Imagine a world where the right to vote is granted the day you are born. And where there is always someone representing the interests of future generations when decisions are made. Can we do away with short-termism, ask Anders Folmer Buhelt and Sara Gry Striegler.
In much of the Western world, there is a growing awareness and orientation towards time - a time perspective that goes far beyond what we are used to.
The climate crisis and the consequences it may have for future generations has helped push the movement forward. It has led to questions about how we can afford to make decisions that reach far into the future without taking into account the people who will exist at that time. And to the question: Do we have the ability to do it differently?
In some parts of the world, this approach is not new, but dates back to before 1500 and is woven into traditional cultures.
The Haudenosaunee Confederacy in northeastern North America has very old and very strong democratic traditions, a fundamental element of which is the "seventh generation principle".
It's a philosophy that the decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations from now. Not only decisions about infrastructure, energy supply and natural resources, but also decisions about relationships, care and other social and societal contexts.
The Maori in New Zealand have a similar philosophy when it comes to decision-making, and many cultures look both far back and far ahead to make good decisions.
Perhaps the reason why it is difficult for us to change our behavior in relation to the climate crisis is that the biggest climate impacts will be felt by people far away from us - both geographically and in time.
We know that the impacts are uneven - that those of us in the rich countries that emit the most are affected the least - and we know that the major disasters will not happen in our lifetime, but rather in the lifetime of our grandchildren or grandchildren's children.
Kenney Warne writes in an article in National Geographic that while it makes evolutionary sense that we have a hard time connecting with people who are geographically distant from us because we don't belong to the same "tribe", it doesn't make sense that we aren't better at connecting with our descendants - because they belong to our "tribe".
So why aren't our descendants at the forefront of our minds when we make decisions? Are we trapped in short-termism?
Short-termism may be becoming an existential threat to humanity.
Short-term mindsets and structures across business, politics and society threaten our shared future: Election cycles that call for urgent action and quick results to get re-elected. Quarterly corporate financial statements that reward quick returns over long-term value. The constant stream of news that catches us in the immediate.
None of the structures we have created in our society support or reward long-term thinking. One might be tempted to ask why our democracy and voting rights don't favor the people who will experience change and political decisions the longest?
In the rhetoric of the yellow breaking beam, you could say that our tunnel vision, focusing on the imminent, leads to decisions that could ultimately leave us with only a short future as a species.
But taking the long view in a short-term world is easier said than done, it requires something new: it requires decisions, structures and focus.
Fortunately, we can draw inspiration from countries that have created structures to be responsible for thinking about the future in decision-making.
As early as 1993, the Finnish parliament established a committee of the future - similar to the many committees we have in the Danish parliament: the children and education committee, the finance committee, the social committee, etc.
The Future Committee acts as a kind of think tank for future, science and technology policy in Finland, and its mission is to create a dialog with the government on major future challenges and opportunities.
At least once during its term of office, the government issues a statement - the government's future report - on the government's goals and proposals for development in the very long term.
The report incorporates long-term perspectives and is presented by the Prime Minister to Parliament. The Futures Committee's main task is then to prepare the parliament's response - the Parliamentary Futures Report.
In this way, the Finnish government and parliament can work together to identify important political themes at such an early stage that different alternatives and political lines are still completely open. Parliament's decisions are thus shaped by a broad information base of projections, wishes and ideas about the future, instead of being based solely on an acute problem or snapshot.
Other countries that have future committees in their parliaments are Chile, the Philippines, Iceland, Lithuania, Paraguay and Uruguay. In addition, there are other committees that deal extensively with future issues in Austria, Canada, Poland, Thailand, Estonia and Vietnam, among others.
In other words, it is more common than you might think to formally incorporate considerations for the future and future generations into political work.
In 2015, the "Well-being of future Generations"- Act was passed in Wales, addressing the major challenges Wales, like most other countries, faces: climate crisis, poverty, health inequalities, demographic change and well-being.
In order to provide a high quality of life for both current and future generations, there is a focus on the long-term impact of decisions made. The law therefore contains legal obligations to improve social, cultural, environmental and economic wellbeing and requires public bodies in Wales to consider the long-term impact of their decisions.
The law emphasizes the importance of thinking cross-functionally, mobilizing all relevant resources and balancing short-term needs with long-term needs.
Right now the Danish government wants and needs to implement a number of reforms, and at the same time, during the recent election campaign, we have seen leading politicians announce that 'we don't know how to solve the well-being crisis', it is not only meaningful, but also far more responsible to take a significantly longer perspective on the challenges.
The definition of the word, when we look it up in the dictionary, is that reform is 'change, especially improvement of an existing situation'.
Imagine if the government set up a Committee of the future that really uncovered the long-term possibilities as an input for rethinking large parts of our welfare society's mechanisms and structures.
It requires courage and not least patience, to understand our society and the role we all play in it. Perhaps it could sow seeds that future generations will reap the effects of?
How long is a long time? It sounds like a question a small child might ask their parents. But it's a very relevant question in the fast-paced, short-term world we live in.
We need a new perspective on the decisions we make and the things we do. We have a moral obligation to think about the consequences for future generations - our descendants.
To create this culture change in a fast-paced and consistently short-term world, we need both what The Long Time Project calls "long-timism" - cultivating care for the world beyond our lifetime - and "long-termism" - the long-termism to plan for benefits and goals in the future. This requires skills that we don't prioritize and cultivate today.
We need visionary leaders in all parts of society and sectors with long-term missions (and investments!) and policy makers who have the capacity to think and most importantly act more future-oriented.
We are facing major societal challenges; the major crisis of well-being among young people and the lack of resources in health and elderly care, combined with the demographic development, but also the war in Ukraine, the energy crisis and runaway inflation.
The challenges are interconnected, complex and have a significant impact on people's lives. They affect not just one, but many areas of our welfare society. They are unsolvable in the upcoming election period, but we can't wait to address them.
Lars Løkke, Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently pointed out that we in lack of crisis awareness in Denmark. We need a better understanding of the serious challenges we face, which over time can have truly fatal consequences for our society if we are not willing to change and give up for the benefit of the community. He called for understanding and willingness to see the bigger, longer perspective for each and every one of us. And, one might add, for our descendants.
It's not enough to leave it to our political leaders. A shift in caring for and empathizing with future generations and societies requires something from all of us. Now and in the future.
Children today must learn the traditional skills in their schooling, but have we forgotten to cultivate the imagination and creativity that will ensure development and that we can tackle the challenges of the future in new ways? That we can challenge the status quo, the logics and mechanisms that help maintain our societal challenges? Perhaps they are even central to well-being?
One of the things that disappears when we don't thrive is the ability to imagine that our lives can be different, that our everyday life can be different. So, could it be that imagination, long-termism - longtermism - popularly known as 'future skills' are the skills of the future?
One such approach can be found in a set of tools that Denmark has a long tradition of: design. Many may perceive design as primarily concerned with aesthetics and form, but design is really an approach to concretize, investigate and challenge.
Taking a design-based approach means basing our work on social, human, collaborative, interdisciplinary and meaningful qualities; values that are as much a part of Denmark's DNA as form and aesthetics.
The design mindset makes it possible to create momentum in situations characterized by ambiguity and internal contradictions. This is extremely valuable, especially in complex systems where many different people, processes and structures need to come together and interact. With a focus on democratizing, involving and experimenting.
Key international players such as UNESCO and the OECD and many others have really started to recognize these competencies and the capacity to challenge underlying understandings of the world, to have the ability to imagine that the future may have alternative outcomes and act accordingly; that is, translate, inspire and inform today's decisions and developments.
UNESCO works to promote futures literacy as a crucial element in the education of children and youth. When it proclaimed December the 2nd asInternational Futures Day, it emphasized the importance of these competencies as some of the most crucial skills of recent times.
The OECD's laboratory for public sector innovation, OPSI, which advises and supports governments in using new approaches to achieve local, national and global policy priorities, is currently strengthening and developing these competencies.
We see that more organisations and companies are looking for new ways to orient themselves towards the future and the long-term perspective to navigate our uncertain and ambiguous reality.
There are several players in the field in Denmark, such as the Institute for Futures Research, which focuses on future skills, but both Danish Social Innovation Academy and the Danish Design Center also work with long-term thinking and imagination in their work to address complex societal challenges.
We need to join forces and mobilize collective imagination and foresight - and we should ask our politicians and other decision-makers to lead the way. The future, by definition, is not something we can predict, but something we create through our actions, our decisions and the choices we make today.
