Futures Archives - Edge Effects

An aerial view of wind turbines at sunset over agricultural land. A road snakes across the landscape.

October 23, 2025

Wind Turbine Elegy

In this poem, Anya Kaplan-Harnett imagines centuries of social and ecological change from the perspective of a wind turbine towering over rural Illinois.

A Black man wears a light brown suit and virtual reality goggles. He is seated in front of a laptop with a bookcase and plant visible behind him. He is holding his hands in front of his face.

Checklists

September 11, 2025

Faculty Favorites: (Re)Imagine Environmental Futures with These Books, Films, and Exhibits

A gift for navigating our present: Academic faculty recommend new and old books, films, and exhibits that critically reflect on environmental futures and futurity.

a wagon drives down a winding road toward hills and tall, spherical buildings

Essays

January 30, 2025

Solarpunk Narrates Futures Beyond Climate Despair

Laleh Ahmad argues that the solarpunk genre offers imaginable, realistic green futures based on renewable energy and communal self-reliance, rooted in justice and care.

Cylinders of polished stone in various colors separated by planks of wood

Reviews

July 15, 2021

Reckoning With Deep Time For A Livable World

Katie Mummah reviews Vincent Ialenti’s book Deep Time Reckoning, which uses lessons from nuclear waste disposal to show how long-term thinking can help us and the planet.