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  • We live in a short term world.

  • We're so focused on what's right in front of us - whether that's our

  • social media feeds, the latest political headlines

  • or the latest fashion trends. It's all about now.

  • And that the problem is that kind of tunnel vision of short termism

  • is leading to a situation where we might only be left

  • with a short term as a species.

  • So it's often said that we are the first generation to truly feel

  • the impacts of climate change,

  • and the last generation to meaningfully be able

  • to do anything about it.

  • If short-termism got us into this mess,

  • can long-termism get us out of it?

  • For us, anything that we're saying, we do it in mind that our

  • seven generations are sitting with us already.

  • When you talk about how can we establish things for the next

  • seven generations, we're not just talking about the things that we can

  • teach them, but the things that they have to know to survive.

  • All my artwork deals with time, on very different levels.

  • Some are quite experiential, like a mirror ball

  • that has 10,000 eclipses beaming around the room.

  • I've made clocks that tell the time on other planets.

  • Humans are kind of evolved to think within our own lifespans,

  • and so I think things like art

  • can allow you to take a step outside of that.

  • But not in a kind of science fiction way - more in a way

  • that connects to Earth and connects to living organisms.

  • Future Library came about in 2014.

  • We planted 1,000 trees just on the outskirts of Oslo,

  • and in a century's time, they're going to be cut down,

  • pulped and made into a book.

  • Over the next century, 100 authors are invited, year by year,

  • to write a new piece.

  • Every year the author brings their text to the forest

  • and people gather together and we go on the same walk through the forest

  • and then they present their manuscript.

  • The questions have gone from thinking about the paper book

  • and digital ways of reading and, will the book still exist?

  • To, will humanity exist? Will there be a reader in 100 years?

  • And that's really shocking.

  • My job description as set out in law

  • is to act as the guardian of the interests of future generations,

  • so I feel pretty pressured by that,

  • that's quite a big job description.

  • The Well-being of Future Generations Act was passed by

  • our National Assembly in 2015. It requires all of our public bodies

  • to demonstrate how they're taking decisions in a way which meets

  • today's needs, without compromising the ability of future generations

  • to meet their own needs.

  • I suppose one of the biggest test cases for the act was around

  • building a 13-mile stretch of motorway.

  • It had been previously thought that this was a done deal -

  • not only is it potentially not the right thing to do

  • for future generations, we would also be asking them to pay for it.

  • I asked the government to explain to me how they were thinking about

  • the long term there and how they considered future trends

  • and scenarios, and the First Minister came back and rejected the proposals.

  • Sometimes the points made is, "Well we've got enough problems

  • to deal with now without thinking about the future."

  • But I don’t think doing the right thing for current generations

  • and future generations is mutually exclusive.

  • Politicians are not renowned for their long-term thinking, so actually

  • taking a step, not just to say in some aspirational policy document,

  • but actually in law, "No, we will require ourselves to think

  • to the long term and we'll appoint someone who is independent

  • and will hold us to account for doing that." That's quite a brave move.

  • So we found that engaging with the long term

  • changes the way that people behave in the short term.

  • Stretching people's capacity to care about future generations

  • means that they take responsibility for that future.

  • None of us is going to live forever, we're all mortal.

  • The question we're asking is, what do we want to leave behind?

  • How can we leave a better legacy for future generations?

  • How might we be better ancestors?

We live in a short term world.

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