For future reference, it's in our hands
December 31, 2006
ON CHRISTMAS EVE, it was reported that, for the first time, an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas: Lohachara Island, in India, where the Ganges and the Brahmaputra rivers empty into the Bay of Bengal.
In low-lying India and Bangladesh, around that delta, the future is looking grim: millions of people could be displaced as seas rise. More disappearing islands might seem inevitable, but is it a future we could avert?
The director of Swinburne University of Technology's master of strategic foresight program, Peter Hayward, makes clear the difference between predicting the future and actually making it.
Dr Hayward — who teaches students how to distinguish between "trends forecasting" and strategic planning — says the most difficult aspect for them is working out what is a "good" future?
"It's a moral question. Your 'good' might be lots of jobs for people, and my 'good' might be to be kind to the environment. It's then a matter of working out shared values, working out the things to do to make that future more likely."
Some of us look to trendwatchers, astrologers, crystal balls or politicians for hints about what the future holds, but can anyone really ever know?
Dr Hayward says that while there will be, for example, a physical answer to global warming (such as changing our energy needs and resources), there will also be a philosophical, values-driven solution. "Ultimately, it is down to individuals' choices … By people taking individual action, the possibility of that future they prefer actually occurring becomes more likely."
This approach is empowering for those of us who may feel helpless and hopeless about the future.
In Amsterdam, Reinier Evers, the founder of consumer website trendwatching.com, makes a living from the future.
He is very much into coining phrases such as "minipreneurs", "couchsurfing" and "upgradia" to predict trends — and give them a push along.
He's got a whole website predicting what's in store for 2007 — and he says trend-watching itself is an industry sure to grow.
"Spotting, tracking, understanding and applying consumers/business trends will continue to grow, as brands increasingly understand that, yes, this world IS about the consumer," he says in an email answering Sunday Age questions.
But Evers, like many other consumption-oriented trend-watchers, has a vested interest in something that is, by its nature, impossible to pin down — the future. His site has been such a success that he now earns big money on the speaker circuit and sells his 2007 Trend Report for $US499 a pop.
And he reckons that in the near future "everyone should and can be a trend-watcher".
"Expect many more players in this field," he says. "As not only is there a need, but it's becoming easier to set up global spotting networks, now that everyone is a participant, especially online.
"We're obviously doing it with our spotter network, springspotters.com, which anyone can join. Valuable contributions get rewarded with gifts."
But what if the trend you spot is only a fad?
Neer Korn, the director of Australia's Heartbeat, a trends and consumer analyst organisation, says there is a vast difference between fads and trends, the latter being more enduring and based on a solid understanding of the drives and motives of individuals.
His job is keeping a close eye on consumers to understand how our cultural preferences are changing — what future we are making by our choices.
"If you ask anyone to tell you what trends will be enormous this year, they'll talk in very generalised terms because they just don't know," he says.
"But, in retrospect, everyone can tell you why something happened or not. I think a lot of people do it (predict trends) really by just keeping up to date with the most cutting-edge people — because obviously some people are more innovative than others."
And then there's that popular instrument of alleged foresight called astrology.
Many of us love it (and, incredibly, take it seriously), but we only have to look at what happened in 2006 to the planets in our solar system to get a grip on whether their movement is really a reliable method for predicting whether you'll fall in love on New Year's Day or have a hissy fit on Thursday.
Last August, Pluto was delisted as a bona fide planet (having been discovered only in 1930). Add to that the discovery of sundry stars and new revelations about the movement of galaxies to see what havoc has been wrought on your star sign.
Some Zodiac fanatics (otherwise sound-minded) get very cross when you challenge them. Wikipedia notes, however, that the scientific community generally considers astrology to be a pseudoscience or superstition. Astrologers, it says, have failed empirical tests in controlled studies.
But my crystal ball tells me that, while astrology and trend-watching will always be around, the future of rising seas may be up to you and me.
Andrew Stephens is a staff writer.
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