Scenario development helps people think about a broad variety of possible futures;
however, the global environmental change community has thus far developed few positive
scenarios for the future of the planet and humanity. Those that have been developed tend to
focus on the role of a few common, large-scale external drivers, such as technology or
environmental policy, even though pathways of positive change are often driven by
surprising or bottom-up initiatives that most scenarios assume are unchanging. We describe …