What this is about:
A condensed reflection on three ways of looking at the future of 2026, pessimistic, optimistic, and realistic, with the emphasis firmly on the realistic path between doom and denial.
Why you might want to read this:
In a world shaped by climate stress, technological acceleration, and political instability, neither fear nor blind hope is particularly helpful. What we need is a sober sense of what is still possible.
Three futures, one functional perspective
Looking ahead has become increasingly difficult with each passing year. The future shifts as we try to describe it, and our interpretation depends as much on our mindset as on the facts. Optimists, pessimists, and realists all see something different. Ask a thousand people, and you get a thousand futures.
The pessimistic future focuses on escalation. More wars, weaker international cooperation, accelerating climate damage, unchecked AI, and rising inequality. Complex systems become brittle. Collapse feels not just possible, but likely.
The optimistic future counters that fear is paralyzing. It points to declining emissions in some regions, rapid growth in renewable energy, improved efficiency, cleaner air, slowing population growth, and past successes in environmental policy. The message is that progress is real, measurable, and scalable if we choose to act.
Both stories contain truths, and both leave things out.
The realistic future: navigating between illusion and despair
The realistic future begins with a simple premise: wishful thinking does not change reality, nor does despair. The future will not follow our preferences, yet we all share one nonnegotiable interest: survival with dignity, on a livable planet.
What makes realism difficult is scale and complexity. Climate, ecosystems, the global economy, technology, and geopolitics are all complex systems with their own dynamics. They interact, amplify one another, and behave in ways no single actor fully controls. When such systems are pushed far out of balance, they do not return neatly to the old normal. They settle into a new equilibrium, which can be more or less complex, but not necessarily morally better.
By its nature, a realistic future is not about control. It is about influence.
Where real opportunities still exist
One opportunity lies in what is often overlooked: the societal undercurrent. Across the world, small-scale initiatives focused on sustainability, democracy, and resilience are emerging. Energy cooperatives, local food systems, citizen movements. Individually, they seem marginal. Connected, they can shape the larger system. This undercurrent is not inherently “good,” but it illustrates how change occurs in complex systems.
A second opportunity lies in the economy. As long as economic growth remains the primary goal, environmental and social damage are treated as external costs. Relative decoupling is not enough. As long as total resource use and emissions continue to rise, problems persist. Realism means accepting that you cannot solve systemic crises with the same economic logic that created them.
Technology offers a third set of possibilities, but also risks. Carbon capture, geoengineering, and AI-driven optimization: they may help at the margins. But they are resource-intensive, energy-hungry, and often deployed before their side effects are well understood. A realistic approach favors simplicity, restraint, and the precautionary principle over technological optimism.
Finally, there is information. In an environment flooded with disinformation, the most effective defense is not to fight every falsehood, but to consciously select trustworthy sources and help others do the same. Resilience is partly informational.
A future without instructions
The future is not a flat pack with a clear manual. It is messy, uneven, and uncertain. Many helpful actions are already known: consume less, travel less, eat differently, and organize locally. They feel insignificant, especially when political systems lag behind. Yet they matter most when they are shared, coordinated, and sustained.
Realism does not promise that this will be enough, or that it will be in time. It suggests a direction: away from extraction and domination toward cooperation and care. A society where survival is not reserved for the wealthiest fraction, but made possible for everyone.
That future is not guaranteed. But it is still conceivable. And that, for now, is reason enough to keep going.
This article is a summary of a set of articles that was published by Peter van Vliet in December 2025 in Dutch on Duurzaamnieuws.nl
