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The environment and futures research
300
CUMME.K’-
The Environment
and Futures
Research Gordon Rat tray Taylor Now that the scale of the threat which technoIogy poses to the environment is becoming clearer, it can reasonably be said that, of all branches of futures research, none is more urgent than studying the future of the physical environment. If, for example, it is true that the climate is going to be five degrees colder by the end of the century (whether because of technological impact or for any other reason) virtually all human activities will be affected. Farming, forestry of all kinds, and fishing will be affected, as growing seasons shorten and animals change their ranges. Houses will need more protection and more fuel will be consumed, affecting building, construction and power industries. Northern ports may have to be abandoned and others opened further south, thus affecting road and rail layouts and storage facilities. Current pIans to develop northern Canada and Siberia by building new cities may have to be abandoned. Such a list can be extended almost indefinitely. If, on the other hand, a climatic warming occurs, as some authorities expect, the effects could be equally far reaching but in an opposite sense. Thus, many types of future prediction-about food supplies, city growth, and transport needs-could be falsified, for most population distribution, such predictions tacitly assume a stable environment. In addition to primary effects of the type just indicated, there would also be secondary effects, both economic and political. One of these we are tentatively contemplating: the banning of supersonic air transport. If the climate really began to change in a noticeable manner, anxious governments might rush into law-sweeping prohibitions from which at present they recoil. This could render much current industrial and social investment useless. While the famines that might well follow a climatic deterioration would probably provoke violent political upheavals and, no doubt, the rise of new governments of the left. This too would compel the modification of many current predictions. Climate, of course, is only one of the uncertainties in the environmental situation, though probably the most important and the most likely to manifest. Ecological disasters are another possibility, and here we cannot foresee at all at present what form they are likely to take or how serious they might prove. A third area is comprised by the entire hydrological system, with which man is tampering more and more. Water shortages could alter social and industrial patterns as surely as does climatic change. Marked changes of weather-as distinct from climate-could force populations to shift and completely alter their patterns of living. Gordon Rattray Taylor, the author of ten books, specialises in analysing long-term social trends: his Domes&y Book was published in September.
FUTURES
December
1970
COMME.hfl-
Lastly, not to lengthen the list, there is the movement of people into cities. Is it really possible for Calcutta to become a city of 60 million population, or SHo Paulo of 20 million, without collapsing? If the world is really going to be lOOo/ourbanised by the end of the century, as some predict, what will this mean in terms of transport, sewage disposal, recreation, medical care, crime prevention, and democratic procedures ? Projections into the future tend to suffer from the OBE assumption-Other things Being Equal. But other things rarely remain unaltered. This being the situation, it is discouraging, even alarming, to note that governments and public officials (with few exceptions and those mostly American) are still thinking of environmental protection in terms of small-scale local problems, such as cleaning rivers, establishing nature reserves and regulating exhaust emissions. Recently, Lord Kennet, in his pamphlet Controlling the Environment, said that the research associations concerned with pollution in Britain had virtually no unsolved problems; the tendency of the dust to ‘blob’ in the chimneys of cement works and power stations was virtually the only one which he could call to mind. Clearly Lord Kennet has no conception of the world-wide research effort which is actually needed. Even at the purely parochial level, this complacent attitude is inexcusable. To take but one instance, we are beginning to realise that we have seriously underestimated the effects of lead on the nervous system. We now know enough to realise that our current methods of checking lead poisoning are hopelessly inadequate. To conclude, let me suggest that we should widen the word ‘environment’ to include both the psychological and the physical risks and satisfactions offered by the context of our lives. Futures research has so far taken too little note of the fact that the world of the future is a world for people to live in. Questions that should be answered by futures studies are: what kind of environment-physical and psychological-for the two cannot be separated-is most conducive to the happiness and fulfilment of the many races, cultures and personality-types the world contains, with their disparate value-schemes and preferred life-styles? And, how will these demands evolve and develop ? Until these questions are met, much of what is now being done in the way of futures research is bound to be nugatory. Ecology and environment studies have attracted considerable attention recently, largely due to the publicity that surrounded “European Conservation Year”. Studies in this field, horrifying though their findings might be, should provide important and enriching contributions to futures research.
FUTURES
December 1970
301
CUMME.K’-
The Environment
and Futures
Research Gordon Rat tray Taylor Now that the scale of the threat which technoIogy poses to the environment is becoming clearer, it can reasonably be said that, of all branches of futures research, none is more urgent than studying the future of the physical environment. If, for example, it is true that the climate is going to be five degrees colder by the end of the century (whether because of technological impact or for any other reason) virtually all human activities will be affected. Farming, forestry of all kinds, and fishing will be affected, as growing seasons shorten and animals change their ranges. Houses will need more protection and more fuel will be consumed, affecting building, construction and power industries. Northern ports may have to be abandoned and others opened further south, thus affecting road and rail layouts and storage facilities. Current pIans to develop northern Canada and Siberia by building new cities may have to be abandoned. Such a list can be extended almost indefinitely. If, on the other hand, a climatic warming occurs, as some authorities expect, the effects could be equally far reaching but in an opposite sense. Thus, many types of future prediction-about food supplies, city growth, and transport needs-could be falsified, for most population distribution, such predictions tacitly assume a stable environment. In addition to primary effects of the type just indicated, there would also be secondary effects, both economic and political. One of these we are tentatively contemplating: the banning of supersonic air transport. If the climate really began to change in a noticeable manner, anxious governments might rush into law-sweeping prohibitions from which at present they recoil. This could render much current industrial and social investment useless. While the famines that might well follow a climatic deterioration would probably provoke violent political upheavals and, no doubt, the rise of new governments of the left. This too would compel the modification of many current predictions. Climate, of course, is only one of the uncertainties in the environmental situation, though probably the most important and the most likely to manifest. Ecological disasters are another possibility, and here we cannot foresee at all at present what form they are likely to take or how serious they might prove. A third area is comprised by the entire hydrological system, with which man is tampering more and more. Water shortages could alter social and industrial patterns as surely as does climatic change. Marked changes of weather-as distinct from climate-could force populations to shift and completely alter their patterns of living. Gordon Rattray Taylor, the author of ten books, specialises in analysing long-term social trends: his Domes&y Book was published in September.
FUTURES
December
1970
COMME.hfl-
Lastly, not to lengthen the list, there is the movement of people into cities. Is it really possible for Calcutta to become a city of 60 million population, or SHo Paulo of 20 million, without collapsing? If the world is really going to be lOOo/ourbanised by the end of the century, as some predict, what will this mean in terms of transport, sewage disposal, recreation, medical care, crime prevention, and democratic procedures ? Projections into the future tend to suffer from the OBE assumption-Other things Being Equal. But other things rarely remain unaltered. This being the situation, it is discouraging, even alarming, to note that governments and public officials (with few exceptions and those mostly American) are still thinking of environmental protection in terms of small-scale local problems, such as cleaning rivers, establishing nature reserves and regulating exhaust emissions. Recently, Lord Kennet, in his pamphlet Controlling the Environment, said that the research associations concerned with pollution in Britain had virtually no unsolved problems; the tendency of the dust to ‘blob’ in the chimneys of cement works and power stations was virtually the only one which he could call to mind. Clearly Lord Kennet has no conception of the world-wide research effort which is actually needed. Even at the purely parochial level, this complacent attitude is inexcusable. To take but one instance, we are beginning to realise that we have seriously underestimated the effects of lead on the nervous system. We now know enough to realise that our current methods of checking lead poisoning are hopelessly inadequate. To conclude, let me suggest that we should widen the word ‘environment’ to include both the psychological and the physical risks and satisfactions offered by the context of our lives. Futures research has so far taken too little note of the fact that the world of the future is a world for people to live in. Questions that should be answered by futures studies are: what kind of environment-physical and psychological-for the two cannot be separated-is most conducive to the happiness and fulfilment of the many races, cultures and personality-types the world contains, with their disparate value-schemes and preferred life-styles? And, how will these demands evolve and develop ? Until these questions are met, much of what is now being done in the way of futures research is bound to be nugatory. Ecology and environment studies have attracted considerable attention recently, largely due to the publicity that surrounded “European Conservation Year”. Studies in this field, horrifying though their findings might be, should provide important and enriching contributions to futures research.
FUTURES
December 1970
301