SEVEN TOMORROWS

TOWARD A VOLUNTARY HISTORY

THE POTENTIAL CRISES THAT FACE HUMANKIND – AND THE ROLE OF CHOICE IN DETERMINING THE FUTURE

PAUL HAWKEN, JAMES OGILVY, PETER SCHWARTZ

BANTAM NEW AGE BOOKS                  1982

PART II

Chapter 2: Constructing Scenarios of the Future

For choice to be possible, clear alternatives must be available. Each alternative must be plausible and in some case desirable, otherwise, the clear superiority of one option will lead the chooser to say, with some correctness, “I had no choice.” The seven scenarios that follow represent plausible alternatives for America’s next two decades. Not just any batch of scenarios will satisfy the conditions for a Voluntary History. This chapter describes some of the conditions that define the bounds of plausibility.

To create the seven scenarios, we first reviewed relevant variables, including food consumption patterns, desertification, demographics, carbon dioxide production, resource distribution, and others totaling about a hundred. To begin construction of the different futures, we identified five basic “driving trends”: energy, climate, food, the economy, and values.

• We found that these five forces would have the broadest effect on the greatest number of people.
• By using five driving trends with several options for each trend we generated a matrix of all possible combinations of those five basic variables.
• By pursuing a process of eliminating implausible scenarios and consolidating those that remained, we reduced the range of abstractions to seven concrete possibilities.
• Since the future begins with the present, every scenario must credibly answer the question, “Can we get there from here?”
• These are the preconditions that to some extent set the boundaries for all the scenarios, especially in the near term.

 

Diverse social values

In the United States, there is a widening divergence of values and lifestyles. Some of these differences have historical and ethnic roots. Other differences originate in the post-war affluence that has granted, at least for the time being, an array of options unknown to less prosperous societies. Whether we continue to be rich, or contract into regional pockets of depressed economies, or something in between, it is unlikely that we will become a more homogenous nation. Very likely we will continue the movement toward a highly diversified, heterogenous stew of peoples, values, and goals.

Social trends likely to have the greatest effect are the nascent and surging religious revival, which is presently underway in America, and the thoroughly pervasive “majority movement” of the changing role of women. The first has been referred to as the Third Great Awakening and portends pronounced changes in social and individual values.

• The First Awakening preceded the American Revolution and the Second led to the Emancipation Proclamation and the Civil War.
• A Third Awakening could have a lasting historical impact now only dimly perceivable.

 

A turbulent world

The overwhelming post-war dominance of the United States and Russia created a bipolar world with a relative measure of coherence and stability. We are now moving toward a multipolar world in which emerging Third World nations challenge the legitimacy of Western modernization and dominance.

• The world may find itself at war with tumult rampant, nuclear capability spreading, and violence and terrorism increasingly used as a means to resolve differences.

 

Slow energy growth

Despite decontrol, presidential programs, legislation, and high prices, virtually no new sources of energy will be available to the United States for the greater part of the eighties – except imported gas and oil.

• Conservation measures will be slow in coming because it takes time to change established building and transportation patterns.
• It is highly unlikely that energy availability will increase sufficiently to fuel a growing world economy.

 

Burdensome debt

During the last decade individual, government, and corporate debt has increased at twice the rate of inflation and four times the rate of the increase in the production of capital goods. At the same time we need to borrow more to rebuild our capital infrastructure in order to boost productivity, compete on world markets, and save lagging industries. Between 1960 and 1980, corporate indebtedness rose from $154 billion to about $1 trillion. In 1950, corporate debt amounted to 50% of the GNP, by 1976 it was over 80% of the GNP. A growing fraction of our efforts was required to service our soaring debt.

• Between 1960 and 1980 the national debt more than tripled, reaching $914 billion.
• In the private sector between 1950 and 1980, mortgage debt rose from $55 billion to $1,420 billion and consumer debt went from $22 billion to $380 billion.

As we enter the eighties, the United States as a government, as a business, and as individuals is $5 trillion in debt. As long as the economy was rapidly expanding there was the hope of catching up. But in a slowly growing or failing economy, the mountain of debt may overwhelm us. How we handle this $5 trillion mortgage on the future is one of the major uncertainties for the decades ahead.

An aging population

For the past five years each annual projection of the U.S. population has been lower than the previous one. Lately global trends have also started to decline. In the United States this means proportionately fewer students, fewer workers, and fewer consumers in the future. Since much of the impetus toward economic growth derives from a growing population and the need to equip new households, there will necessarily be a restructuring of the market place. Furthermore, as we age, the graying of America means more people relying on social security and pension systems that are supported by proportionately fewer workers. The resulting shift of the tax load onto white and blue collar workers will cause further reductions in real income.

Slowing economic growth

In order to attain strong economic growth – over 3% per year in real terms – we would require during the coming decades abundant and relatively inexpensive energy, productive and well-managed private and public sectors, stable global politics, a growing work force, a good measure of social consensus, and massive amounts of credit. Since few of these conditions exist at the present, real growth of the economy, at least until 1990, is somewhat unlikely.

A social legacy of distrust

Certain national and international antipathies are unlikely to be easily resolved over the coming decade or two. Most of the polarities carry with them the full weight of some moral if not religious rectitude, usually on both sides. Each represents a seed of future conflict and none seems likely to come to a meaningful consensus or agreement soon. Some are: United States vs. U.S.S.R; U.S.S.R vs. China; China vs. S.E. Asia; Arabs vs. Israelis; French Canadians vs. Other Canadians; Left vs. Right; Consumers vs. Oil Companies, Environmentalists vs. Developers; Blacks vs. Whites; Poor vs. Rich; Hispanics vs. Gringos.

No end to crime

By the mid-seventies, half of all Americans were afraid to walk in their own neighborhoods at night. A black male between the ages of 25 and 35 is most likely to die by murder. Fear of violence has become a part of the American way of life.

• Every measure of crime is rising rapidly. In 1979 over 12 million people were victims of violence.
• In 1960 there were 600,000 handguns sold in the U.S. By 1979 that number had increased to 2.4 million.
• The public costs of dealing with crime grew from $3.5 billion in 1965 to nearly $16.3 billion in 1979.
• Death by violence is 3 to 20 times as likely to occur in the U.S. as in any other industrialized nation.

 

Continuing environmental degradation

Environmental conditions of a decade hence are on the whole likely to be worse than today.

• If we encounter deteriorating economic conditions in the future, the likelihood is that we will ease environmental regulations in hopes of aiding industry.
• It is our opinion that it will require far more than two decades to achieve an ecologically benign society.

 

New technologies

A primary force for change during the last century has been new technology. There are at present two major new technologies, and nothing is likely to prevent their further development.

• The first is microcomputers.
• Right behind electronics may come bio-technology, including genetic engineering, sophisticated prosthetics, and technologies to “improve” human intellectual and physical performance.

 

Rising levels of disease and related costs

The combination of increased stress and environmental pollution could produce a cancer epidemic or a rise in chronic diseases.

• Cancer is increasing, and along with it all medical expenses, far in excess of inflation or price indices.

• Up to now most new medical technologies have meant an exponential rise in expenses for the ill.
• If the trend continues, medical expenses as a percentage of GNP will soon exceed 10%, up from 5.2% in 1960.

 

Deterioration of soil

The world is highly dependent on the health and condition of its soils and ecosystems, especially in respect to its ability to produce food. Yet the health of those systems has deteriorated greatly during this century. During the next 20 years, climatic changes coupled with high oil prices may demonstrate that soils have drastically declined in their ability to produce crops without the help of fossil fuels. Unlike the historical past when the planet was sparsely populated and new lands were available, we now live in a densely populated world with decreasing amounts of potentially arable land. If American or world agriculture should falter in its productivity, even for as briefly as a year, all of the world will suffer the shock. No resilience within the food production system can cushion the potential impact.

Our attempt to be realistic has engendered our deeper appreciation for the fundamental truth that all things are connected. Interactions among the preceding factors could suddenly become critical before any one of them becomes serious enough to warn us of impending catastrophe. An example of such interaction and the complexity it introduces into the process of scenario generation is the relationship between high oil prices and flooding in Bangladesh, a link that may sound unlikely. Because the U.S. imports a great deal of oil and may be rich enough to pay for it, it has bid up the price of oil paid by poorer countries as well. Farmers in Nepal, who used fertilizers made from oil, must now convert to cow dung, formerly used as fuel for cooking. Firewood replaces the cow dung as fuel, forests are stripped for wood, and the topsoil erodes. The rain waters run off rather than being absorbed, rivers swell downstream, and Bangladesh is flooded in epic proportions, sweeping thousands to their death and leaving tens of thousands homeless and diseased. That such suffering stems from wasteful driving habits in America seems at first a difficult connection to accept, but the casual connections make the link real nevertheless.

In addition to uncovering causal connections that will influence the future, we explore broad structural changes that are more complex than even very long causal chains. Four assumptions guide our work in handling such structural change: Openness to the improbable; Power is ebbing away from central sources of control; Power is exercised in a new natural environment; Attention to changes and belief systems.

The seven scenarios we finally chose represent most clearly the spectrum of divergent futures possible within the next 20 years. They explore the most optimistic forecasts as well as the most pessimistic.

The driving trends are: Energy; Climate; Food; Economy; Values.

• The message that comes across most strongly in traversing these 7 scenarios is the degree to which we must face and deal with uncertainty and ambiguity when thinking about the future.

 

PART TWO: SEVEN SCENARIOS FOR THE EIGHTIES AND NINETIES

Chapter 3: The Official Future