A Brief History of the Future (2024) s01e06 Episode Script
Tomorrows
1
I start football
at 4 years old.
I start really,
really young.
I always wanted
to be forward.
- I was like--
- Always?
Yeah. I wanted to
score goals.
When you are kids, you--
you dream to score goals.
You know how to juggle?
- Yeah, sure.
- Ha ha ha!
Right foot or left foot?
- Right foot.
- Right foot, like me.
You take the ball
to go like this.
You know, and you go
right, left, right, left.
- So easy.
- Not easy,
but if you try--
yeah, for sure, why not?
Ha ha ha!
Is this
the first thing
you learned
when you started playing?
Is this what you started doing?
No, the first thing I
learned is to score goals.
That not help you
to score goals.
- Ha ha!
- No.
Wallach, voice-over:
I'm in Paris today
with the world-renowned athlete
Kylian Mbappé
to get his perspective
on what it takes
to visualize the outcomes
we want to see unfold
because in this moment,
we're becoming urgently aware
that we have real choices
to make,
the outcome of which will shape
so much of what comes next.
We get to decide,
and while we focus a lot
on what we don't want,
we often fail to take
the most important step of all--
picturing what kind of
futures we do want,
seeing the goal
we are aiming for.
What's
the importance of
visualizing success
in making
anything happen?
You know,
it's a part of yourself.
Me, I was born with that.
I always have this idea
of success, to be someone,
and to achieve many things,
and every year,
every month, every day,
I have new goals, and--
not only in sport,
in everything you do.
In life, you have objective.
You have goals for your family,
for yourself, at work.
And I think that's
the step to success.
Walk me
through the moment
right before you take
a penalty kick.
You're taking
a shot on goal.
What are you--what are you
seeing in your mind?
If I score, what'll happen?
If I miss, what'll happen?
And that's, like,
100 questions in a second
that's come in your mind.
And you have to be able
to say, like,
"Now is the present,"
you know?
You let the future
come in your mind,
but the most important thing
in the penalty
is to be in the moment.
And you go with the confidence
that you're going to score.
There is no other option.
I assume you don't
visualize you
missing the goal.
No, never. Never.
That can happen,
but never.
If you visualize that, you miss
a goal before the shot--
heh heh--you lose 50%
of your confidence,
and you need 100%
of confidence to score a goal.
Wallach, voice-over: I'm often
asked, as a futurist,
"Well, what if?"
And most of those what ifs are
usually worst-case scenarios.
What if an asteroid comes
hurtling towards our planet?
What if AI
gets out of control?
I think at this point
we can ask ourselves
a potentially more important
what if question.
What if we're successful?
What if we are able to provide
basic and beyond-basic services
for everyone on the planet?
Because we tend to think
of the what if through
a kind of a negative lens.
If we want to be able
to move forward
and build out those
flourishing futures
for the generations to come,
we have to be asking ourselves,
"What if we actually
got it right?"
The Greek term telos means
ultimate aim, ultimate goal.
What is it that we are doing,
and why are we doing it?
For over 100,000 years,
the telos for Homo sapiens
was basically to survive,
to make sure there would
be another generation.
Now, for the first time
in the human story,
we have the opportunity
to step back
and say, "Well, what's next?
"Where do we want to take this?
To what end for
the Homo sapien project?"
Is it just to build
cool technology,
or is it to build a world
beyond our imagination?
But how do we change
the way we think?
What does it take to set aside
old assumptions
and ask bigger, better
questions about the future
we want to see unfold?
I came to Dubai to meet
Raya Bidshahri,
who believes that the kind of
imagination we need right now
has a lot to do
with transforming
how we teach young minds.
Here at
the School of Humanity,
she is challenging decades
of traditionally held ideas
about education
in order to change
the way her students
learn how to think
and rethink everything.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to our
designing with nature session.
Why are we learning this?
Why is this important?
It's a field of study where
we look at lessons from nature
in order to inspire
human innovations.
And it's a really
powerful tool to help us
solve some of the problems
that we're facing today.
Bidshahri, voice-over: We all,
for whatever reason,
have a story
we tell ourselves
about what it means
to go to school,
what it means to learn,
what that experience
should feel like.
And there's this mainstream
kind of narrative
in our collective imaginations.
Changing that for
an entire species is tough.
Acres of rich soil,
and willing hands
gave the good earth
tireless care.
But times have changed.
Machines of every type
are multiplying productivity
in remarkable ways.
This is an investment for
your children's future here.
A lot of the structures
that we're experiencing
in schools today
came from the assembly line.
We really needed to train
millions of factory workers.
In fact, the reason
we have bells
in between lessons
is because in the factory,
you would have bells
to signal the movement
from one assembly line
to another.
You have this
global standardization
that is very much an echo
of the industrial era,
and you don't seen enough
mainstream alternatives
to that journey.
We're actually moving
towards a creative economy,
especially with the rise
of AI and automation.
The kinds of tasks
and thinking and processes
that will be most difficult
to replace with machines
are the ones that are most
creative and imaginative
and require
higher-ordered thinking.
So this kind of Henry Ford
model of education
makes sense
in the early 1900s,
when millions of people
are moving off of farms,
and we have to get them ready
to kind of work in factories.
Now, here we are
really at the beginning
of the 21st century.
What does it look like
if we want to do
it differently?
Yeah. So what I love to do
when people ask me
that is take
a step back and apply
first principles thinking.
So imagine our education
system didn't exist
and we weren't
tinkering with it,
we weren't building
on top of it.
- We just kind of set it aside
- Yep.
and we got to design
something from scratch
for today's world.
What would we
teach young minds?
How would we teach it?
And why would we
teach those things?
For my team and I, we think
that the purpose of education
should be to help
humanity flourish.
And that can mean different
things to different people,
but it's all about
contributing
to human progress.
Wallach, voice-over:
It's striking to see the effect
these ideas are having
on the students
here and around the world,
through her vision to see
a future where everyone
has access to high-quality
learning opportunities,
both online and in person,
regardless of where
they are in the world.
While I was there, I got to
sit down and hear from
a few of these students
themselves.
What tomorrows do you
actually want to see?
For me, I would like
to see some progress.
And--but with progress
comes consequences.
I don't think we'd ever
achieve a complete utopia,
and I don't think
a complete dystopia
exists either.
To me, I'd like to see
a balanced world
with progress
in, like, to me,
important fields
would be
medicine, business.
The environment
is a big one.
With AI,
people now using ChatGPT,
there's so much
better things that
are going to come
in the future that
we can't even imagine
right now.
Thinking about
that there's going to be
a lot of new things,
that really gets my hopes up.
The future is
progressing fast.
It's not only about
the governments
doing everything,
right?
It is also our
responsibility
as individuals, uh,
living in our countries,
living on Earth,
to have a personal
understanding
of these topics
since, as a community,
we will be affected
by the future.
One way, again linking back,
to improve this
is to improve
the education system
because we need more,
you know, critical thinkers
and people that are
a lot more curious
than the current education
system allows us to be.
You guys are
a generation that
is inheriting a lot.
- Yeah.
- How does that feel?
I mean, yeah.
We have had a lot just
dumped on our shoulders,
but there are lots
of lessons to be learned.
We learn from our
past generations.
And also, I think it just
shapes us as a generation
to think like
problem solvers.
We are creating the future.
I feel like that's
the only thing that we can be
certain about,
so we can be a little bit
more positive about that.
Education is
the most powerful tool
that we have
for human progress
and for uplifting
humanity.
I can only imagine
if every child on Earth
received access to a quality
education that allowed them
to upskill for
the emerging workforce,
to tackle their
local challenges,
to flourish in life,
what that would mean
to improve the society
around them.
That's really what
the objective of education
should be.
It's not about tests
or jobs or exam prep.
It's for us as a species
to take a step back and say,
"Where do we want to go?"
It's a chance to
be motivated by hope
more than fear,
to be motivated by curiosity
more than concern.
And it isn't to say,
forget the fear.
It isn't to say,
forget the concern.
But to realize the future
of what we can create
is so amazing.
The future itself
is something
that has its own history,
if you think about it.
There's a history of
the idea of the future.
For most of human history,
the idea of the future
is one that was
essentially determined--
that according to the book,
according to the cosmology,
we have a story about
how the world began,
we have a story about
how the world will end.
But one of the effects
of secularization,
let's say, in all of its
forms over the past centuries,
is that the future was
no longer determined.
The future was open.
It was contingent.
And I think this
contingency of the future
is something that
we need to embrace.
Giving people a creative
space to think beyond what
their world is now
is really important,
because the world now
is broken.
So we don't want
to just confine ourselves
to the box
of the world of now.
It just doesn't work.
Giving people that space
to say, "What if?"
That's what we want to do.
Wallach, voice-over: Built
within us is the ability
to imagine and reimagine
the world as we want to see it.
Thomas More's
famous book "Utopia"
was really about this
kind of far-off land
where everything seemed perfect.
Utopias are fascinating.
They fill us with wonder
and awe at what could be.
To all who come to
this happy place, welcome.
Our Experimental
Prototype City of Tomorrow.
We call it EPCOT.
Demonstrating to the world
what American communities
can accomplish
through proper control
of planning and design.
Wallach, voice-over:
But here's the thing.
It eventually
falls in on itself,
because nothing is perfect.
Now, we know we
don't want dystopias,
and we know utopias fall apart.
So what's left?
An idea called protopia.
And protopian thinking,
and being a protopian,
means that you believe
our best days are ahead of us,
that we could actually build
a tomorrow that will be better,
but it won't be perfect,
and the job will then
be picked up
by the next generation.
These are the projects
I'm interested in--
people who are building
better futures.
Wallach, voice-over: It's an
amazing thing to see firsthand
how better futures
don't just happen.
They're built
by everyday people
who decide to lean in,
rather than look away
from the challenges before us.
And perhaps no set of challenges
today is more pressing
than the ones
we see across the natural world,
where human activity has damaged
and destroyed the systems
of life that sustain us all.
Here in Freeport, a scuba diver
turned coral farmer
is working to rethink how
we preserve these systems
of life underwater.
We are at Coral Vita's farm
in Freeport, Grand Bahama.
It's the world's first
commercial land-based
coral farm
for reef restoration.
So just like we can plant
trees for reforestation,
we grow and plant corals
for reef restoration.
This is a self-contained
system where,
whether by modifying
the temperature, the light,
the flow,
we can determine
this is what makes corals grow
the fastest, is the healthiest.
We can cycle corals through
the system to figure out
how we can do our job
even better.
What exactly is coral?
A lot of people think
it's a colorful rock.
In fact, it's an animal
that has plants
living inside of it.
It's an ancient distant
cousin of a jellyfish.
Within its sort of
tissue skin layer,
it has this symbiotic algae
that lives inside of it.
It's what gives corals
their color,
and also through photosynthesis
is what feeds the corals
for the most part.
And then as the corals grow,
they make limestone rock
for their skeleton.
They really create
the habitat,
the nurseries for fish,
for shrimp,
for all sorts
of sea life and wildlife.
They're like the skyscrapers
of this underwater world.
Since the 1970s, we've lost
half of the world's
coral reefs,
and we're currently on track
to lose over 90% by 2050.
They support the livelihoods
of up to 1 billion people
in over 100 countries
around the world,
along with sustaining
a quarter of all marine life.
They act like
natural sea walls.
They reduce wave energy
on average by 97%.
So they protect property.
They save lives.
They power tourism economies.
There are entire
fishing communities
that are completely
reliant on these reefs.
So as they die, it's
an ecological tragedy
that impacts all people
everywhere.
We started Coral Vita
in order to create a new model
to scale restoration
globally and so that
there will be future reefs
for generations to come.
So yeah, this is basically
where we grow the corals.
So we set up these tanks.
We're pumping clean
seawater through.
And we work our magic for
6, 12 months on average,
before we then
outplant the corals.
So all the coral that
I'm looking at in here
at one point actually
came from the ocean?
Yeah. So this is actually
a good example.
We call this
coral broodstock.
And so this was a piece
of elkhorn coral
Yeah.
that we've sort of
put onto these plates.
This might have broken off
because of a storm or someone
dropped their anchor.
It was tumbling around the reef.
We collected it,
fragment it
into these
tiny little pieces
that then triggers
the accelerated
growth rates
until it's time to
actually screw this in.
And then the coral
will grow over
and do its thing.
And so this is something that
naturally happens, obviously,
but it takes
a much longer time.
Exactly.
So normally in nature,
uh, it could take years,
if not decades.
And this will be ready to
outplant in closer to
6 to 12 months.
Wallach, voice-over: Sam invited
me out with his team
to plant some
of the newly ready coral,
and see firsthand both
the damage and potential
he sees here on this local reef.
Where are we right now?
We are sitting right
on top of Rainbow Reef
on the south shore
of Grand Bahama Island.
50, 60 miles off
the coast of Florida,
we're on top of this
incredible barrier reef,
and where we're doing a lot
of our restoration efforts
from our coral farm here.
We're focused right now
on a few hectares' area
worth of reef where we've
been planting thousands
and thousands of coral.
All right.
Well, let's get to it.
Wallach, voice-over:
Over the years,
so much of human technology
has treated the effects
to nature as an afterthought.
Now, it's remarkable to see
innovation designed to ensure
healthier futures
for these life support systems
that impact us all,
a reminder that the tools
we hold in our hands
right now, if used wisely,
can protect and preserve life
in new and needed ways.
Our ultimate vision is
that every nation on Earth
that has coral reefs
has large-scale,
land-based coral farms.
And it doesn't have
to obviously be us.
There's countless other people
that are doing this.
Because we have an
opportunity to do so,
and we also have an
imperative to do so.
I was in a conversation
with someone not that long ago,
and they were talking about how,
you know, the future is smart
cities and smart appliances.
You know, smart frigerator
that tells you when
you're running low on milk.
And while smart is good,
what we need right now
is wisdom.
And there's a difference.
What we need to be able
to do is kind of
step back and discern,
where do we want to go?
Where do we want to take this?
Where do we want to
take this species?
Where do we want to take
this whole thing that we call
Homo sapiens on Earth?
And that isn't just about smart.
To answer that question,
we need wisdom.
The fork in the road
where we are right now
can lead in a lot of
different directions.
There's reasons
to be optimistic.
We've got to believe
that there's a better way
and something better is to come.
Not because at all
it's guaranteed,
but because the alternative
is completely unthinkable.
We do have the tools.
We can, in fact,
imagine and compose
radically different kinds
of futures.
There's nothing stopping us
at the technological level.
All of these
technologies are just beginning,
and super important for
the elevation of humanity.
The technology may be an aid,
but the technology
is not going to save us.
Who's going to save us is us.
It's we who need to solve it.
What does it look
like to innovate,
using technology to solve
for some of the biggest
challenges we face?
It's my first time in Iceland,
a place that's so beautiful,
it's overwhelming.
I'm here to visit a country
that runs completely
on renewable energy
at a moment when
many countries are struggling
to achieve a fraction of that.
Iceland is unique
in that it straddles
the Mid-Atlantic ridge sitting
on top of a volcanic hotspot.
So when they began to rethink
how to power the country,
they decided to make use
of the unique resources
they have right here at home.
One of the technologies
they're using here
is geothermal power.
And I wanted to understand
more about how it works
and the ideas it could offer
all of us in search of futures
with cleaner,
more renewable energy.
We are in
a geothermal powerplant,
and the name of it
is Hellisheidi.
And this is by far the largest
geothermal powerplant
in Iceland,
and one of the largest
in the whole world.
What exactly is geothermal?
So geothermal
is just the heat
generated
by the Earth's core.
And we want to
extract this heat
and use it for electricity
and just heating purposes.
Wallach, voice-over: While I was
there, Angelica showed me around
and explained more
about the process,
as well as some of
the challenges
they're still working
to solve.
We drill down
approximately 2.5
kilometers depths.
We take mostly water
and steam, and after that,
we just use it for
the electricity production
or the heating process
for our homes.
How does
the steam become
electricity?
So after we have separated
these two different phases,
steam enters a turbine
and rotates pretty fast
the blades.
- Mm-hmm.
- And when I say fast,
I mean 3,000 rotations
per minute.
Wow, yeah.
After that,
this kinetic, like,
mechanical energy is
converted to electrical
in the generator.
And after that, you see all
the power lines over here?
That's where it's getting
sent into the national grid
of the whole country.
Wallach, voice-over:
Historically, geothermal power
has been limited
to areas in the world
with naturally occurring heat
in the earth and groundwater.
But recently, there's been
exciting work to see
what's possible by using
existing oil and gas wells.
Water can be pumped
into the well,
where it is heated by the Earth,
then drawn back
to the surface for power.
That's a huge opportunity,
as the U.S. alone
currently has vast amounts
of abandoned, dry,
or unproductive oil wells
that can be repurposed,
along with the human skillsets
needed for this new work.
Kapatza, voice-over:
So this is actually
a reinjection borehole,
and this is where we reinject
the hot geothermal water
that we have used
back underground.
Wallach, voice-over: Like so
many things, geothermal power
is a big step forward,
but it's not perfect.
There's still
a small amount of C02
being produced from
the hot water being extracted.
So the team here has
gotten creative about
a way to capture the carbon
resulting from the process
and mineralize it
into a rock substance
that they inject back
into the Earth itself.
Now, at the moment
here in this powerplant,
we are capturing around 12,000
tons per year of this CO2,
and we mineralize it
every year.
Wow.
How much
electricity does Iceland
get from geothermal?
So we get around
750 megawatts
of electricity
from all this,
mostly 8 geothermal
powerplants throughout
the country.
This is nearly
30% of our electricity
coming up from geothermal.
The rest comes
from hydroelectric.
Hmm.
So we are literally
100%, um,
renewable electricity
production over here.
- As a nation.
- Yeah.
Wallach, voice-over: I got to
see the impact and opportunities
created through
geothermal energy close by,
where a team of farmers
are growing produce
in the middle of winter.
Every day, we
have something to pick
in any greenhouse.
We are harvesting
two tons of tomatoes
every day of the year.
- Every day?
- Every day of the year.
This is only one
of 9 greenhouses,
and that makes 40%
here of the domestic
market in Iceland.
You can see
the white pipes here
all around
the glasshouses.
You find them also
underneath the plants
and above the plants.
This is actually
our heating system.
And those pipes
are connected
to our own hot spring
in the village.
And from there,
we can take the water
with a temperature
of 90 to 95 degrees
in Celsius
inside the houses,
and that's what we use
for heating.
So the warmth that
I'm feeling right now,
the warmth that is
growing tomatoes
in the middle of winter
in Iceland, is geothermal?
All the way geothermal.
It's just the hot water
basically radiating
the heat into the houses.
I think over there,
you can try this one.
- Yeah.
- It looks good to me.
Oh, look at that.
I mean, this is--
when people say,
like, a tomato straight from
the vine, this is it, right?
Heh heh. That's it.
- It's good?
- Yeah.
- Ha ha ha!
- Mmm!
That's amazing.
Being out here,
traveling like this,
is kind of mind-blowing.
To see these things,
and feel these things,
and meet with people
who are all kind of, like,
working on the edge,
trying to make better futures
for my kids,
my grandkids--
it's just, like, inspiring.
But they're curious.
They're not sitting back
and saying, like,
I'm just going to let
the future wash over me.
They're thinking,
can I do it a different way?
Can it be better?
Can I make it better?
And then they're connecting
it with, like, action.
And that curiosity
is infectious,
and that feels like a
through line across the board.
The more I travel,
the more I see
how there is no
one-size-fits-all solution
to the challenges we face.
This moment requires us
to address
multiple things at once.
And beyond creating cleaner,
new forms of energy,
there's still much
to do in terms
of identifying and reducing
existing energy pollution.
So I came to Ball Aerospace
in Boulder,
where a team of
scientists were preparing
to launch a methane-tracking
satellite into space.
It's like a smoke detector
for the planet.
Methane is a colorless,
odorless gas.
We can't see it
with the naked eye,
so the--they don't know
it's a problem
until we make
the invisible visible.
You're part of a project
called MethaneSAT.
What is that?
So MethaneSAT is
the first time that
an environmental NGO
will be launching
a satellite.
And what it's
designed to do
is globally map
methane pollution--
primarily from oil
and gas development,
but also from landfills
and agriculture as well--
and to then make that data
actionable to the public.
What exactly is methane?
Methane is
a super pollutant.
It's like this thick blanket
that is very powerful.
It's 80% more potent
than carbon dioxide.
And we're talking
about an industry that
has hundreds of thousands
of wells just in the U.S.,
spread across very
rural areas, often.
Limiting the methane
that's being wasted,
that's leaking out
from these oil
and gas well sites,
is going to help us,
you know, address
that problem quickly
and get that mitigated.
What was it like
when the idea
was first floated
of a not-for-profit
launching a satellite?
It's a game changer.
I mean, you're right.
It's--we're the first
to do this.
We saw an opportunity
to really fill
this gap in the data.
Building from the science
that we did here on Earth,
going around and
sampling these sites,
if we wanted
to bring that to scale,
if we wanted to be
able to see not
just what's going on
in the U.S.
but what's going on
around the world,
we were going to need
to think differently
and to think bigger.
Wallach, voice-over: While I was
there, we got to suit up
so we could see the satellite
itself in person.
A team of scientists
have been hard at work here
for over a year on what
will be the first satellite
of its kind.
Blows my mind
to think about it,
but this will be up
in space.
What you're looking
at here on the top
is going to be pointed
down towards the Earth.
Yes.
We have one channel
for methane,
and we've got
the oxygen channel.
The oxygen channel
is helpful for us
to correct some of the
observations that we get.
Everything below that
is the spacecraft bus,
and that's what provides
the power, the heat.
So as the satellite
goes around the planet,
they're always going to
rotate to get maximum sun.
Yep.
That's how we keep
consistent lighting
conditions.
It's called a
sun-synchronous orbit.
But obviously
once it's up there,
we're gonna
want to keep flying it
for as long as possible.
So it won't
just be the U.S.
No.
And then what happens
in other countries
that are doing this,
their citizens
and their governments
will be able to also
see this data,
because it's open
and free.
That's absolutely right.
And so with MethaneSAT,
we'll be able to say,
like, what's going
on in Russia,
What's going on
in Turkmenistan,
you know, and other places
where we get energy.
I think a lot about
the world that our kids
are gonna inherit,
the problems that we're seeing
already with
climate impacts.
Methane is the way that we
can really bend that curve
as quickly as possible.
By cutting methane
emissions,
we can slow the rate
of warming by up to 30%.
It's not to say that
carbon dioxide
isn't important.
It's incredibly
important, too.
But we really need
to do both,
and we need to do them
as quickly as possible.
One of the ironies
of this moment
is that, in many respects,
we know much more about
how planetary systems work,
how our own bodies work,
where we are astronomically,
than we have known at any
other time in history.
And yet, it seems
as though the ability
of complex societies to
deliberately, comprehensively,
and effectively
compose themselves,
to govern themselves, to make
things work isn't tracking.
There's an irony.
We know more but can do less.
We haven't taken
a long-term view.
We've completely
ignored the things
that we know, with
a fair degree of certainty
in many cases, are coming
down the track at us.
We work on these very sort
of linear trajectories,
in terms of what we measure.
And all of those things
add up to a system
which has this kind of terrible
pull into the short-term,
and very few incentives
to look to the long-term.
One thing we know
is coming towards us--
an unprecedented amount
of human migration
due to the effects of
climate change around the world.
And even though big long-term
challenges like this
have proven difficult
for us to address,
we now have, more than ever,
a chance to rethink
our societies and how
we think about
who gets to be a part of them.
Gaia Vince is
an environmental journalist
who has spent years
arguing that not only are
enormous shifts in
migration already upon us,
but also what
we've been told is
a geopolitical problem could
in fact, if managed well,
be a powerful opportunity.
So you wrote, "The great
upheaval is coming."
What do you mean by that?
You know, the climate that
we experience in our lives,
and which our culture
has been built on,
it's really the fabric
of everything we do.
And so when that changes,
it means everything changes.
We're seeing drought,
wildfires, flood.
And all these events,
they are going
to create unlivable regions
across the planet,
and the conditions
are going to be so extreme
that people are not going
to be able to adapt.
They're going to have to move.
So we're going to see
an upheaval in terms
of populations moving.
But at the same time,
everywhere on Earth
is going to have to adapt
to these new conditions,
even if they don't
have to move.
You look at somewhere
like Mumbai,
which is home to
around 30 million people,
possibly more.
At least 9 million of those
live in slum housing.
They will migrate.
They will try to migrate,
because they
will have no choice--
millions,
perhaps billions of people.
Among the many choices we
have, we can put up barriers.
We can send back boats
of people fleeing disaster.
We've seen it doesn't work.
It's very expensive.
So what's--
what's your alternative
to accepting people in?
Is it conflict?
Is it conscripting armies
of young people
to fight these people?
Because, you know,
that's not the future
that I would like to see,
and I don't think
that benefits anyone.
There are places
where we can live,
and there is plenty of room
for all of us,
especially if we get on
with adapting it
and create
the societies we want.
There's this talk of, like,
a clash of civilizations
or a clash of cultures,
this nomadic century
that we're going into.
There's a worry that
these cultures
won't be able to
work together.
They're just
too different.
But--but you see culture
somewhat differently.
Throughout history, the way
that humans have resolved
their problems is through
technological adaptation
and through
social adaptation.
We work together.
We cooperate
to solve problems.
If we don't do that,
history shows us
that leads to loss of life,
economic destruction,
and the loss of entire
civilizations.
But when we do,
brilliant things happen.
So the first thing we
need to do, in my opinion,
is look ahead.
Look ahead at the future
and create that world first
in your mind, because that's
how everything is created.
What does a good
Anthropocene look like?
For me,
it's a place where
nature is restored,
where people have clean air,
clean water, available food.
They have cheap,
abundant energy,
and they have opportunities
for jobs in their city.
But we won't get there
by accident.
We only get there
by identifying
what that vision is that
we've shared and agreed on,
and then what the steps are
to get there.
Wallach, voice-over: I'm in
Delhi, a vibrant city that's
home to more than
32 million people.
I'm here to spend time
with a local architect
named Manas Bhatia,
who has a unique vision
for the future of this city.
He's honest about the very
real challenges Delhi faces,
but that's not stopping him
from imagining
something better.
Using new AI tools
and techniques,
he's working to
completely reimagine
the relationship between nature
and the cities
in which we live.
So as I look
at a lot of the work
that you're doing
now using AI,
what fascinates me is
the direction you're taking it.
What about nature do you think
is so important
to the work that you do?
I am from Dehradun,
which is, like, a valley,
and it is close
to the Himalayas.
It's all very green
and very, very beautiful.
So every day I would just
go out by the riverside,
go for a trek
in the hills.
I would just sit there
and with my sketchpad,
and I would observe nature.
I can sort of imagine
spaces in those patterns
and in those,
you know, wilted leaves.
Nature itself is
a big inspiration
for my projects that way.
I think the first time
I moved to Delhi,
I hated the place,
I would say.
It was like
a concrete jungle.
It was difficult
to adjust at first.
Now, the entire idea is,
how can I combine those
two concepts so that
the future of architecture
and the future cities
could be better
than the current concrete
jungles we are living in?
When we are being taught
about architecture,
every design starts
with an idea.
And then the designer turns
to tools like sketchpads,
and, you know, pencils,
and 3D softwares.
There was a tool which was
lacking that could really
help me envisioning
my thoughts quickly,
these visions which
I had as an architect.
Finally, there is a tool
which I can use
to actually express
myself.
Midjourney was something
which could take
the designs
to a next level.
These are some of
the explorations
that I've currently
been doing.
This is one of
my favorite ones.
It's like a pavilion,
which was inspired
from bioluminescence.
There are other
projects, as well.
It took the instructions
from the parameters.
You can see how
I've tried to show
what it would look like
if you were, you know,
inside
a hollowed-out tree.
So you could have
those grand atrium spaces,
and the staircases.
In theory, right now,
we can't necessarily
grow a tree like this.
But this could
inform people who are
working in synthetic biology.
You are showing them
what this output
could actually look like.
Right.
AI is here to stay.
It will be like your
assistant in your
design process
all through the way,
motivating designers
to be more expressive
and to experiment more.
Just break all the rules
and, you know,
think beyond
the boundaries.
How do you feel Delhi
is going to become
a city of the future?
This will be one of
those cities which will
have to adapt
very quickly.
The only solution here
is to build
more sustainably, to build
towards a greener future.
If you look at nature,
nothing is unnecessary.
Every pattern
and every tree
that grows in a particular
way, it is following
some rules, which we call
as sacred geometry.
So the animals
and the little creatures,
they have been using
the design principles,
and they have been
the real architects,
I would say.
So if we start
implementing those
systems in nature
into architecture,
pick up all those
logics and bits
and pieces of information,
and, you know,
reimagine those systems,
that kind of architecture
is what we are
all dreaming for.
A design
Wallach, voice-over:
The future Manas and his team
are dreaming about is beautiful,
and it reminds me
just how much creativity
these new tools
have the power to unleash.
I think that
the artificial intelligence
technology is the most important
technology in my lifetime.
It's kind of like
a steam engine moment.
If you think back in history,
the steam engine
was a thing that completely
changed the face of the Earth
and face of society.
And what I think
is going on now
with artificial intelligence
and scale computing is
it's like the steam engine
of the mind.
AI is an amplification
of anything
that you can do
with an electronic device
across all of life
and all of work.
You know, over
the history of the course
of the planet, life evolved
at a particular point in time.
Much later on,
wait a few billions of years,
this life begins
to become intelligent.
The intelligence of this
life begins to transform
the planet in its own image.
They were biological forms,
they were animal forms,
vegetal.
You could say
the whole biosphere
has a kind of intelligence.
But now the lithosphere
is also intelligent.
We have learned to
take rocks and metals
and fold them in particular ways
and run electric current
through them.
And these rocks are now
capable of feats of sentience
and sapience that
previously only apes, us,
had been able to accomplish.
This is incredible.
The question is,
what do we do with that?
The question is,
what is this, you know--
really, what is this for?
Wallach, voice-over: My final
visit is to a place called
the Longplayer Lab,
an old lighthouse
that's been repurposed
as a listening room for
a unique piece of music.
What--what is Longplayer?
Longplayer, as it's called,
is a piece of music
composed by Jem Finer
which lasts for 1,000 years
without repetition
and then starts again.
So, a continuous
piece of music
which encourages us
to think about
deep time, futures,
hopes of futures,
and the hope that there
is actually a planet
in which it can
play into.
Wallach, voice-over:
The initial score,
written for
a Tibetan singing bowl,
is fed through
an algorithm that constantly
transposes it in multiple ways
in order to play originally
and without repetition.
It began playing in 1999
and will not finish until 2099.
Being here makes me
wonder what the world
will look like at that point.
So, it's the year 2099,
December 31st.
It's been 1,000 years
since Longplayer has been
composing and performing.
What do you want
the world to look like?
I guess I just
really hope
that there is a world
enough for survival.
That doesn't
just mean humans.
It means
all kinds of species.
I hope there's
a world that
not just sustains
but actively encourages
joy and--and love
and good feeling
to each other.
Mbappé, voice-over: When you
think about your future,
you realize that you have
always something more to do.
If you want to have success,
we need us as a team.
We are one team, the world.
I cannot change
the world alone,
but I can do one step.
If everybody do one step,
that will help us
to grow like a team.
No technology is
built entirely in a box
and then deployed.
It's deployed,
learned from, improved.
That's the society
we should be designing to.
Go do it, try it, play with it,
iterate it, develop it.
You know, my hope
is that we are building
these technologies
to enable us to be more human.
Looking decades ahead,
I actually think
we're gonna find
ourselves closer
to what it really feels
like to be a human,
when there are
thriving ecosystems,
when there is
incredible biodiversity,
when we're closer to nature
and establishing that harmony.
Humans are driven
by the beauty.
So do we want our cities
to be like pieces of concrete
which we build up,
serve the function,
and then we destroy them?
Or do we want our future
cities to be beautifully,
aesthetically looking good?
Bidshahri, voice-over: Progress
is about problem-solving.
It takes creativity,
innovation, foresight,
in order to imagine
an exciting future
for humanity first
before you can create it.
These are
very complex, interwoven,
interconnected problems.
And at their heart is the way
we operate as humans.
What are the consequences
in the short, medium,
and long-term
for future generations?
When you apply this framework,
then actually you do
start coming up with
different approaches.
Here going forward,
nothing's gonna be the same.
Whatever we do now
over this period
of the next couple decades is
gonna set the foundations
for a lot of what comes next.
A and B speeds.
And the series finale,
take one.
Mark.
B mark, stop six.
Wallach, voice-over: As this
chapter of my journey
comes to an end,
it's difficult to describe
the effect it's all had on me.
I set out in search of people
who are making better futures,
people who are building things,
changing things,
rewriting the story,
reimagining
what all this is for
and where we can take it
moving forward.
What I found is that
this moment of chaos
also holds the seeds
of creativity,
an opportunity
to remake our world
and write a bigger,
better story
about what it means
to be human,
remembering that whatever
we face up ahead,
we are in this together,
not alone.
And at the end of it all,
the feeling I'm left with most
is not hope,
but it's also not fear.
It's not a final
greeting card statement
that everything's
gonna work out,
nor is it a feeling
that all is lost.
It's a feeling, a truly felt
belief, actually,
a belief that we have a choice,
a choice to decide to become
the great ancestors
our future needs us to be.
What does it mean
to be a great ancestor?
It means you make
the decisions that
ensure the future flourishing
of generations to come.
We all have agency.
It can be how we consume,
how we vote,
how we talk to one another--
these very small actions
that have long-term impacts.
If I was to be born at any time
in the grand arc
of human history,
I'd want to be born right now,
not some time
in the far future
when all the problems are solved
and everything is unicorns
and rainbows, but right now.
We're at this inflection point
where we're gonna decide,
really, the fate of our species.
What's so exciting
about this moment
is that we get to decide
what happens.
What do we become?
I start football
at 4 years old.
I start really,
really young.
I always wanted
to be forward.
- I was like--
- Always?
Yeah. I wanted to
score goals.
When you are kids, you--
you dream to score goals.
You know how to juggle?
- Yeah, sure.
- Ha ha ha!
Right foot or left foot?
- Right foot.
- Right foot, like me.
You take the ball
to go like this.
You know, and you go
right, left, right, left.
- So easy.
- Not easy,
but if you try--
yeah, for sure, why not?
Ha ha ha!
Is this
the first thing
you learned
when you started playing?
Is this what you started doing?
No, the first thing I
learned is to score goals.
That not help you
to score goals.
- Ha ha!
- No.
Wallach, voice-over:
I'm in Paris today
with the world-renowned athlete
Kylian Mbappé
to get his perspective
on what it takes
to visualize the outcomes
we want to see unfold
because in this moment,
we're becoming urgently aware
that we have real choices
to make,
the outcome of which will shape
so much of what comes next.
We get to decide,
and while we focus a lot
on what we don't want,
we often fail to take
the most important step of all--
picturing what kind of
futures we do want,
seeing the goal
we are aiming for.
What's
the importance of
visualizing success
in making
anything happen?
You know,
it's a part of yourself.
Me, I was born with that.
I always have this idea
of success, to be someone,
and to achieve many things,
and every year,
every month, every day,
I have new goals, and--
not only in sport,
in everything you do.
In life, you have objective.
You have goals for your family,
for yourself, at work.
And I think that's
the step to success.
Walk me
through the moment
right before you take
a penalty kick.
You're taking
a shot on goal.
What are you--what are you
seeing in your mind?
If I score, what'll happen?
If I miss, what'll happen?
And that's, like,
100 questions in a second
that's come in your mind.
And you have to be able
to say, like,
"Now is the present,"
you know?
You let the future
come in your mind,
but the most important thing
in the penalty
is to be in the moment.
And you go with the confidence
that you're going to score.
There is no other option.
I assume you don't
visualize you
missing the goal.
No, never. Never.
That can happen,
but never.
If you visualize that, you miss
a goal before the shot--
heh heh--you lose 50%
of your confidence,
and you need 100%
of confidence to score a goal.
Wallach, voice-over: I'm often
asked, as a futurist,
"Well, what if?"
And most of those what ifs are
usually worst-case scenarios.
What if an asteroid comes
hurtling towards our planet?
What if AI
gets out of control?
I think at this point
we can ask ourselves
a potentially more important
what if question.
What if we're successful?
What if we are able to provide
basic and beyond-basic services
for everyone on the planet?
Because we tend to think
of the what if through
a kind of a negative lens.
If we want to be able
to move forward
and build out those
flourishing futures
for the generations to come,
we have to be asking ourselves,
"What if we actually
got it right?"
The Greek term telos means
ultimate aim, ultimate goal.
What is it that we are doing,
and why are we doing it?
For over 100,000 years,
the telos for Homo sapiens
was basically to survive,
to make sure there would
be another generation.
Now, for the first time
in the human story,
we have the opportunity
to step back
and say, "Well, what's next?
"Where do we want to take this?
To what end for
the Homo sapien project?"
Is it just to build
cool technology,
or is it to build a world
beyond our imagination?
But how do we change
the way we think?
What does it take to set aside
old assumptions
and ask bigger, better
questions about the future
we want to see unfold?
I came to Dubai to meet
Raya Bidshahri,
who believes that the kind of
imagination we need right now
has a lot to do
with transforming
how we teach young minds.
Here at
the School of Humanity,
she is challenging decades
of traditionally held ideas
about education
in order to change
the way her students
learn how to think
and rethink everything.
Hi, everyone.
Welcome to our
designing with nature session.
Why are we learning this?
Why is this important?
It's a field of study where
we look at lessons from nature
in order to inspire
human innovations.
And it's a really
powerful tool to help us
solve some of the problems
that we're facing today.
Bidshahri, voice-over: We all,
for whatever reason,
have a story
we tell ourselves
about what it means
to go to school,
what it means to learn,
what that experience
should feel like.
And there's this mainstream
kind of narrative
in our collective imaginations.
Changing that for
an entire species is tough.
Acres of rich soil,
and willing hands
gave the good earth
tireless care.
But times have changed.
Machines of every type
are multiplying productivity
in remarkable ways.
This is an investment for
your children's future here.
A lot of the structures
that we're experiencing
in schools today
came from the assembly line.
We really needed to train
millions of factory workers.
In fact, the reason
we have bells
in between lessons
is because in the factory,
you would have bells
to signal the movement
from one assembly line
to another.
You have this
global standardization
that is very much an echo
of the industrial era,
and you don't seen enough
mainstream alternatives
to that journey.
We're actually moving
towards a creative economy,
especially with the rise
of AI and automation.
The kinds of tasks
and thinking and processes
that will be most difficult
to replace with machines
are the ones that are most
creative and imaginative
and require
higher-ordered thinking.
So this kind of Henry Ford
model of education
makes sense
in the early 1900s,
when millions of people
are moving off of farms,
and we have to get them ready
to kind of work in factories.
Now, here we are
really at the beginning
of the 21st century.
What does it look like
if we want to do
it differently?
Yeah. So what I love to do
when people ask me
that is take
a step back and apply
first principles thinking.
So imagine our education
system didn't exist
and we weren't
tinkering with it,
we weren't building
on top of it.
- We just kind of set it aside
- Yep.
and we got to design
something from scratch
for today's world.
What would we
teach young minds?
How would we teach it?
And why would we
teach those things?
For my team and I, we think
that the purpose of education
should be to help
humanity flourish.
And that can mean different
things to different people,
but it's all about
contributing
to human progress.
Wallach, voice-over:
It's striking to see the effect
these ideas are having
on the students
here and around the world,
through her vision to see
a future where everyone
has access to high-quality
learning opportunities,
both online and in person,
regardless of where
they are in the world.
While I was there, I got to
sit down and hear from
a few of these students
themselves.
What tomorrows do you
actually want to see?
For me, I would like
to see some progress.
And--but with progress
comes consequences.
I don't think we'd ever
achieve a complete utopia,
and I don't think
a complete dystopia
exists either.
To me, I'd like to see
a balanced world
with progress
in, like, to me,
important fields
would be
medicine, business.
The environment
is a big one.
With AI,
people now using ChatGPT,
there's so much
better things that
are going to come
in the future that
we can't even imagine
right now.
Thinking about
that there's going to be
a lot of new things,
that really gets my hopes up.
The future is
progressing fast.
It's not only about
the governments
doing everything,
right?
It is also our
responsibility
as individuals, uh,
living in our countries,
living on Earth,
to have a personal
understanding
of these topics
since, as a community,
we will be affected
by the future.
One way, again linking back,
to improve this
is to improve
the education system
because we need more,
you know, critical thinkers
and people that are
a lot more curious
than the current education
system allows us to be.
You guys are
a generation that
is inheriting a lot.
- Yeah.
- How does that feel?
I mean, yeah.
We have had a lot just
dumped on our shoulders,
but there are lots
of lessons to be learned.
We learn from our
past generations.
And also, I think it just
shapes us as a generation
to think like
problem solvers.
We are creating the future.
I feel like that's
the only thing that we can be
certain about,
so we can be a little bit
more positive about that.
Education is
the most powerful tool
that we have
for human progress
and for uplifting
humanity.
I can only imagine
if every child on Earth
received access to a quality
education that allowed them
to upskill for
the emerging workforce,
to tackle their
local challenges,
to flourish in life,
what that would mean
to improve the society
around them.
That's really what
the objective of education
should be.
It's not about tests
or jobs or exam prep.
It's for us as a species
to take a step back and say,
"Where do we want to go?"
It's a chance to
be motivated by hope
more than fear,
to be motivated by curiosity
more than concern.
And it isn't to say,
forget the fear.
It isn't to say,
forget the concern.
But to realize the future
of what we can create
is so amazing.
The future itself
is something
that has its own history,
if you think about it.
There's a history of
the idea of the future.
For most of human history,
the idea of the future
is one that was
essentially determined--
that according to the book,
according to the cosmology,
we have a story about
how the world began,
we have a story about
how the world will end.
But one of the effects
of secularization,
let's say, in all of its
forms over the past centuries,
is that the future was
no longer determined.
The future was open.
It was contingent.
And I think this
contingency of the future
is something that
we need to embrace.
Giving people a creative
space to think beyond what
their world is now
is really important,
because the world now
is broken.
So we don't want
to just confine ourselves
to the box
of the world of now.
It just doesn't work.
Giving people that space
to say, "What if?"
That's what we want to do.
Wallach, voice-over: Built
within us is the ability
to imagine and reimagine
the world as we want to see it.
Thomas More's
famous book "Utopia"
was really about this
kind of far-off land
where everything seemed perfect.
Utopias are fascinating.
They fill us with wonder
and awe at what could be.
To all who come to
this happy place, welcome.
Our Experimental
Prototype City of Tomorrow.
We call it EPCOT.
Demonstrating to the world
what American communities
can accomplish
through proper control
of planning and design.
Wallach, voice-over:
But here's the thing.
It eventually
falls in on itself,
because nothing is perfect.
Now, we know we
don't want dystopias,
and we know utopias fall apart.
So what's left?
An idea called protopia.
And protopian thinking,
and being a protopian,
means that you believe
our best days are ahead of us,
that we could actually build
a tomorrow that will be better,
but it won't be perfect,
and the job will then
be picked up
by the next generation.
These are the projects
I'm interested in--
people who are building
better futures.
Wallach, voice-over: It's an
amazing thing to see firsthand
how better futures
don't just happen.
They're built
by everyday people
who decide to lean in,
rather than look away
from the challenges before us.
And perhaps no set of challenges
today is more pressing
than the ones
we see across the natural world,
where human activity has damaged
and destroyed the systems
of life that sustain us all.
Here in Freeport, a scuba diver
turned coral farmer
is working to rethink how
we preserve these systems
of life underwater.
We are at Coral Vita's farm
in Freeport, Grand Bahama.
It's the world's first
commercial land-based
coral farm
for reef restoration.
So just like we can plant
trees for reforestation,
we grow and plant corals
for reef restoration.
This is a self-contained
system where,
whether by modifying
the temperature, the light,
the flow,
we can determine
this is what makes corals grow
the fastest, is the healthiest.
We can cycle corals through
the system to figure out
how we can do our job
even better.
What exactly is coral?
A lot of people think
it's a colorful rock.
In fact, it's an animal
that has plants
living inside of it.
It's an ancient distant
cousin of a jellyfish.
Within its sort of
tissue skin layer,
it has this symbiotic algae
that lives inside of it.
It's what gives corals
their color,
and also through photosynthesis
is what feeds the corals
for the most part.
And then as the corals grow,
they make limestone rock
for their skeleton.
They really create
the habitat,
the nurseries for fish,
for shrimp,
for all sorts
of sea life and wildlife.
They're like the skyscrapers
of this underwater world.
Since the 1970s, we've lost
half of the world's
coral reefs,
and we're currently on track
to lose over 90% by 2050.
They support the livelihoods
of up to 1 billion people
in over 100 countries
around the world,
along with sustaining
a quarter of all marine life.
They act like
natural sea walls.
They reduce wave energy
on average by 97%.
So they protect property.
They save lives.
They power tourism economies.
There are entire
fishing communities
that are completely
reliant on these reefs.
So as they die, it's
an ecological tragedy
that impacts all people
everywhere.
We started Coral Vita
in order to create a new model
to scale restoration
globally and so that
there will be future reefs
for generations to come.
So yeah, this is basically
where we grow the corals.
So we set up these tanks.
We're pumping clean
seawater through.
And we work our magic for
6, 12 months on average,
before we then
outplant the corals.
So all the coral that
I'm looking at in here
at one point actually
came from the ocean?
Yeah. So this is actually
a good example.
We call this
coral broodstock.
And so this was a piece
of elkhorn coral
Yeah.
that we've sort of
put onto these plates.
This might have broken off
because of a storm or someone
dropped their anchor.
It was tumbling around the reef.
We collected it,
fragment it
into these
tiny little pieces
that then triggers
the accelerated
growth rates
until it's time to
actually screw this in.
And then the coral
will grow over
and do its thing.
And so this is something that
naturally happens, obviously,
but it takes
a much longer time.
Exactly.
So normally in nature,
uh, it could take years,
if not decades.
And this will be ready to
outplant in closer to
6 to 12 months.
Wallach, voice-over: Sam invited
me out with his team
to plant some
of the newly ready coral,
and see firsthand both
the damage and potential
he sees here on this local reef.
Where are we right now?
We are sitting right
on top of Rainbow Reef
on the south shore
of Grand Bahama Island.
50, 60 miles off
the coast of Florida,
we're on top of this
incredible barrier reef,
and where we're doing a lot
of our restoration efforts
from our coral farm here.
We're focused right now
on a few hectares' area
worth of reef where we've
been planting thousands
and thousands of coral.
All right.
Well, let's get to it.
Wallach, voice-over:
Over the years,
so much of human technology
has treated the effects
to nature as an afterthought.
Now, it's remarkable to see
innovation designed to ensure
healthier futures
for these life support systems
that impact us all,
a reminder that the tools
we hold in our hands
right now, if used wisely,
can protect and preserve life
in new and needed ways.
Our ultimate vision is
that every nation on Earth
that has coral reefs
has large-scale,
land-based coral farms.
And it doesn't have
to obviously be us.
There's countless other people
that are doing this.
Because we have an
opportunity to do so,
and we also have an
imperative to do so.
I was in a conversation
with someone not that long ago,
and they were talking about how,
you know, the future is smart
cities and smart appliances.
You know, smart frigerator
that tells you when
you're running low on milk.
And while smart is good,
what we need right now
is wisdom.
And there's a difference.
What we need to be able
to do is kind of
step back and discern,
where do we want to go?
Where do we want to take this?
Where do we want to
take this species?
Where do we want to take
this whole thing that we call
Homo sapiens on Earth?
And that isn't just about smart.
To answer that question,
we need wisdom.
The fork in the road
where we are right now
can lead in a lot of
different directions.
There's reasons
to be optimistic.
We've got to believe
that there's a better way
and something better is to come.
Not because at all
it's guaranteed,
but because the alternative
is completely unthinkable.
We do have the tools.
We can, in fact,
imagine and compose
radically different kinds
of futures.
There's nothing stopping us
at the technological level.
All of these
technologies are just beginning,
and super important for
the elevation of humanity.
The technology may be an aid,
but the technology
is not going to save us.
Who's going to save us is us.
It's we who need to solve it.
What does it look
like to innovate,
using technology to solve
for some of the biggest
challenges we face?
It's my first time in Iceland,
a place that's so beautiful,
it's overwhelming.
I'm here to visit a country
that runs completely
on renewable energy
at a moment when
many countries are struggling
to achieve a fraction of that.
Iceland is unique
in that it straddles
the Mid-Atlantic ridge sitting
on top of a volcanic hotspot.
So when they began to rethink
how to power the country,
they decided to make use
of the unique resources
they have right here at home.
One of the technologies
they're using here
is geothermal power.
And I wanted to understand
more about how it works
and the ideas it could offer
all of us in search of futures
with cleaner,
more renewable energy.
We are in
a geothermal powerplant,
and the name of it
is Hellisheidi.
And this is by far the largest
geothermal powerplant
in Iceland,
and one of the largest
in the whole world.
What exactly is geothermal?
So geothermal
is just the heat
generated
by the Earth's core.
And we want to
extract this heat
and use it for electricity
and just heating purposes.
Wallach, voice-over: While I was
there, Angelica showed me around
and explained more
about the process,
as well as some of
the challenges
they're still working
to solve.
We drill down
approximately 2.5
kilometers depths.
We take mostly water
and steam, and after that,
we just use it for
the electricity production
or the heating process
for our homes.
How does
the steam become
electricity?
So after we have separated
these two different phases,
steam enters a turbine
and rotates pretty fast
the blades.
- Mm-hmm.
- And when I say fast,
I mean 3,000 rotations
per minute.
Wow, yeah.
After that,
this kinetic, like,
mechanical energy is
converted to electrical
in the generator.
And after that, you see all
the power lines over here?
That's where it's getting
sent into the national grid
of the whole country.
Wallach, voice-over:
Historically, geothermal power
has been limited
to areas in the world
with naturally occurring heat
in the earth and groundwater.
But recently, there's been
exciting work to see
what's possible by using
existing oil and gas wells.
Water can be pumped
into the well,
where it is heated by the Earth,
then drawn back
to the surface for power.
That's a huge opportunity,
as the U.S. alone
currently has vast amounts
of abandoned, dry,
or unproductive oil wells
that can be repurposed,
along with the human skillsets
needed for this new work.
Kapatza, voice-over:
So this is actually
a reinjection borehole,
and this is where we reinject
the hot geothermal water
that we have used
back underground.
Wallach, voice-over: Like so
many things, geothermal power
is a big step forward,
but it's not perfect.
There's still
a small amount of C02
being produced from
the hot water being extracted.
So the team here has
gotten creative about
a way to capture the carbon
resulting from the process
and mineralize it
into a rock substance
that they inject back
into the Earth itself.
Now, at the moment
here in this powerplant,
we are capturing around 12,000
tons per year of this CO2,
and we mineralize it
every year.
Wow.
How much
electricity does Iceland
get from geothermal?
So we get around
750 megawatts
of electricity
from all this,
mostly 8 geothermal
powerplants throughout
the country.
This is nearly
30% of our electricity
coming up from geothermal.
The rest comes
from hydroelectric.
Hmm.
So we are literally
100%, um,
renewable electricity
production over here.
- As a nation.
- Yeah.
Wallach, voice-over: I got to
see the impact and opportunities
created through
geothermal energy close by,
where a team of farmers
are growing produce
in the middle of winter.
Every day, we
have something to pick
in any greenhouse.
We are harvesting
two tons of tomatoes
every day of the year.
- Every day?
- Every day of the year.
This is only one
of 9 greenhouses,
and that makes 40%
here of the domestic
market in Iceland.
You can see
the white pipes here
all around
the glasshouses.
You find them also
underneath the plants
and above the plants.
This is actually
our heating system.
And those pipes
are connected
to our own hot spring
in the village.
And from there,
we can take the water
with a temperature
of 90 to 95 degrees
in Celsius
inside the houses,
and that's what we use
for heating.
So the warmth that
I'm feeling right now,
the warmth that is
growing tomatoes
in the middle of winter
in Iceland, is geothermal?
All the way geothermal.
It's just the hot water
basically radiating
the heat into the houses.
I think over there,
you can try this one.
- Yeah.
- It looks good to me.
Oh, look at that.
I mean, this is--
when people say,
like, a tomato straight from
the vine, this is it, right?
Heh heh. That's it.
- It's good?
- Yeah.
- Ha ha ha!
- Mmm!
That's amazing.
Being out here,
traveling like this,
is kind of mind-blowing.
To see these things,
and feel these things,
and meet with people
who are all kind of, like,
working on the edge,
trying to make better futures
for my kids,
my grandkids--
it's just, like, inspiring.
But they're curious.
They're not sitting back
and saying, like,
I'm just going to let
the future wash over me.
They're thinking,
can I do it a different way?
Can it be better?
Can I make it better?
And then they're connecting
it with, like, action.
And that curiosity
is infectious,
and that feels like a
through line across the board.
The more I travel,
the more I see
how there is no
one-size-fits-all solution
to the challenges we face.
This moment requires us
to address
multiple things at once.
And beyond creating cleaner,
new forms of energy,
there's still much
to do in terms
of identifying and reducing
existing energy pollution.
So I came to Ball Aerospace
in Boulder,
where a team of
scientists were preparing
to launch a methane-tracking
satellite into space.
It's like a smoke detector
for the planet.
Methane is a colorless,
odorless gas.
We can't see it
with the naked eye,
so the--they don't know
it's a problem
until we make
the invisible visible.
You're part of a project
called MethaneSAT.
What is that?
So MethaneSAT is
the first time that
an environmental NGO
will be launching
a satellite.
And what it's
designed to do
is globally map
methane pollution--
primarily from oil
and gas development,
but also from landfills
and agriculture as well--
and to then make that data
actionable to the public.
What exactly is methane?
Methane is
a super pollutant.
It's like this thick blanket
that is very powerful.
It's 80% more potent
than carbon dioxide.
And we're talking
about an industry that
has hundreds of thousands
of wells just in the U.S.,
spread across very
rural areas, often.
Limiting the methane
that's being wasted,
that's leaking out
from these oil
and gas well sites,
is going to help us,
you know, address
that problem quickly
and get that mitigated.
What was it like
when the idea
was first floated
of a not-for-profit
launching a satellite?
It's a game changer.
I mean, you're right.
It's--we're the first
to do this.
We saw an opportunity
to really fill
this gap in the data.
Building from the science
that we did here on Earth,
going around and
sampling these sites,
if we wanted
to bring that to scale,
if we wanted to be
able to see not
just what's going on
in the U.S.
but what's going on
around the world,
we were going to need
to think differently
and to think bigger.
Wallach, voice-over: While I was
there, we got to suit up
so we could see the satellite
itself in person.
A team of scientists
have been hard at work here
for over a year on what
will be the first satellite
of its kind.
Blows my mind
to think about it,
but this will be up
in space.
What you're looking
at here on the top
is going to be pointed
down towards the Earth.
Yes.
We have one channel
for methane,
and we've got
the oxygen channel.
The oxygen channel
is helpful for us
to correct some of the
observations that we get.
Everything below that
is the spacecraft bus,
and that's what provides
the power, the heat.
So as the satellite
goes around the planet,
they're always going to
rotate to get maximum sun.
Yep.
That's how we keep
consistent lighting
conditions.
It's called a
sun-synchronous orbit.
But obviously
once it's up there,
we're gonna
want to keep flying it
for as long as possible.
So it won't
just be the U.S.
No.
And then what happens
in other countries
that are doing this,
their citizens
and their governments
will be able to also
see this data,
because it's open
and free.
That's absolutely right.
And so with MethaneSAT,
we'll be able to say,
like, what's going
on in Russia,
What's going on
in Turkmenistan,
you know, and other places
where we get energy.
I think a lot about
the world that our kids
are gonna inherit,
the problems that we're seeing
already with
climate impacts.
Methane is the way that we
can really bend that curve
as quickly as possible.
By cutting methane
emissions,
we can slow the rate
of warming by up to 30%.
It's not to say that
carbon dioxide
isn't important.
It's incredibly
important, too.
But we really need
to do both,
and we need to do them
as quickly as possible.
One of the ironies
of this moment
is that, in many respects,
we know much more about
how planetary systems work,
how our own bodies work,
where we are astronomically,
than we have known at any
other time in history.
And yet, it seems
as though the ability
of complex societies to
deliberately, comprehensively,
and effectively
compose themselves,
to govern themselves, to make
things work isn't tracking.
There's an irony.
We know more but can do less.
We haven't taken
a long-term view.
We've completely
ignored the things
that we know, with
a fair degree of certainty
in many cases, are coming
down the track at us.
We work on these very sort
of linear trajectories,
in terms of what we measure.
And all of those things
add up to a system
which has this kind of terrible
pull into the short-term,
and very few incentives
to look to the long-term.
One thing we know
is coming towards us--
an unprecedented amount
of human migration
due to the effects of
climate change around the world.
And even though big long-term
challenges like this
have proven difficult
for us to address,
we now have, more than ever,
a chance to rethink
our societies and how
we think about
who gets to be a part of them.
Gaia Vince is
an environmental journalist
who has spent years
arguing that not only are
enormous shifts in
migration already upon us,
but also what
we've been told is
a geopolitical problem could
in fact, if managed well,
be a powerful opportunity.
So you wrote, "The great
upheaval is coming."
What do you mean by that?
You know, the climate that
we experience in our lives,
and which our culture
has been built on,
it's really the fabric
of everything we do.
And so when that changes,
it means everything changes.
We're seeing drought,
wildfires, flood.
And all these events,
they are going
to create unlivable regions
across the planet,
and the conditions
are going to be so extreme
that people are not going
to be able to adapt.
They're going to have to move.
So we're going to see
an upheaval in terms
of populations moving.
But at the same time,
everywhere on Earth
is going to have to adapt
to these new conditions,
even if they don't
have to move.
You look at somewhere
like Mumbai,
which is home to
around 30 million people,
possibly more.
At least 9 million of those
live in slum housing.
They will migrate.
They will try to migrate,
because they
will have no choice--
millions,
perhaps billions of people.
Among the many choices we
have, we can put up barriers.
We can send back boats
of people fleeing disaster.
We've seen it doesn't work.
It's very expensive.
So what's--
what's your alternative
to accepting people in?
Is it conflict?
Is it conscripting armies
of young people
to fight these people?
Because, you know,
that's not the future
that I would like to see,
and I don't think
that benefits anyone.
There are places
where we can live,
and there is plenty of room
for all of us,
especially if we get on
with adapting it
and create
the societies we want.
There's this talk of, like,
a clash of civilizations
or a clash of cultures,
this nomadic century
that we're going into.
There's a worry that
these cultures
won't be able to
work together.
They're just
too different.
But--but you see culture
somewhat differently.
Throughout history, the way
that humans have resolved
their problems is through
technological adaptation
and through
social adaptation.
We work together.
We cooperate
to solve problems.
If we don't do that,
history shows us
that leads to loss of life,
economic destruction,
and the loss of entire
civilizations.
But when we do,
brilliant things happen.
So the first thing we
need to do, in my opinion,
is look ahead.
Look ahead at the future
and create that world first
in your mind, because that's
how everything is created.
What does a good
Anthropocene look like?
For me,
it's a place where
nature is restored,
where people have clean air,
clean water, available food.
They have cheap,
abundant energy,
and they have opportunities
for jobs in their city.
But we won't get there
by accident.
We only get there
by identifying
what that vision is that
we've shared and agreed on,
and then what the steps are
to get there.
Wallach, voice-over: I'm in
Delhi, a vibrant city that's
home to more than
32 million people.
I'm here to spend time
with a local architect
named Manas Bhatia,
who has a unique vision
for the future of this city.
He's honest about the very
real challenges Delhi faces,
but that's not stopping him
from imagining
something better.
Using new AI tools
and techniques,
he's working to
completely reimagine
the relationship between nature
and the cities
in which we live.
So as I look
at a lot of the work
that you're doing
now using AI,
what fascinates me is
the direction you're taking it.
What about nature do you think
is so important
to the work that you do?
I am from Dehradun,
which is, like, a valley,
and it is close
to the Himalayas.
It's all very green
and very, very beautiful.
So every day I would just
go out by the riverside,
go for a trek
in the hills.
I would just sit there
and with my sketchpad,
and I would observe nature.
I can sort of imagine
spaces in those patterns
and in those,
you know, wilted leaves.
Nature itself is
a big inspiration
for my projects that way.
I think the first time
I moved to Delhi,
I hated the place,
I would say.
It was like
a concrete jungle.
It was difficult
to adjust at first.
Now, the entire idea is,
how can I combine those
two concepts so that
the future of architecture
and the future cities
could be better
than the current concrete
jungles we are living in?
When we are being taught
about architecture,
every design starts
with an idea.
And then the designer turns
to tools like sketchpads,
and, you know, pencils,
and 3D softwares.
There was a tool which was
lacking that could really
help me envisioning
my thoughts quickly,
these visions which
I had as an architect.
Finally, there is a tool
which I can use
to actually express
myself.
Midjourney was something
which could take
the designs
to a next level.
These are some of
the explorations
that I've currently
been doing.
This is one of
my favorite ones.
It's like a pavilion,
which was inspired
from bioluminescence.
There are other
projects, as well.
It took the instructions
from the parameters.
You can see how
I've tried to show
what it would look like
if you were, you know,
inside
a hollowed-out tree.
So you could have
those grand atrium spaces,
and the staircases.
In theory, right now,
we can't necessarily
grow a tree like this.
But this could
inform people who are
working in synthetic biology.
You are showing them
what this output
could actually look like.
Right.
AI is here to stay.
It will be like your
assistant in your
design process
all through the way,
motivating designers
to be more expressive
and to experiment more.
Just break all the rules
and, you know,
think beyond
the boundaries.
How do you feel Delhi
is going to become
a city of the future?
This will be one of
those cities which will
have to adapt
very quickly.
The only solution here
is to build
more sustainably, to build
towards a greener future.
If you look at nature,
nothing is unnecessary.
Every pattern
and every tree
that grows in a particular
way, it is following
some rules, which we call
as sacred geometry.
So the animals
and the little creatures,
they have been using
the design principles,
and they have been
the real architects,
I would say.
So if we start
implementing those
systems in nature
into architecture,
pick up all those
logics and bits
and pieces of information,
and, you know,
reimagine those systems,
that kind of architecture
is what we are
all dreaming for.
A design
Wallach, voice-over:
The future Manas and his team
are dreaming about is beautiful,
and it reminds me
just how much creativity
these new tools
have the power to unleash.
I think that
the artificial intelligence
technology is the most important
technology in my lifetime.
It's kind of like
a steam engine moment.
If you think back in history,
the steam engine
was a thing that completely
changed the face of the Earth
and face of society.
And what I think
is going on now
with artificial intelligence
and scale computing is
it's like the steam engine
of the mind.
AI is an amplification
of anything
that you can do
with an electronic device
across all of life
and all of work.
You know, over
the history of the course
of the planet, life evolved
at a particular point in time.
Much later on,
wait a few billions of years,
this life begins
to become intelligent.
The intelligence of this
life begins to transform
the planet in its own image.
They were biological forms,
they were animal forms,
vegetal.
You could say
the whole biosphere
has a kind of intelligence.
But now the lithosphere
is also intelligent.
We have learned to
take rocks and metals
and fold them in particular ways
and run electric current
through them.
And these rocks are now
capable of feats of sentience
and sapience that
previously only apes, us,
had been able to accomplish.
This is incredible.
The question is,
what do we do with that?
The question is,
what is this, you know--
really, what is this for?
Wallach, voice-over: My final
visit is to a place called
the Longplayer Lab,
an old lighthouse
that's been repurposed
as a listening room for
a unique piece of music.
What--what is Longplayer?
Longplayer, as it's called,
is a piece of music
composed by Jem Finer
which lasts for 1,000 years
without repetition
and then starts again.
So, a continuous
piece of music
which encourages us
to think about
deep time, futures,
hopes of futures,
and the hope that there
is actually a planet
in which it can
play into.
Wallach, voice-over:
The initial score,
written for
a Tibetan singing bowl,
is fed through
an algorithm that constantly
transposes it in multiple ways
in order to play originally
and without repetition.
It began playing in 1999
and will not finish until 2099.
Being here makes me
wonder what the world
will look like at that point.
So, it's the year 2099,
December 31st.
It's been 1,000 years
since Longplayer has been
composing and performing.
What do you want
the world to look like?
I guess I just
really hope
that there is a world
enough for survival.
That doesn't
just mean humans.
It means
all kinds of species.
I hope there's
a world that
not just sustains
but actively encourages
joy and--and love
and good feeling
to each other.
Mbappé, voice-over: When you
think about your future,
you realize that you have
always something more to do.
If you want to have success,
we need us as a team.
We are one team, the world.
I cannot change
the world alone,
but I can do one step.
If everybody do one step,
that will help us
to grow like a team.
No technology is
built entirely in a box
and then deployed.
It's deployed,
learned from, improved.
That's the society
we should be designing to.
Go do it, try it, play with it,
iterate it, develop it.
You know, my hope
is that we are building
these technologies
to enable us to be more human.
Looking decades ahead,
I actually think
we're gonna find
ourselves closer
to what it really feels
like to be a human,
when there are
thriving ecosystems,
when there is
incredible biodiversity,
when we're closer to nature
and establishing that harmony.
Humans are driven
by the beauty.
So do we want our cities
to be like pieces of concrete
which we build up,
serve the function,
and then we destroy them?
Or do we want our future
cities to be beautifully,
aesthetically looking good?
Bidshahri, voice-over: Progress
is about problem-solving.
It takes creativity,
innovation, foresight,
in order to imagine
an exciting future
for humanity first
before you can create it.
These are
very complex, interwoven,
interconnected problems.
And at their heart is the way
we operate as humans.
What are the consequences
in the short, medium,
and long-term
for future generations?
When you apply this framework,
then actually you do
start coming up with
different approaches.
Here going forward,
nothing's gonna be the same.
Whatever we do now
over this period
of the next couple decades is
gonna set the foundations
for a lot of what comes next.
A and B speeds.
And the series finale,
take one.
Mark.
B mark, stop six.
Wallach, voice-over: As this
chapter of my journey
comes to an end,
it's difficult to describe
the effect it's all had on me.
I set out in search of people
who are making better futures,
people who are building things,
changing things,
rewriting the story,
reimagining
what all this is for
and where we can take it
moving forward.
What I found is that
this moment of chaos
also holds the seeds
of creativity,
an opportunity
to remake our world
and write a bigger,
better story
about what it means
to be human,
remembering that whatever
we face up ahead,
we are in this together,
not alone.
And at the end of it all,
the feeling I'm left with most
is not hope,
but it's also not fear.
It's not a final
greeting card statement
that everything's
gonna work out,
nor is it a feeling
that all is lost.
It's a feeling, a truly felt
belief, actually,
a belief that we have a choice,
a choice to decide to become
the great ancestors
our future needs us to be.
What does it mean
to be a great ancestor?
It means you make
the decisions that
ensure the future flourishing
of generations to come.
We all have agency.
It can be how we consume,
how we vote,
how we talk to one another--
these very small actions
that have long-term impacts.
If I was to be born at any time
in the grand arc
of human history,
I'd want to be born right now,
not some time
in the far future
when all the problems are solved
and everything is unicorns
and rainbows, but right now.
We're at this inflection point
where we're gonna decide,
really, the fate of our species.
What's so exciting
about this moment
is that we get to decide
what happens.
What do we become?