Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
2
Surprise
: Complex systems are known to exhibit turbulent behaviour, extreme
sensitivity to initial conditions and branching behaviours at critical thresholds;
the possibilities for novelty and emergent phenomena render prediction impossible.
3
Volition
: The future is unknowable because it is subject to human choices that
have not yet been made.
Scenarios outline contexts and situations in which possibilities unfold - issues,
actors, events, processes, flows, images, actions, and so on. Global scenarios
particularly are based on the combination of science and the arts, of hard facts and
flights of the imagination, the description of current trends, the extrapolation of
likely future consequences, and the construction of alternatives for human and non-
human beings and the natural and the social environment. Utopian and dystopian
thinking may be part of this, just as practical possibilities and desires may be. As
Raskin
et al
. (2002: 14) write, 'rather than prediction, the goal of scenarios is to
support volition and rational action by providing insight into the scope of the
possible'. This is what Manzini has done on the everyday neighbourhood scale and
what the Stockholm Environment Institute has done on a macro-level.
Three archetypal scenarios of the future have been developed -
Conventional
Worlds
,
Barbarization
and
Great Transitions
. The Conventional Worlds scenario
assumes that current trends will play out without producing major disturbance to
the evolution of contemporary institutions, environmental systems and human values.
In the Barbarization scenario, fundamental and unwelcome social change does occur,
causing significant human misery and the destruction of civilized norms. In the Great
Transitions scenario, fundamental social transformation also occurs, but this leads
to a new and arguably higher stage of human civilization. Raskin
et al
. (2002: 15)
explain in some detail:
Conventional Worlds assume the global system in the 21st century evolves
without major surprise, sharp discontinuity or fundamental transformation in
the basis of human civilization. The dominant forces and values currently driving
globalization shape the future. Incremental market and policy adjustments are
able to cope with social, economic and environmental problems as they arise.
Barbarization foresees the possibilities that these problems are not managed.
Instead, they cascade into self-amplifying crises that overwhelm the coping
capacity of conventional institutions. Civilization descends into anarchy or
tyranny. Great Transitions, the focus of this essay, envision profound historical
transformations in the fundamental values and organizing principles of society.
New values and development paradigms ascend that emphasize quality of life
and material sufficiency, human solidarity and global equity, and affinity with
nature and environmental sustainability. For each of these three scenario
classes, we define two variants, for a total of six scenarios. In order to sharpen
an important distinction in the contemporary debate, we divide the evolutionary
Conventional Worlds into
Market Forces
and
Policy Reform
. In Market Forces,
competitive, open and integrated global markets drive world development. Social
and environmental concerns are secondary. By contrast, Policy Reform assumes
that comprehensive and coordinated government action is initiated for poverty
reduction and environmental sustainability. The pessimistic Barbarization per-
spective also is partitioned into two important variants,
Breakdown
and
Fortress
