In May 2025, we hosted a conference in Bologna on ‘The Place of Prediction’. We focused on how thinkers from diverse disciplines used environmental ideas to imagine the future of world order in the post-war period. In particular, we examined how conceptions of the environment were used to imagine the future of world order, the planet, and human survival. A key focus of the conference was the ideas and contexts of post-war women thinkers, including Barbara Ward and Erna Bennett, who conceived of the future in terms of the relations between humanity and theenvironment.