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AN Interview with American Futurist1 Peter Schwartz 未来学家谈未来 Y: To my knowledge, you are a futurist. What makes a futurist? S: Well, I think it's two things. One is someone who is just hopelessly fascinated by the future. One is someone thinking about the future, but perhaps more importantly, interested in influencing the future, helping to shape a better future. I think most people in the profession of future studies in one way or another are interested in trying to produce a better future. A futurist, I think, uses serious methodology2. We study economics, politics and technology and social changes to try to understand the deeper forces that create the future. It's a rigorous discipline3 that forces you to think systematically and imaginatively about the future. Y: So what are you doing and what have you done to change the future? S: We work with large companies, start-up companies4, entrepreneurial companies and even countries. For example, I am going from here to Singapore where I do a great deal of work with the government in Singapore — the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Defense and Singapore Airlines. So Singapore has adopted some of the messages that I have developed in scenario planning5 and have been using those to think about and plan the future Singapore. Y: What are the major forces that would change the future of the world? S: Well, politics of course, also economic development, especially important in these days, science and technology, and ever more important are environmental forces. Y: But science and technology can create a happy future and can produce disasters, such as the nuclear technology and human cloning. S: You know the history of human kind over, say, the last 500 years, since the scientific revolution, life for human kind has really got much better. We really wouldn't want to go back to the 15th century. The revolutions in science and technology improved healthcare, improved education and transportation, energy and so on. Life is a lot better today because of science and technology. And on the whole I think the progress that has come from science and technology has benefited human kind. Well, it's true that you have got more powerful technology that can do harm. One person or a few people can kill a vast number of people. That is something that is genuinely6 worrying. However, we have been very fortunate in that we have been very judicious7 in our use of that technology. Y: One negative impact of chemical or biological weapons could be the destruction of environment. Do you think environment also accounts for a good part of our concern about our future8? S: Absolutely. I think most people are very concerned about the consequences of industrial economic development on the environment — air pollution, water pollution, the loss of species, the loss of habitat9. This is really a big issue. However, I am quite optimistic about the future development. First of all, we have now become concerned about it. And if you look at many cities around the world, for example, their water supplies, they are cleaner today than they were 25 or 30 years ago, because we have explored new technology of water purification and of much cleaner automobiles.10 The automobile today is 95 percent cleaner than the automobile of 20 years ago. Y: Not the case for developing countries. S: I think that is true. You know there is an equation and it goes like this — the environmental impact is the product of the number of people times the economic statistic times the technology they use.11 But we are slow in our population growth dramatically on the earth. The UN has lowered its long-term population forecast by half a billion.12 The second thing is most people would like to be affluent13. They would like to have decent standard of living, a decent home, good education for their children, healthcare, transportation, vacations, all these sorts of things. So the biggest lever14 we have in environment is technology, better technology, cleaner technology, more efficient technology, cleaner cars, cleaner factories, cleaner industrial processes, and so on. Y: But advanced technology cannot stop global warming. S: That's really a good point. The answer is I think there are two different and related phenomena when you talk about global warming. One part of global warming is the natural phenomenon. The climate of the earth changes from time to time. The second reason is in fact mostly burning of fuels, oil gas, coal and so on to produce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is greenhouse gas.15 Now we are seeing new technologies coming along. So gradually over the next 20 or 30 years, we are going to be shifting the technology of energy production to much cleaner technology. And this will take a long time to have its effect. Y: But it is expensive. S: It's getting cheaper actually. It is expensive, I agree. But it's getting cheaper all the time. Y: Coming back to the future study itself. Can you tell us when you decided to devote yourself to future studies? S: Well, it came out in the 1960s. I was a student in 1968. And I was very active in the anti-war movement in the US and the movement for social change.16 What I realized then was that I knew what I didn't want. I didn't like a great deal of what I saw in the world. So I wanted to find some work that would allow me to think about the question of what would be a better future. And I found indeed there were people who got paid to do just that. Y: I read one of your articles about how to promote people's life span17. Don't you think the world would be burdened with too much population? S: No. One of the interesting things that has happened — we have learned this over a long time — is that the longer people live, the fewer children they have. So in fact, in the very long run there's going to be a decline of population. It will take 150 years to get there. The biggest issue our species would have to face 150 or 200 years in the future is that there won't be enough children. Y: What's the archenemy18 of a scenario planner? S: It's denial. It's not wanting to see the future. It's being a prisoner of your own preconceptions about how the world works and why things happen as they do.19 You know I find several sources of challenge. One is I try to encounter really creative and unusual people, people who make me think differently. I try to find people who are different from me. Another source is that I try to spend a lot of time visiting scientific and technological laboratories, because I see new science and new technology as a challenge to our thinking. And the other is travel. You know, if you live in a rich part of the world like the US, it's very useful to travel to other countries and other parts of the world that force you to think. The truth is when I came to a place like China, Japan and India, I see a way of life that is very different from my own. And it really forces me to ask questions about basic assumptions about life. Y: What will be the most fundamental cause for the future confrontations between different nations? Territorial sovereignty20, ideology, economic competitions or political system? S: Religion. It's not economics, it's not ideology, and it's even not territory. I think the biggest source of conflict in the next century is going to be over religion ?between believers and nonbelievers. Y: What would be your predictions about the future of China as a futurist? S: I am very optimistic about the future
of China. I must say I have never been optimistic enough. I've done
a lot of work on the future of China. It's true you have many problems
but you've done a remarkable job of managing those problems. I have
seen many studies on the future of China. Every single one of them knows
all the problems. And every one of them was underestimating21
the capacity of Chinese leadership to manage the problem of education,
of social tensions. If you look at the aspirations of the Chinese people,
the intelligence and skills and the willingness to work hard and the
remarkable ability of the Chinese leaders to manage that, one can only
be optimistic. |