Photo credit: BigStockPhoto/Scanrail
by Julie Muñoz-Nájar, LSW, MSW, Leah Prussia, DSW, LICSW, and Alexis Speck Glennon, DSW, LCSW-R
Generations Alpha and Z are sounding the alarm bells on two major issues of our time—climate and technology justice. In Part 1 of this series, we explored their interconnectedness, definitions, and movements that are already happening in these areas. As a result of the layered challenges for communities, it is urgent that social workers recognize the issues caused by the intersection of climate and technology. These overlapping injustices show that the rights of people, animals, waters, and other beings are deeply interconnected. To respond effectively, social workers must understand how environmental harms and the technological systems steered by today’s tech titans create new fault lines of inequity, shaping communities near and far. We need to create solutions to work alongside community members that protect both human and ecological well-being.
Climate and technology are wicked problems—complex, intertwined challenges that often leave us feeling overwhelmed or unsure where to begin. However, we can’t turn away, as it’s our ethical obligation to understand, act, and create a collective resilience, and in some cases, resist inequities and injustice.
With our social work values and our Code of Ethics in hand, we want to offer an additional tool to help us become better equipped in addressing these challenges—foresight practice. Simply put, foresight is defined as a process of intentionally building knowledge about the future to guide action, such as policy making, planning, or strategizing. It is often done in participatory and collaborative ways (Piirainen & Gonzalez, 2015). When put into practice or applied, foresight is a method of anticipating, imagining, and preparing for future trends that may impact individuals and communities. In social work, foresight practice helps us think outside of existing systems and pushes us to imagine and work toward a different future.
Through our work with the Social Work Futures Lab, we’ve explored creative ways to engage with wicked problems—using present-day signals (a foresight tool) that may significantly shape our world in the next 5, 10, or 20+ years. Foresight practitioners scan for signals and drivers to anticipate change and inform action. A core aspect of foresight is using insights to co-create preferred futures, while working to prevent undesirable ones. Social workers already embody this practice by helping clients, families, and communities set goals for better futures, while also exercising foresight in judging and addressing foreseeable risks of harm.
Okay, let’s get to the good stuff. A few ground “rules”—the gift of foresight practice is it creates space and permission to daydream, play, and imagine. By tapping into our playful imaginative ways, we become energized and unlock innovative solutions that propel us toward novel action. It is essential to also keep in mind that what may be our ideal future or solution, may be someone else’s dystopia. Be sure to lead with empathy and social work values, especially our anti-oppressive lens. Doing this with others offers more depth, purpose, and diversity, so gather your classmates, colleagues, and friends and jump in. The future needs you!
Beyond what we will discuss here, there are many foresight tools out there. The Institute of the Future has a variety of tools to choose from, as does Dr. Laura Nissen’s newly published book, Anticipatory Social Work (2025). One of our favorite and highly accessible foresight tools is to create artifacts from the future. An artifact from the future is a physical object, product, piece of media designed to illustrate what a possible future might look like. These artifacts translate abstract ideas about the future into something concrete that people can see, touch, or interact with. Drawing on current signals and emerging trends, the artifact might take the form of something like a clothing tag, a mock news story, or even a prototype product.
Foresight and artifact development can take social workers out of a deeply intellectual mindset and into action by creating artifacts or objects in possible futures. In the process of using foresight tools, we recognize that imagination requires playfulness. However, as foresight social workers, we are grappling with incredibly vulnerable and often real issues. It is a delicate balance to reach for tools where we might use play and imagination. We need to temper foresight and artifact development with the seriousness of the issues that we face as social workers.
Below are step-by-step directions to create a futures artifact based on the emerging topics from this article and Part 1. You can also use this outline to design artifacts for other topics. An example artifact is provided below. Let’s get started!
This activity will take 60-90 minutes.
1. Ground yourself. (1-4 minutes)
As individuals, or as a class, take a moment to get comfortable and engage your playful energy (e.g., imagine yourself as a child, tap into your greatest joy, give yourself permission to be curious, make mistakes). We will look at a scenario that will help you imagine one possible future where environmental and technology issues converge, amplifying challenges while also revealing possibilities for action.
2. Read the scenario. (1 minute)
Now that you’re centered and open, picture the year 2036. Data centers and server farms have replaced forested lands and displaced birds and beings. The data centers are pumping out heat and consuming vast reserves of water and energy, leaving local residents without access to potable water or electricity, expanding the forced climate migration crisis in all directions. Government officials cave to the demands of the tech oligarchs, favoring profit above the future of people and the planet.
3. Imagine. (3 minutes)
Use the following questions to guide your reflective process. Write down your ideas to share.
What issues or needs might our communities or clients be fighting for? What skills might our profession have developed? How have communities forged pathways to mitigate the impacts of tech and environmental havoc in their communities? What feelings are surfacing for you as you imagine this scenario?
4. Share and react. (10 minutes)
Form a small group of 3-5 people. Share, react, and feel this future together. Refer back to the questions above, if needed. What signals from your current life, community needs, social media trends, and so forth make this future plausible or less plausible?
5. Form your idea. (10 minutes)
Using your discussion points, identify which feelings and signals rise to the top.
6. Create an artifact. (20 minutes)
Channel the reactions from Step 5. Using the definitions above and/or the example at the end of this article, draft, create, play, draw, and design an artifact that represents your group’s discussion.
7. Share out. (30 minutes)
Do a gallery walk or mini-presentations of your artifacts.
8. Close out the activity. (5-20 minutes)
What are some feelings surrounding this future? What populations are most impacted by your artifact? How will your artifact be used in the future to advocate, subvert, or change outcomes for environmental and tech justice?
This foresight activity helps us deeply consider and feel how climate and digital vulnerabilities are intertwined and to understand the ways people experience harm, resilience, and possibility. By practicing foresight, social workers can move beyond reacting to crises in the moment and begin building strategies that anticipate risks, support community innovation, and amplify and create or join movements already working toward justice.
Foresight tools like artifacts from the future remind us that solutions are not hypothetical. Social workers are needed in both of these spaces, bringing our skills in advocacy, systems change, and ethical practice to help communities navigate uncertainty, while safeguarding dignity and well-being. Echoing Part 1, the forecast may be uncertain, but the opportunities for transformation are real. Repairing the cracks left by technological and environmental inequities starts with you!
Résumé Artifact (2030)
Magnolia Rose Cloverfield
Education
- Master of Social Work (Policy and Social Change) – Portland State University, 2027
- Bachelor of Science (Information Sciences) - University of Florida, 2025
Trainings and Certifications
- Climate Justice & Technology Certificate – Futures Institute, anticipated 2031
- Fundamentals Energy Concepts for Management Course – Georgia Institute of Technology, 2029
Professional Experience
Climate-Tech Accountability Advocate
Coalition for Digital & Environmental Justice, 2029–Present
- Investigate and document corporate and governmental practices linking data extraction (AI surveillance, digital redlining) with resource extraction (water depletion from data centers, lithium mining).
- Collaborate with legal teams to pursue climate-tech reparations claims against corporations disproportionately harming frontline communities.
- Design community accountability hearings where residents testify on harms from both ecological and technological systems.
- Train social workers and organizers to use open-source monitoring tech (drones, sensors) to track forest health, animal migration, and water access.
Tech-Climate Extraction Abolitionist
International Network for Just Futures, 2027–2029
- Led grassroots campaigns to abolish exploitative practices in cobalt and lithium supply chains tied to digital and green technologies.
- Partnered with Indigenous leaders and labor unions to resist land dispossession and advocate for data sovereignty and land reparations.
- Developed policy briefs and advocacy toolkits on alternatives to extractive tech (circular economies, right-to-repair).
- Mobilized cross-sector coalitions that pressured governments to regulate water use by data centers and crypto-mines.
Digital-Climate Refugee Reparations Social Worker
Global Displacement & Justice Collaborative, 2025–2027
- Provided case management and advocacy for families displaced simultaneously by climate disasters and digital inequities (lack of connectivity, digital IDs).
- Negotiated with municipalities to secure housing, healthcare, and digital access reparations for climate-tech refugees.
- Developed trauma-informed support groups for displaced youth, incorporating digital storytelling and environmental healing practices.
- Advocated for international reparations policies for communities facing “double displacement” from rising seas and predatory digital systems.
Tech-Eco Liberation Worker
Reno Community Collaborative, 2023–2025
- Co-created community-led “Liberation Maps” envisioning tech and climate futures that center river health, forest guardianship, and animal protection.
- Partnered with Indigenous leaders to resist land dispossession and protect sacred forests, watersheds, and beings that rely on them.
- Organized with youth to design tech-for-liberation projects (solar-powered mesh WiFi, e-waste art collectives).
- Supported campaigns to defund harmful tech infrastructures (predictive policing, surveillance drones) and reinvest in climate-resilient community projects.
Skills & Competencies
- Policy Advocacy & Reparations Frameworks
- Digital & Climate Justice Organizing
- Data Sovereignty & Environmental Monitoring Tools
- Community Education & Liberation Pedagogy
- Cross-Sector Coalition Building
- Trauma-Informed Practice with Displaced Communities
References
Institute for the Future. (n.d.). Foresight essentials toolkit. Institute for the Future. https://www.iftf.org
Kennisland. (2014, Jan 31). How to work with wicked problems? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrWbicvDLPw&t=20s
Museum of Science. (2023, April 20). Museum of Science releases new survey on climate change education [Press release]. Museum of Science. https://www.mos.org/press/press-release/climate-change-survey
Nissen, L. (2025). Anticipatory social work: Foresight, futures thinking, and imagination in practice. Oxford University Press.
OpenAI. (2025). ChatGPT (March 2025 version) [Large language model]. https://chat.openai.com/
Piirainen, K. A., & Gonzalez, R. A. (2015). Theory of and within foresight—What does a theory of foresight even mean? Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 96, 191–201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2015.03.003
Terpak, J. (2023, Sep 19). These digital natives are taking on big tech (ft. Emma Lembke and Zamaan Qureshi). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFAxEDRI58E
Alexis Speck Glennon, DSW, LCSW-R, is an Assistant Professor at St. Bonaventure University and a clinician in private practice who is creative and transformative in her work. She is equally passionate about trauma theory and tech trends, using them to inform tech justice work and prepare future changemakers and people she supports on their healing journey.
Julie Muñoz-Nájar, LSW, MSW, is an energetic, forward-thinking Associate Clinical Professor at the University of Illinois Champaign Urbana. Her advocacy crosses social work, technology, and every kind of justice. One of her favorite mottos sits on the bookshelf in her office—a sign gifted by her supervisor that reads, “Create the things you wish existed,” which mirrors her passion for having fun while accomplishing serious work (preferably with snacks).
Leah Prussia, DSW, LICSW, is an Associate Professor at the College of St. Scholastica and practicing clinician with a small private practice, Natural Connections. Leah’s work focuses on fostering mind/body and personal/planetary relationships through neuroregulation and collaboration with the natural environment. Leah is involved with Rights of Nature and is presently working with a collective, Waankam, to secure rights for the St. Louis River Estuary.