As an integral part of complex social-ecological systems (SES) on Earth, humanity faces multiple critical and urgent challenges to build sustainable futures. In this chapter, I will outline ideas on how a new approach to decision-making for sustainable futures can improve outcomes in communities at risk from multiple acute and chronic stresses of global change. The basic premise of my approach is that human beings make decisions not on available data itself, but on how they interpret or make meaning of that data which is influenced by the emotional and cultural context in which they live. This means that learning for people all ages—from early childhood to universities to lifelong learning—in communities around the world must be rapidly adapted to prepare them to make meaning of a vast and changing plurality of data and information and from that make informed decisions that will affect their lives and that of future generations. I will describe approaches to facilitating more inclusive deliberative decision-making for addressing impacts of global change in diverse contexts ranging from sophisticated technical scenario visualization capabilities in a Decision Theater to informal community dialogues and role-playing with pen and paper. It is essential to consider (a) sources of traditional, local, and formal scientific knowledge and (b) artistic expressions of social identities of the communities that bring emotional and cultural richness and meaning into the participatory decision-making process. I will illustrate the challenges and opportunities arising from this new approach to facilitated deliberative decision-making with some examples from my work in the transpolar Arctic, Baltic Sea, and rural Japan.