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This book offers a framework for developing more effective political communication, based on principles of transparency and reason, to advance the greatest good for the greatest number of people and other species over the longest run. At the core of the argument is a model of how social movements, political leaders and citizens can develop and spread better ideas to replace environmentally destructive and socially unjust political and economic regimes. I hope this framework will be of interest to scholars, students, activists, and citizens.

Although the book is short in length, it reflects a long and wonderful journey in which I have been enlightened by many people. Many of the ideas here have been informed by exchanges with students and colleagues at the University of Washington, where, over the years, we created a number of learning communities to think about how better to align environment, economy, and democracy. An early project involved John de Graaf, Tim Jones, and dozens of students to explore the question: What’s the Economy For? This is also the title of a book and film by John, who is one of my favorite renaissance people. Shortly after that, along came Deric Gruen, community activist and organizer extraordinaire, who helped me develop the Rethinking Prosperity project with students, community leaders, and progressive funders. Among other things, we learned a lot about how community organizations and funders can greatly improve (or unwittingly undermine) the capacity and sustainability of their programs for change.

Deric and I later teamed up with Alan Borning, a collaborator on past projects and a computer scientist, who is concerned about how his field can contribute more to the public good. We founded the SEED project (solutions for environment, economy, and democracy), which is also the subtitle of this book. SEED drew an interdisciplinary group of scholars and activists from different nations to discuss many of the issues raised in the following pages. I am indebted to everyone who shared this part of the journey, in particular, Alan, Deric, Volker Wulf, Markus Rohde, Hanna Hallin, Vicky Wenzelman, and a stimulating group of alternative economists who taught me a great deal. Thanks to Volker for the fun gatherings in Siegen. Alan, Deric, and Hanna also provided helpful comments on the manuscript. Paralleling the SEED project was a student-led learning community called the Sustainability Action Network from which I learned a lot about the challenges of bridging campus and community organizations scattered over different environmental, economic, and political causes. Thanks to the energetic students and to Scott Davis for his patience in helping to organize them.

Other colleagues at the University of Washington have contributed much to my thinking over the years, including: Matt Powers, Kirsten Foot, Mako Hill, Patricia Moy, Michael McCann, Chris Parker, Karen Litfin, Jamie Mayerfeld, and Jim Caporaso, among others. Adrienne Russell deserves a special acknowledgment for her perceptive and helpful reading of the manuscript. Special thanks to my department chairs John Wilkerson and Christine Harold, as well as the other administrators who have supported our work at the Center for Communication and Civic Engagement, and given me the flexibility to visit other universities and research institutes in developing this book.

The work of so many other colleagues has influenced my thinking about how transformative ideas spread that I cannot thank them all here. So, I want to express my appreciation for all of the excellent work in communication, political science, and my home field of political communication that has informed my thinking. However, there are a few people whose contributions call for special mention. Alexandra Segerberg at Uppsala University always asks the best questions and spots the arguments that need fixing. Henrik Bang at Canberra challenged me to remember the importance of “everyday makers” like Greta Thunberg. Julie Uldam at Copenhagen Business School gave me some great feedback on the manuscript, and I share her hopes that more citizens and organizations working for change can overcome their “narcissism of small differences.” And thanks to my good friend Brian Loader, who has spent many hours over scotch and conversation helping steer this project toward a balance of hope and realism within a useful analytical framework. Also, I appreciate being invited into the community of social movement scholars some years ago by Donatella della Porta and Sidney Tarrow. Insights from many members of that network have found their way into this book.

The plan of the book began to emerge during time spent with colleagues at various universities and research centers in Europe. I am grateful to Barbara Pfetsch, who nominated me for a Humboldt Research Award, and to the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for granting me recurring visits to Free University, Berlin, between 2015 and 2017, where I developed early sketches of the project. Spending the fall of 2018 and winter 2019 as a research fellow at the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society (The German Internet Institute) in Berlin helped my thinking about how disinformation of the kind surrounding our environment debates is produced and how it travels over media networks. I am grateful to Barbara Pfetsch and her teams at Weizenbaum for the many lively discussions, with particular thanks to Curd Knüpfer, Ulrike Klinger, and Annette Heft, among others. My time in Berlin was also enriched by discussions with Peter Lohauss on green economics (and rock and roll), Maria Haberer on democracy and progressive activism, and Terry Martin for his wit and wisdom in commenting on early drafts and much else.

Serious writing on the book began in the spring of 2019 during a research fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam. Thanks to Henrike Knappe and Patrizia Nanz for making this possible. Achim Mass and the team who ran the fellowship program at IASS made my stay incredibly rich. I am particularly grateful for the weekly seminars featuring fellows from all over the world presenting research on an incredible range of environmental problems, including their social and economic aspects. I was humbled by the wisdom and generosity of both the fellows and IASS researchers. Ortwin Renn was particularly helpful for my thinking about bridging questions of science and society. I also want to thank Frank Fischer for his refreshing perspectives on public policy processes, and Frank and Dorota Stasiak for their collaboration in organizing a workshop on climate science disinformation. The IASS staff made it all go smoothly. And special thanks to Danniel Gobbi who participated in the workshop, and shared original material on the connection between Charles Koch political operations in the US and the movements that helped elect Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil.

The opportunity to help organize and join a Social Science Research Council working group during 2018 to 2020 on the history of media technology and disinformation taught me a lot about The Disinformation Age, which is the title of the book produced by that group. In particular, I have enjoyed my conversations with Steven Livingston, who helped me clarify the rise of neoliberal economics and associated democratic disruptions discussed in Chapter 3.

To Mary Savigar, my wonderful editor at Polity, I can only say that without you, this book might not exist at all, and surely not in its current form. Mary helped me develop the project, sort out the many ways to write it, and offered the perfect guidance in finding the right tone and approach. Ellen MacDonald-Kramer kept me on track through the process. Thanks also for the excellent suggestions from the two anonymous reviewers.

Finally, I thank my life partner and intellectual companion Sabine Lang for the careful reading and helpful ideas on the final draft of the manuscript. Her insights are informed by knowing what I am trying to write, sometimes even better than I do. Sabine has the rare ability to find, and suggest how to fix, all the places that make an argument stronger.

As I write these words, the world is in the grip of a coronavirus pandemic (named Covid-19 for Coronavirus disease of 2019). It has been challenging to think about the future when the human toll is so immediate, and the economic crisis looms so large. It is ironic that as economies around the world shut down, demand for oil collapsed and industrial pollution eased; many environmental health indicators improved. This book is an expression of hope that we can find ways to organize our economic and political lives in better balance with the life support capacities of the planet. The world seems both far away and terrifyingly close from our small retreat on a peninsula less than two hours from the complexities of Seattle. It is inspiring to be surrounded by islands, trees, mountains, and water. It seems a good omen that a pair of eagles flew by as I wrote these last words.

Longbranch, Washington, May 2020