Jane McGonigal

Up to one billion people are expected to climate relocate with assistance over the next decade.

You have been asked to take a personal survey of climate risk and intention to migrate.

The Welcome Party is collecting data to simulate and plan a safe and equitable mass climate migration.

You have to name three climate-resilient cities you would be willing to move to, given social and economic support.

Which three cities do you name?

How prepared do you feel to consider this question?

Why am I posing these hypotheticals?

Well, how often we use the words unimaginable and unthinkable in our journalism.

Look how common they've become.

We are so often shocked and blindsided by how the future unfolds, but it doesn't have to be that way.

At the nonprofit Institute for the Future in Palo Alto, California, I help people build imagination leadership skills by simulating hard-to-imagine futures like you've thought about today.

Our goal is to improve everyone's scores on three measures of future imagination, like mental flexibility.

On a scale of one to 10, how plausible or realistic is this future scenario?

In other words, is it thinkable to you?

Also, realistic hope.

On a scale of one to 10, how worried or excited would you be to wake up in this future?

We want you to anticipate new risks, but also opportunities for positive transformation.

And finally,

Future power.

On a scale of one to 10, how ready do you feel to help yourself and others if this future were really to happen?