I want to see a future where there is a more stable democratic geopolitical situation than today. The current situation in Europe and the world feels very volatile and much more unsafe than then I was younger and seems to be highly driven be extreme-right party political perspectives and people in power that tends to want a future that is more like the past - focusing on power of the past rather than technological progress and focusing on a future where we can live on our own planet. In 2040 I see Europe with a higher line of borders towards Russia and with a slowly healing relationship with the U.S. after large trust issue that has risen over many years from a U.S. goverment recovering from the current reshaping to past values. I see a European economy on a rise after years with an unstable situation. I also see much struggle and migration of people based on the increasing severity of climate changes that have only gotten worse over the past decades and a northern Europe struggling to get ready for the apparent future with colder weather due to the failing of the golf stream.

We are in 2040, a March morning, just before my birthday. My son lives in our house with his wife and their son Maximilian. My husband and I are happy to have the kids near us. We are retired, well-secured, but in one situation or another glad to be able to fall back on the young. Our son now works nearby again and no longer has to commute to the neighboring country to find an adequate job and our daughter-in-law works for a lawyer in the law firm. Both follow the regular work and are happy to have found a good job. Our grandson goes to secondary schools. He is a very talented boy without having to learn much. Just a little lazy in the homework. Otherwise, there is still a foreign family living in our house, who, since they share our garden, also helps with gardening. The contact is familiar and you help yourself wherever you can. Our friends come to visit or we visit them, whatever a joyous event, almost degenerates into a festival for which all the inhabitants of the house come together. Our country lives in peace and the roads have become safer again. Traffic is very well connected through the expansion of the road network and the expansion of bus and train lines and we can travel in all directions both by car and by bus and train. Our country has its national pride back again, as is common in other countries, and we live in peace, with a healthy economy and a very good social democratic government at the top. The government's water head has been shrunk by half, the civil service abolished and taxes reduced. There is virtually no poverty in Germany and the minimum pension is paid without deductions. We have found each other again, may it remain so, that would be my wish.

By 2024, leaders of all European countries have understood the importance of focusing on climate. Our carbon footprint is minimal. The focus is on greening, ecology, animal welfare. Agriculture uses less pesticides. There are restrictions around PFAS, so we should not fear to bathe in the sea. Our groundwater is healthy so that we are not poisoned by carcinogens.

I imagine that I am in 2040 and I see all the differences between the life of these years, the life of the current years and the present one. Everything is facilitated for people, from family life, to transportation, to life at work. The house is all automated, you can control everything with your voice or smartphone (even from outside the house). Outside I am waiting for a machine that uses the energy deriving from hydrogen to move, at work I have the assistance of robots and machines moved by artificial intelligence. Does this really improve my life? What I need all this without me being able to intervene and choose what I want to do alone, without the help of machines or robots and artificial intelligence. Were our grandparents no longer happy? I'd like to go back and try to live like my ancestors