FutureProof is a collaboration between HuffPost and Unearthed, Greenpeace UK’s journalism unit
An intensifying climate crisis. Four years of a Trump administration, which has set back climate action and stoked racism, and leaves in its wake a legacy of chaos and distrust. A pandemic that has killed more than 1 million people, exposing and exacerbating every vulnerability in our social fabric.
The world feels pretty broken lately. But the truth is, it’s been broken for a long time. The systems we rely on — the food we eat, the energy that lights our way, the incomes we work for, the cities we live in— are deeply flawed. They were not built for people, least of all the most vulnerable and marginalized, and they are cracking under the pressure of COVID-19 and the climate catastrophe.
The deep fractures exposed by the pandemic show us exactly where we need to rebuild ― luckily, we won’t be starting from scratch. FutureProof, a new five-part series from HuffPost and Unearthed, spans the globe, meeting people already implementing solutions and building the resilience needed for a future of cascading shocks. We explore what it looks like if you just give people the money they need to get by; a city safeguarding its residents from the dangers of a warming world; and how part of tsunami-devastated Japan plans to power its future. We meet farmers trying to compete with Big Agriculture and politicians putting people’s well-being at the heart of their nations’ economies.
This is what it would look like to build a futureproof world — a world that’s able to withstand whatever crisis comes next.