Justice is a prerequisite for the safety of the planet and its people.

In September 2024, sixty natural and social scientists from the Earth Commission and its working groups published a seminal new report in the Lancet Planetary Health Journal: ‘A Just World on a Safe Planet’. The research emphasised how justice must become a core principle in shaping new boundaries for our interconnected global commons.

For this landmark paper, we designed a digital artwork that narrates our possible evolution towards this collective future.

Weaving creative foresight with visual storytelling, our design tells the story of planetary justice through a tripartite digital artwork. Our work was informed and inspired by the Earth Commission’s “three I’s” justice framework: interspecies justice, intergenerational justice, and intragenerational justice.

We leaned into our creative process by asking: how can we draw inspiration from scientific evidence to imagine a thriving, regenerative world? How can our storytelling balance optimism with realism to create a sense of possibility without oversimplifying complex issues? And what role could speculative fiction play in extrapolating current scientific trends into imaginative yet plausible future scenarios?

Climate Justice is Climate Action

Science helps us understand the enormity and scale of the challenges we are facing, but it’s the power of storytelling—through art, poetry, and myths—that moves us into action. Our visual chronicle takes the viewer on a journey in three parts: from the systemic problems of the present to a near-future undergoing dramatic technological and economic transformation, finally alighting on a transformed, safe, and just future with a wide implementation of the three I’s.

Through deep critical engagement with the Earth Commission’s research, we envisioned the tangible ways we can redefine humanity’s relationship with the planet. As Joyeeta Gupta and Johan Rockström wrote in the World Economic Forum, “ The safe and just space is rich in opportunities. The time to act is now.”

Acknowledgements

With warm thanks to Lisa Jacobson, Maya Rebermark and Zoe Tcholak-Antitch, our commissioners and collaborators on this project. It was a pleasure to continue our collaboration with the Earth Commission and the Global Commons Alliance.

Our project was led by our Superflux team Matt Edgson, Camille Dunlop, Ming Harper, and Anab Jain.

Special thanks to the authors whose groundbreaking research set our work in motion.