For decades we have known that our way of life is causing global warming. And yet, still we haven’t changed direction. Have we been telling the wrong kind of stories about the future?
Per Grankvist during his presentation at STHLM+50 Climate Hub.
On June 3, Viable Cities’ chief storyteller Per Grankvist took the stage at the STHLM+50 ClimateHub and delivered an energetic and highly entertaining presentation titled ”50 years later – why facts still don’t matter.” The title alluded to the fact that exactly fifty years had now passed since Stockholm hosted the first-ever international conference on environmental issues in 1972.
”We have been pushing facts and scientific solutions for fifty years. We have been talking about how important it is, and playing it out for the people in order to make them change. It isn’t working, and maybe it has to do with the way we tell stories about the future”, Mr Grankvist told the audience at STHLM+50 Climate Hub, a five-day event, organized by We Don’t Have time and the UN Development Program, UNDP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7YEvILR99A
So why is storytelling important at Viable Cities? Well, because its mission is to create climate-neutral cities – with a good life for all within the planetary boundaries. The major objective of Viable Cities is to usher 23 Swedish cities – together accounting for 40% of Sweden's population – towards climate neutrality. As a way of reaching this ambitious goal, Viable Cities has developed a method for using storytelling to make elected officials and policymakers understand what a climate-neutral future feels like. By replacing numbers on climate neutrality with narratives the result is that the audience gains a new way of thinking and talking about the future with a high quality of life in focus. Already prior to its launch, the method received international attention from the BBC, Süddeutche Zeitung, and Bloomberg Businessweek among others.
Per Grankvist took use of the 20 metre wide screen at SPACE Arena in central Stockholm during his presentation.
During the Stockholm +50 conference, the chief storyteller Per Grankvist explained the research behind the method and presented it in detail for the first time.
”If I say you´re gonna be climate-neutral, it sounds like: ’Okay, I’m gonna take your hamburger away, I’m gonna take your car away, and you can never go to Spain again.’ That sounds boring. We don’t want that, because we are basically kids, all of us. We want fun stuff.”
After fifty years of using graphs, stats and diagrams to tell stories about the future, Mr. Grankvist believes it’s time we try something new – using fiction to tell the truth.
”In order for us to be able to relate to stories about the future, they need to be emotionally true. So that was what we began doing within the Viable Cities program, we started to think about: What if we could use storytelling in order to make city officials and policymakers brave again?”
Per Grankvist in a discussion with host Catarina Rolfsdotter-Jansson at the STHLM+50 Climate Hub.
He and his colleagues started working on a new concept moving from numbers to narrative. From virtual reality to emotional reality. A fictional form of storytelling that is emotionally true, locally relevant and scientifically correct.
”When we use storytelling in the right way, we can place people somewhere else, and that’s what we’re trying to use as a method”, said Mr Grankvist.
Watch the whole presentation to learn more about this new kind of storytelling – and start spreading good stories about a sustainable future.
50 years after the very first UN Environment Conference, placing nature and poverty at the forefront of the international agenda, Stockholm welcomed the world again in June 2022. Together with partners, We Don'tHave Time and UNDP hosted a public arena for the entire week of Stockholm+50, leading up to World Environment Day 2022.
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95 w
New kind of storytelling sounds interesting
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95 w
Great article, and interesting to read about the method of storytelling and narratives