Martin Rees: Listening to public key to emboldening leaders

Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees told us business leaders and politicians must think far more boldly and longer term. They then have a chance to embrace the huge challenges in a world where things are changing in an ‘unprecedented way’.

He was talking to Thinking the Unthinkable Founder and Co-Director Nik Gowing at the Hay Literary Festival, where he presented a series of alerts in his new, widely acclaimed book On The Future: Prospects for Humanity.

He told us that changing public opinion is a key catalyst to enable leaders to take a longer term perspective.

Lord Rees welcomed the ‘new-found activism of the young’ on climate change. He said avoiding the catastrophic projections for the end of the century required a ‘big change in the way economic decisions are taken’.

As we argue in our TTU work, the Next Gen hold the key.