Part Four
Future Tense Politics
Changing our short-term politics so that it stands the test of time.
How can we do politics with a Long Time lens? So often it feels like our leaders are firmly stuck in the short-term, motivated by getting re-elected every four or five years and the sway of vested interests.
In this episode we meet the people changing this both from within government and outside it, with their imaginative and innovative - yet highly realistic - Long Time approaches to politics and law. We travel to ancient Greece, hear from teenagers suing their governments, ministers creating new laws to care for future generations, academics in Japan who are using theatrical methods to enable policymakers to feel into the future, and indigenous wisdom-keepers whose oldest living democracy on the planet shows us what a political system that cares for all future earth-dwellers looks like.
Special thanks to the contributors to this episode, Roman Krznaric, Michelle Schenandoah, Mama Bear, Tatsuyoshi Saijo, Jane Davidson, Julia Olson and Levi Draheim.
Leave us a voice note here telling us how listening to this series is making you feel about the present and the future - we listen to all your messages and would love to include some in future episodes.
Long Time Practice: The Words Before All Else
A thanksgiving, gratitude address read by Haudenosaunee clan mother, Mama Bear.
A gift to the students of the Academy from Mama Bear, Bear Clan Mother for the Mohawk Nation Council. This traditional Haudenosaunee practice expresses gratitude and empathic connection to all of creation.
Usually delivered whenever people gather to make a decision, it can also be done as an individual practice first thing in the morning - “ideally before your feet hit the floor” - or last thing at night.
With a great many thanks to Mama Bear and Michelle Schenandoah.
We’ve designed a set of tools to put the ideas explored in this episode into practice.
SHOW NOTES
Roman Krznaric’s latest book, The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking, is available here, and in all good local bookshops.
Michelle Schenandoah is the founder of Rematriation magazine- read here.
Read more about Professor Tatsuyoshi Saijo’s work on Future Design here.
Find out about Jane Davidson’s book #futuregen Lessons from a Small Country here.
Find out more about Julia Olson’s work with Our Children’s Trust here.
Read more about Louise Herne, Mama Bear, Bear Clan Mother for the Mohawk Nation Council here.
CREDITS
The series was created and produced by Lina Prestwood and Ella Saltmarshe.
Produced by Ivor Manley and Madeleine Finlay with research by Momoe Ikeda-Chelminska.
Executive producers at Headspace Studios are Ash Jones, Leah Sutherland & Morgan Selzer.
Original artwork by Mavi Morais. Design by Loz Ives & Lewis Kay-Thatcher.
Original music, sound design and mixing by Tristan Cassel-Delavois, Scott Sorenson & Chris Murguia.
Irish referendum clips courtesy of The Citizens Assembly - YouTube Channel and ITV News.
Julia Olson in court audio courtesy the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, Official YouTube Channel, December 11th 2017.
Welsh devolution referendum results courtesy of BBC News, 1997.
Kurt Vonnegut clip from NOW October 2005 courtesy of PBS.
Sophie Howe, Welsh Future Generations Commissioner clip courtesy of Senedd Cymru/ Welsh Parliament, September, YouTube, September 2019.
The Long Time Academy comes to you from Headspace Studios and The Long Time Project, and is produced by Scenery Studios.
Meet our guests
Roman Krznaric
Roman Krznaric is a public philosopher who writes about the power of ideas to change society. His latest book is The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short Term World. He is founder of the world’s first Empathy Museum and is a Research Fellow of the Long Now Foundation and a member of the Club of Rome.
Michelle Schenandoah
Michelle is an inspirational speaker, writer, thought leader and traditional member of the Onʌyota’:aka (Oneida) Nation Wolf Clan of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy. She is the founder of Rematriation and the non-profit Kanenhi:io Ionkwaienthos. Raised in a family of traditional leadership, she carries the values and responsibilities of being Haudenosaunee throughout her life.
Louise Herne
Louise Herne, affectionately known as Mama Bear, is Distinguished Scholar in Indigenous Learning at McMaster University Institute for Innovation and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (MIIETL). She is a condoled Bear Clan Mother for the Mohawk Nation Council and a trusted advisor for families and community youth and works closely with them in their homes and schools. She bestows traditional names in the longhouse and provides spiritual counsel for all those seeking support.
Tatsuyoshi Saijo
Professor Tatsuyoshi Saijo is Program director at the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature (RIHN) and founding director at the Research Institute for Future Design, Kochi University of Technology. He’s known for developing a new field known as "Future Design”. His publications include "Negotiating with the future," and "Future Design”.
Jane Davidson
Jane is the author of #futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country and passionate about living lightly. She is Pro Vice-Chancellor Emeritus at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David and Patron of the UK Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management. From 2000 - 2011, she was Cabinet Minister for Education, then Environment and Sustainability in Wales where she proposed legislation to make sustainability the central organising principle of government: the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act came into law in 2015.
Julia Olson
Julia is the founder, Executive Director, and Chief Legal Counsel of Our Children’s Trust, a nonprofit public interest law firm that provides strategic, campaign-based legal services to youth from diverse backgrounds to secure their legal rights to a safe climate. Julia graduated from UC Hastings College of the Law in 1997, and founded Our Children’s Trust in 2010, initiating a global wave of rights-based climate litigation, especially cases brought on behalf of children. Julia is lead counsel in Juliana v. United States.
Levi Draheim
"You have to find the way of nature," is one of Levi's messages for the world from his beloved home of a barrier island in Florida, just 13ft above sea level. His island has been impacted by environmental issues from red algal blooms to increasing storms from climate change. After Hurricane Matthew, Levi volunteered replanting the dunes at the beach, where he also does litter clean-ups. The youngest #youthvgov plaintiff, Levi has been speaking at marches and rallies in his neighborhood to bring attention to the risk climate change poses to low-lying Florida. He is also a painter and a dreamer who is part of the lawsuit to imagine and build a better future.