Warning: uncertain times ahead! The Future and 10 Billion belong to spurts of literature that periodically erupt, spewing warnings that the end is near and that sustainable development is not possible; classics of this genre include Malthus’ Principle of Population, Marsh’s Man and Nature, Carson’s Silent Spring, Ehrlich’s Population Bomb.
10 Billion’s author, Stephen Emmott, directs a research lab for Microsoft. His synthesis of current conditions and future trends is … dire. His conclusion: “I think we’re fucked.” People are the problem.
In The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change, Al Gore presents only a slightly more optimistic view: “the currents of change are so powerful that some have taken their oars out of the water, having decided that it is better to surrender…” People are the problem for him, as well.
Emmott, characteristic of many scientists, offers no hope or solution other than high-tech inventions that create new and clean sources of food, material, and energy. But he concludes that people are the problem because our insatiable demand will outpace his innovations, hence the unpleasant inevitability of ecological and social collapse.
Vice President Gore claims to be an optimist, raising his concerns “…not out of fear, but because I believe in the future.” Still, he offers 359 pages of concerns and only 6 pages of “what do we do now?” Not surprisingly for a politician, many of his recommendations involve social change and new institutions such as better media, more rational communication, getting the money out of politics, and fixing market signals.
My critique of Emmott’s and Gore’s genre of literature is that it inspires doom and gloom instead of direction and hope. People will walk across hot coals in their bare feet if they believe they want to get to the other side.
What we need is leadership from above, from below, and from the middle. Everyone can lead from where they are. Everyone can help their team, their organization, their network, their society achieve direction, alignment, and commitment around sustainable development solutions.
People are not the problem, lack of leadership is. Leadership is the solution. Leadership is our opportunity.