious group
made a nation.
So what is an American?
"American" is somebody
who believes in the ideals
that were enshrined
in the Declaration
of Independence
and that believes in
a nation that is working
to achieve those ideals.
And what is that?
That's a story,
and we absorb this story
from the past,
and we believe in it,
and we work towards it.
We become a character
in the story,
and then we teach it
to our children.
Shabbat Shalom.
Who's doing
the wine?
I will.
- Amen.
- Amen.
It is perfect, guys.
Perfect.
Enjoy, everybody.
- How's the salad?
- Perfect.
This is perfect.
Wallach, voice-over:
Like a nation or a people,
my family has a story
that we're in the midst
of writing,
and just like us all,
it's building on
what came before
while looking forward
to what is still yet to come,
a daily reminder
that we are all links
in a much larger chain,
people playing a part
in an unfinished story.
Go into my room
So when we think about
the future that we want,
sometimes it's really
difficult to think about,
and one of the things
that I've learned
is we have to kind of use
our imagination.
We have to use our artistry.
We have to kind of create
that future,
drawing it or writing it down
and really thinking about it.
Wallach, voice-over: So much
of the work before us
in this moment is in finding
ways to tell better stories
about the futures
we want to see unfold,
not just those we wish to avoid
because while dystopian
visions of tomorrow
can entertain,
they leave us feeling
small, passive,
and powerless in the face
of a darkening world up ahead.
The opportunity right now is
in telling new stories
that can unlock
all the hope, imagination,
and creativity we're going
to need moving forward.
I think stories
give us meaning.
It gives us
a sense of ourselves,
and it's building community
because we're all part
of this race.
Who is getting allowed
to tell the stories?
That's where I'm at.
I'm trying to fight
to make sure
there are more creators
of this American
and human tapestry
at the table.
So we have to lead
with the stories
to get behind an idea
to make a change.
We are among
the first generations
to know what the consequences
of our actions are,
and we're among
the last generations
who can do anything about it.
We are called upon
as no generations
have ever been
called upon before.
We have heroes
from previous ages,
the people who stood
against Hitler,
the slave revolts,
the civil rights movement,
the anti-apartheid movement,
the campaign
for women's suffrage,
the independence movements
in many parts of the world,
and in all these cases,
people were called upon
to do something
much bigger than themselves.
Now we are called upon
to do something bigger
than any of that,
to prevent the collapse
of our life-support systems.
This is a task
that calls to us for the sake
of all future populations
as well as all people
who are on Earth today.
It's very important
and urgent for all of us
to get quite creative about
this and roll up our sleeves
and say, "OK, how do I apply
my creativity, my intelligence,
"my skills, my connections,
my networks
towards actually addressing
these challenges?"
That is the call to action
of our times.
We're as influenced
by our ideas of the future
as we are influenced
by our ideas of the past.
We all have some story
as to how we got here,
which influences
the things that we do.
Sometimes you have to step
away from that,
change your story.
If you want to imagine
new futures,
you have to entertain
new possibilities.
We always say in the office,
"We'll know
when we've succeeded
"when the children
that grow up here are like,
'This is ours,
and this is ours to shape.'"
It's looking at a legacy
for future generations.
It's looking beyond us.
Wallach, voice-over: What makes
stories unbelievably powerful
is they have the ability to
connect us with one another,
to connect us to the past,
to connect us to the present,
and to connect us to the future,
and we have to remember that,
when we tell these stories
about who we are
and where we want to go,
they actually become
a compass to guide our actions
as individuals,
as members of families,
as nations, and as a species
on planet Earth.