The Future We Choose

What kind of world will you help create—the one of cooperation or collapse? In The Future We Choose, Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac, architects of the UN Paris Agreement, argue that humanity stands at a defining moment. The next few decades will determine the quality of life on Earth for centuries to come. Their core claim is urgent yet hopeful: while climate change is already reshaping the planet, our mindset and choices—both collective and personal—can still lead us to regeneration instead of ruin.

They contend that this transformation is not just technological or political but profoundly psychological. The way you see yourself and others matters. Do you act from scarcity and fear, or from abundance and solidarity? The authors frame our future as a dual pathway: one leads to devastation (a +3°C world of collapse and suffering), and the other to regeneration (a +1.5°C world of collaboration, creativity, and ecological balance).

Two Worlds, One Choice

Figueres and Rivett-Carnac begin by contrasting two vivid futures. In the grim world of 2050 under unchecked warming, pollution suffocates cities, crops fail, millions become climate refugees, and despair turns political systems authoritarian. In the alternative vision, if global emissions are halved every decade, by 2050 we live amid green cities, abundant forests, clean energy, and globally cooperative societies. Urban gardens thrive, food systems regenerate, and communities connect. These contrasting worlds make the stakes crystal clear: we can still choose the story we write.

Three Mindsets for Transformation

The authors then introduce what they call three essential mindsets for shaping this choice: Stubborn Optimism, Endless Abundance, and Radical Regeneration. These are not philosophical abstractions but practical orientations toward action. Stubborn Optimism means refusing fatalism; Endless Abundance means rejecting the illusion of scarcity and embracing cooperation; Radical Regeneration means nurturing both the planet and our inner lives. Change in mindset precedes change in reality.

For example, Figueres recalls the despair after the failed Copenhagen climate talks in 2009. Everyone said a global deal was impossible—until optimism made it possible. By reframing the problem from one of competition to collaboration, the Paris Agreement emerged as a global turning point. This shared optimism translated into actionable decisions among 195 nations. The authors argue this same psychology can guide individuals as much as governments.

Actions We Can Take

The final part of the book offers ten concrete actions everyone can take, spanning politics, economics, and personal habits. These include letting go of the old world of fossil fuels, defending truth in a “post-truth” era, reforesting the Earth, investing in a clean economy, and building gender equality. Each action connects personal responsibility to systemic change. By seeing yourself as a citizen rather than a consumer, supporting political leaders who prioritize climate, and reorienting values toward regeneration, you help create the conditions for survival.

Why This Matters

This book is grounded in realism but infused with hope. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac acknowledge the profound grief and fear many feel about climate change—but urge us not to remain stuck there. Facing loss honestly allows for renewed commitment and creativity. Their call is to hold a vision larger than despair, one based on collective flourishing—similar to what writers like Joanna Macy call “active hope.” (In Active Hope, Macy teaches that hope is not optimism but engagement; Figueres and Rivett-Carnac echo this philosophy.)

The Invitation

Ultimately, this is not a book about climate policy—it’s about human purpose. The authors invite you to see the climate crisis as a moment to redefine how humanity evolves. The “critical decade” between now and 2030 is a test of collective maturity. If we embody cooperation, transparency, empathy, and action, we can create the world “we must choose.” It’s a manual for hope in motion, reminding us that transformation begins when you choose to believe that failure is simply unthinkable.

Stubborn optimism is the psychological engine of change. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac describe it not as naive cheerfulness but as a fierce commitment to act even when success seems impossible. It’s the refusal to surrender to despair, grounded in both realism and moral courage.

Shifting Patterns of Thought

Optimism begins in the mind. Neuroscience and positive psychology—such as Martin Seligman’s idea of “learned optimism”—show that our habitual thoughts shape our behavior. When you train yourself to look for progress instead of paralysis, you create the conditions for possibility. Figueres began her tenure at the UN in 2010 with the climate community shattered by Copenhagen’s failure. Everyone told her a global accord was unachievable. Choosing optimism allowed her to mobilize thousands toward what became the 2015 Paris Agreement.

The Paris Example

Through years of negotiation with nearly 200 countries, the authors detail that optimism was necessary fuel. It made leaders courageous enough to persist in cooperation despite conflicting interests. When despair set in, they reframed obstacles as challenges to be solved. Minister Xie Zhenhua of China, U.S. envoy Todd Stern, and small island nations all acted from shared self-interest for collective well-being. This optimism transformed deadlock into collaboration.

How You Can Practice It

Practicing stubborn optimism means three things: acknowledging reality, trusting humanity’s ingenuity, and acting decisively. You can start by noticing defeatist thoughts about climate collapse and replacing them with the belief that every fraction of a degree of warming prevented truly matters. Each personal choice—voting, consuming, planting, learning—adds momentum to tipping points of change. Examples abound: Costa Rica’s fully renewable energy grid and California’s clean power goals demonstrate optimism turned into engineering and legislation.

Beyond Simple Positivity

Rebecca Solnit says hope is “an axe to break down doors.” Figueres and Rivett-Carnac echo this ethos: optimism is action. They remind you that optimism is not denial of difficulty—it’s persistence in the face of uncertainty. It turns helplessness into agency and fear into fuel for transformation. When applied at scale, stubborn optimism is what activates global movements and allows us all to move from paralysis to purpose.

At the heart of the climate crisis lies a crippling psychological error—the illusion of scarcity. In Chapter 6, “Endless Abundance,” the authors explore how our zero-sum worldview leads to competition, fear, and depletion, while an abundance mindset creates cooperation and regeneration.

Scarcity vs. Abundance

If you’ve ever rushed to secure a seat on a bus or fought for limited resources, you know scarcity thinking. We believe someone’s gain must be our loss. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac show that this mindset is largely a cultural construct. Like the people in Tucson, Arizona, who overpumped groundwater from fear of shortage, humans often create real scarcity from perceived lack. In truth, natural systems tend toward abundance when managed wisely—the desert had enough rainfall to meet needs, if ecological balance were respected.

Collaboration in Crisis

During catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina or Typhoon Haiyan, people spontaneously collaborate. Disaster elicits compassion, not competition. Giving releases happiness chemicals, proving that generosity increases well-being. The authors urge you to adopt this collaborative instinct even when resources seem scarce, because global survival is now a shared enterprise—“we all win or lose together.” In other words, the new zero-sum equation is collective: either everyone wins, or everyone suffers.

Beyond Competition

The story of the U.S.–China climate breakthrough illustrates shifting from competition to cooperation. Minister Xie Zhenhua reframed negotiations by focusing on shared benefits: cleaner air, jobs, innovation. When 195 nations adopted the Paris Agreement, they were practicing abundance—each country realized decarbonizing its economy meant prosperity, not sacrifice. Collaboration became the path to “shared winning.”

Abundance in Practice

Natural ecosystems operate on abundance principles: waste feeds life, networks co-create growth. Human networks like Wikipedia and open-source platforms mirror this, where each contribution enlarges value for all. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac imagine a world of “open source everything”—education, technology, and governance built from collaborative frameworks. Adopting this mindset frees us from the fear that hinders collective action and replaces it with generosity that regenerates both resources and relationships.

If endless abundance reframes how we think about resources, radical regeneration redefines how we live with nature and ourselves. This final mindset is about reversing extraction—restoring ecosystems, communities, and personal resilience simultaneously.

Ending the Age of Extraction

Human history has been shaped by the impulse to take—minerals, forests, fish, labor, wealth. The authors liken this one-way growth model to a “precipice ahead” sign: extraction has hit the planet’s limits. Regeneration requires replacing “getting” with “giving.” This isn’t idealism but survival. Nature shows us regeneration daily: a lizard’s regrown tail, a forest healing itself after retreat of human pressure. When we emulate these self-restoring processes, ecosystems rebound and people flourish.

Self-Replenishment

You cannot help regenerate the planet if you’re depleted yourself. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac emphasize rest, mindfulness, and nature connection as the foundation. Meditation, gardening, and creative play renew inner energy—the same way forests renew soil through cycles. Burnout among climate workers proves the need for personal grounding: “Better to stand as a tree, firmly rooted in your own values.”

Restoring Nature

Regeneration also means rewilding ecosystems. Through examples like coral farming and Scottish Highlands reforestation with fungi, the authors show intentional restoration works. Coral fragments grown in nurseries accelerate marine recovery. Trees with symbiotic fungi heal the land faster. Humans can be catalysts of regeneration, not merely destroyers. Rewilding transforms landscapes and consciousness alike.

The Regenerative Anthropocene

Figueres and Rivett-Carnac dream of a “Garden of Intention” to replace the lost Garden of Eden—a deliberately regenerative civilization. This calls for every decision, from policy to daily habits, to pass a “green light test”: Does it help humans and nature thrive together? If yes, continue. If not, stop. Regeneration is both an ethic and an evolution: designing human presence on Earth so that life itself expands in harmony.

Truth is the oxygen of democracy—and of climate action. In today’s “post-truth era,” misinformation undermines scientific fact, paralyzing collective response. The authors’ third action, “Defend the Truth,” warns that if truth dies, so does the chance of solving the climate crisis.

The Propagation of Lies

Jonathan Swift once wrote that “falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it.” This prophecy has come alive in the age of social media. MIT researchers found lies spread six times faster than facts online. Climate denial, pseudoscience, and partisan manipulation feed confusion and delay action. The Heartland Institute’s textbook distributed to U.S. teachers falsely claimed scientists disagree about global warming, exploiting public trust to sow doubt.

Critical Thinking as Activism

In this environment, you must become a guardian of fact. Challenge confirmation bias—the tendency to favor information that feels comfortable. Seek peer-reviewed sources, follow the money behind claims, distinguish genuine science from propaganda. For example, reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) involve dozens of nations and hundreds of scientists, ensuring credibility. Verifying sources is now a civic duty.

Dialogue, Not Division

Most importantly, don’t abandon climate deniers. Empathy and listening—rather than argument—shift hearts more than statistics. By building bridges, you counter polarization and protect society’s capacity to collaborate. Truth defense isn’t merely intellectual; it’s moral courage in the face of deceit. When you defend truth, you defend humanity’s ability to imagine and build its regenerative future.

Consumption has trapped humanity in a monkey’s fist—the more tightly we grasp, the more we suffer. In this action chapter, the authors challenge you to shift identity from passive consumer to active citizen.

The Monkey Trap of Consumption

Like the monkey that refuses to let go of rice in a coconut, modern humans cling to possessions. Fast fashion, disposable electronics, and constant upgrading define “progress.” Advertising fuels this addiction—$550 billion a year globally—to manufacture desire. But this endless buying corrodes identity and happiness. The fashion industry alone emits 10% of global CO2, more than all international flights and shipping.

Redefining a Good Life

A life of material accumulation brings psychological emptiness. Studies confirm consumerism increases anxiety and drives self-doubt (see research summarized by the American Psychological Association). Becoming a citizen instead of a consumer means shifting attention from acquiring to contributing. Choose durable goods, reuse, repair—and vote with your money for sustainability.

Stories that Liberate

The parable of Paulo Coelho’s fisherman illustrates genuine freedom: recognizing what’s “enough.” The fisherman already lives the life of balance the businessman dreams of achieving after decades of toil. When you embrace sufficiency and stewardship, happiness grows while the planet heals. Seeing yourself as a citizen reclaims agency over the systems you inhabit—you are not here to consume convenience but to co-create change.

Forests are the planet’s lungs and our clearest path to reversing climate damage. Reforesting the Earth, the authors argue, is simple, immediate, and profoundly effective—an act that literally transforms the story of carbon.

The Scale of Loss

Since agriculture began, humans have destroyed half of all trees—about 3 trillion. In 2018 alone, we lost twelve million hectares of forest, much to beef and palm oil expansion. Forests create their own rain; destroy enough, and deserts replace them. This isn’t just environmental tragedy—it’s existential risk.

Planting as Revolution

A landmark study showed that 900 million hectares, an area the size of the U.S., could be reforested without displacing people or crops. Mature forests would absorb 205 billion tons of carbon—70% of all emissions since the Industrial Revolution. Planting trees, then, is one of the most powerful climate acts possible. Ethiopia’s world-record day of planting 350 million trees exemplifies rapid collective action.

Rewilding and Diet

Beyond planting, rewilding lets ecosystems heal themselves, as seen in the Knepp Wildland Project in England, which revived butterflies, doves, and nightingales across 3,500 acres once farmed to exhaustion. Meanwhile, shifting to plant-based diets complements forest restoration, cutting deforestation linked to meat and dairy.

Empowerment through Action

Tree planting is not symbolic—it’s strategic. It reconnects you to Earth and offers immediate participation in healing. The authors emphasize: every person should plant trees not as “offsets” but as acts of renewal. Each tree is a promise of continuity and community.

Political engagement is the keystone of all climate progress. Without democratic pressure, even the most visionary solutions remain talk. Figueres and Rivett-Carnac end with the call to make climate action the defining political movement of our century.

Why Politics Matters

Democracy itself is at risk from climate destabilization. When disasters strike, fear can breed authoritarianism. Corporate money and populist leaders exploit confusion. The authors cite the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement and the far-right surge in Europe following refugee flows as warning signals. To safeguard liberty and the planet, citizens must demand leaders who prioritize climate science and act immediately upon election.

The Power of Civil Action

Movements like Extinction Rebellion and Fridays for Future prove the potency of peaceful uprising. Research by Erica Chenoweth shows that change occurs when just 3.5% of the population participates in nonviolent protest. That’s 11 million Americans or 2.3 million Britons—the reachable threshold of transformation.

How You Engage

Vote, march, write, question. Demand institutional truth and transparency. Push banks and pension funds to divest from fossil fuels. The authors remind you: democracy is not a spectator sport. When citizens and leaders unite around the regenerative vision, democracy itself renews. Engaging in politics is the ultimate act of love—for future generations and for the story of humanity still being written.