What Futures? Our Future, the Planet, and Cohabitation

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, two interrelated themes emerged across art, activism, and academia related to the fate of humans on Earth. The first being the demise of “the future” and the prominence of dystopian scenarios for thinking of social futures. The other being the “emergence of the planet” in social science and the humanities. John Urry explored both themes, especially in his later work on the complex interrelationships of carbon-based mobility systems in the shadow of climate change and ecological disaster. In this article I will seek to trace these two themes out, exploring how that the planetary turn also resonates with changes in “the structures of feeling” and how this may invite for reimagining social futures from a more-than-human perspective.