Contents of the Current Issue

THE FUTURIST, September-October 2007

Worst-Case Scenario: The Middle East By Marvin J. Cetron (president, Forecasting International) and Owen Davies (science writer, former senior editor, Omni)

SUMMARY: If the United States were to pull out of Iraq and let Middle East collapse into all-out war, would that be the worst-case scenario--or actually a boon for the United States? For one thing, all the battle-trained future terrorists of the region who are now engaged against the U.S. and its allies would divert their attention to the enemies next door. The U.S. would also divert its energy interest away from the Middle East and toward more-stable sources such as Alaska. In the long-run, prolonged Muslim-on-Muslim war could lead to a Muslim reformation movement, though this scenario is a long shot at best.
PLUS:
* War Is a No-Win Scenario by James Forest (director of terrorism studies at the U.S. Military Academy and the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point)
* No Security without Understanding by Ziauddin Sardar (editor of Futures)

Thinking about the Arctic's Future: Scenarios for 2040 By Lawson Brigham (deputy director and Alaska Office director of the U.S. Arctic Research Commission)

SUMMARY: The Arctic is undergoing an extraordinary transformation early in the twenty-first century. A rapid rate of recent climate change has been observed throughout the region and the impacts of these environmental changes pose significant challenges to all Arctic citizens and, in particular, to the eight Arctic states (Canada, Denmark [which governs Greenland], Norway, Finland, Iceland, Sweden, Russia, and the U.S.). Greater marine and air access and increased pressure for natural resource exploration and development in the Arctic may link the entire region more closely to the global economy. Four plausible scenarios for 2040--Globalized Frontier, Adaptive Frontier, Fortress Frontier, and Equitable Frontier--have been created to explore the very different alternative futures facing this formerly remote region of the planet.

"Not with a Bang": Civilization's Accelerating Challenge By Arnold Brown (chairman, Weiner, Edrich, Brown, Inc.)

SUMMARY: A computer glitch that essentially shut down the stock market in February 2007 is one example of how our accelerating complexity could so overwhelm our systems that civilization as we know it grinds to a halt, ending, as T.S. Eliot wrote, not with a bang but a whimper. Organizations must address the lack of human competency to keep up with accelerating complexity. The rise of networks that are increasingly enhanced by expert systems, virtual teams, and other "noncarbon life-forms" could be a boon to organizations struggling to keep up, but only if they are adaptable, focusing more on effectiveness than efficiency.

 Anticipations: The Remarkable Forecasts of H.G. Wells By Paul Crabtree
SUMMARY: H.G. Wells is often referred to as the "first futurist" (at least of the modern age). His most famous nonfiction effort at forecasting the future is Anticipations (1901), employing a systematic and sophisticated methodology. Author Crabtree examines how Wells arrived at his anticipations and assesses his rate of success in such categories as travel, cities, social stratification, values and homelife, democracy and the media, warfare, language and communications, geopolitics, economy, and faith.

The Search for Foresight. Adventures in Organization Building: Adding Star Power to Futuring  By Edward Cornish (editor, THE FUTURIST; founding president, World Future Society)

SUMMARY: Founding president of WFS continues his memoir of the Society's early struggles and triumphs with an account of the groundbreaking Energy Forum in the mid-1970s, as well as other significant events. Challenges still remain for sustaining the Society as it continues its mission into the future.

 

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