Global MegaCrisis: How Bad Will It Get? What Strategies?

Special Event

Imagine a “category 5” hurricane churning toward the eastern United States. The experts agree on its size and ferocity, the alternative paths that it might take, and when it will hit. Politicians and the public accept the warning and take preventive action to save lives and reduce damage. In contrast, consider a possible/probable “Global MegaCrisis” — an emerging “perfect storm” of climate change, economic crises, joblessness, growing inequality, corruption, terrorism, and more. Few experts attempt such a synthesizing overview, there is little agreement on terminology or indicators, and, where there is some consensus, there is little agreement on whether — or if — the MegaCrisis will be resolved or alleviated, how, and when. If we are headed toward MegaCrisis, is there something basically wrong with our thinking — the need for a new master paradigm about the role of futures-relevant knowledge in our information-drenched society?

Veteran macro-thinkers Michael Marien and Bill Halal have been engaged in a debate for the past three years, publishing four scenarios “Decline to Disaster,” “Muddling Down,” “Muddling Up,” and “Rise to Maturity” in The Futurist and several journals to provoke comment. Halal argues that many new technologies on the horizon will probably make things better; Marien worries that, overall, the new hyperabundance of information will largely make things worse. Using other indicators, Richard Slaughter has been warning of a planetary emergency for several years—the greatest wake-up call in history.

This Special Event, following up on a somewhat similar MegaCrisis session held at the 2010 World Future Society conference in Boston, will focus on what we have learned in the past two years about “wake-up” calls and shared understanding, not only of the emerging MegaCrisis, but also of the new paradigm of paradigms that may well be needed.