Seven Tomorrows: Toward a Voluntary History

by Paul Hawken, Peter Schwartz, James Ogilvy, et al.

Book Overview

This books presents 7 possible futures and examines each one in depth. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 055301367X
• ISBN13: 9780553013672
• Release Date: January 1982
• Publisher: Bantam Books
• Length: 235 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.

Customer Reviews

a very valuable model

It is strange to think that we can choose our future in global terms, although we take it for granted in our individual and family life. In fact we seek as much control over our lives as we can, as we don't like being interrupted by unscheduled meetings, unannounced power cuts or breakdowns in public services. On a global basis we seem to accept major disruptions and our lack of control as a matter of course - as witnessed by the recent flooding and heat waves in Europe and other disasters around the world. But, as the authors tell us in this book written in 1982, we chose this particular future. It was a conscious selection. Perhaps we don't recognize it as such but a decision not to act is still a decision. Ask any insurer what has happened to natural disaster insurance claims and premiums since World War II and you will be told that they have gone through the roof. Once again, this was our choice. The authors lay out the facts very clearly and outlined seven possible tomorrows. The book was a plea to our leaders and decision-makers to select the tomorrow they wanted and then to implement the required strategies to get us there. That we are in our present mess was a decision to carry on with business as usual and adopt a laissez faire approach - one of the tomorrows forecast. We are now reaping as we sowed. Are we wiser today that we were twenty years ago? If we think so then we should read this book because it provides a template that can be readily updated. Some doors to some futures may have closed while other more horrific ones may have opened but the message is the same - we have choice in determining our future.Hawken, Ogilvy and Schwartz start by pointing out that the problems and options encountered by humankind in recent decades require a rigorous and intelligent stance toward our fate. As the highest evolved species on the planet we have the capacity to invent and to choose a better way to live. There are about one hundred variables such as desertification, demographics and resource distribution together with major driving trends - energy, climate, food, the economy and values - which are listed because they have the broadest effect on the greatest number of people. By putting all these into a matrix, removing incompatible relationships, seven scenarios were produced, any of which could have been made to happen if enough people made a big enough effort. It is virtually impossible for the world to evade the driving trends but uncertainties arise from such things as new technology (the Internet was not mentioned), war and its ramifications, mankind's response to information and the value system adopted. Complications arise because everything is connected and establishing the causal chain for scenario projection becomes complex. A simple example is that the US, being a rich nation, bids up the price of oil, farmers up-river from Bangladesh use cow dung (formerly used as fuel) for crops, trees are cut for fuel, top soil erodes and Bangla