FutureNet
EN DE
Series of explainers worth circulating

Ideas that work for a livable future

Local currencies, fungi that clean polluted soil, ranked ballots, restorative justice. What each idea is, where it already works, and what its critics say.

Try mycoremediation local currency participatory budgeting restorative justice

Eight series, one sheet

Each topic is printed as its own series. Pick one to see every explainer in it.

Newest explainers

Hover or focus a row to read its short answer before you open it.

  1. FN·07·000116 The New Political Compass: Paul Ray’s Model Beyond Left and Right Culture & Values Short answerThe New Political Compass is a model the sociologist Paul H. Ray set out in a 2002 discussion draft. It replaces the single left-right line with four directions: the liberal left and cultural conservatives on one axis, business conservatives and a group Ray called New Progressives…
  2. FN·06·000111 Natural Capitalism Explained: Can Business Help Save the Planet? Communities Short answerNatural capitalism is a business framework from the 1999 book by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins that treats nature as capital worth protecting. It rests on four principles: radical resource productivity, biomimicry with closed loops, selling services instead of products, and reinvesting in…
  3. FN·01·000106 The Post-Corporate World: The Cooperative Business Model and Other Ways to Own a Company New Economy Short answerIn a cooperative business model, the people who use a business, as customers, workers or producers, own and control it on a one-member, one-vote basis and share its surplus according to use. It is one of several alternatives to the investor-owned corporation, alongside benefit corporations, steward-owned…
  4. FN·01·000101 How to Build a Local Economy: 30 Things You Can Do New Economy Short answerA local economy is the buying, selling, working and lending that happens within a town or region. You build it in two ways: by growing firms that sell beyond the area, and by keeping more money circulating locally through independent businesses, community banks and credit unions,…
  5. FN·01·000096 Money vs. Wealth: What’s the Difference, and Why Does It Matter? New Economy Short answerMoney is a claim you use to pay for goods and services; wealth is the stock of valuable things you own minus what you owe, from savings and homes to skills, land and forests. Income and GDP measure money flows, while net worth and national wealth…
  6. FN·02·000091 The Carbon Budget Explained: Why Studies Say Most Fossil Fuel Reserves Can’t Be Burned Environment & Health Short answerA carbon budget is the total amount of CO2 the world can still emit while keeping warming below a set limit, such as 1.5 °C or 2 °C, with a given probability. As of October 2026, the latest estimates put the remaining 1.5 °C budget (50%…
  7. FN·05·000086 Veterans’ Benefits Explained: Health Care, Disability and How the VA Is Funded Justice & Peace Short answerVA benefits include health care, tax-free disability compensation, a needs-based pension, GI Bill education, home loans, life insurance and burial benefits. Most require service without a dishonorable discharge, and you apply through VA.gov, with free help from accredited veterans service organizations. Benefit payments are mandatory spending…
  8. FN·04·000079 What Is Civic Engagement? 10 Forms, From Easiest to Most Demanding Democracy Short answerCivic engagement is any way individuals or groups act on public concerns, from helping a neighbor and voting to serving on a local board or a citizens' assembly. In 2023, 28.3 percent of Americans 16 and older volunteered through an organization and 9.4 percent attended a…
  9. FN·05·000074 Walter Wink’s Third Way: Jesus and Nonviolent Resistance Justice & Peace Short answerWalter Wink's third way is his reading of Jesus' sayings in Matthew 5:38–41 (turn the other cheek, give your cloak, go the second mile) as creative nonviolent resistance, a path between fighting back and giving in. The American New Testament scholar taught it in South Africa…

How every note is printed

Like a banknote, an explainer is only worth something if it is hard to fake. These are the security features of ours.

Mushroom power

1Fungal mycelium breaks down oil in contaminated soil. It is slow, and it does not remove heavy metals.

  • 2Bellingham, WAdiesel-soaked soil, oyster mushroom pile
  • Orleans, CAmotor-oil spill at a community centre

3Critics: slow, and little evidence at industrial scale.

4

Reviewed10·20263 sources

FN·02·000041
  1. Short answerOne to three sentences that answer the question before anything else.
  2. Where it worksReal places, real years and real numbers, not promises.
  3. What critics sayThe strongest objections, in the critics’ own terms.
  4. Sources and review dateEvery claim traceable, every page dated.

Take an idea to class

Free discussion guides turn an explainer into a lesson or a reading-circle evening: summary, questions, one group activity.

See the guides