Driving Forces

External forces of the environment and the internalized forces of mind and culture drive humanity along a trajectory into the future. That future is being shaped by interactions among those forces which, depending on their relative strengths, and directions may lead to very different ends. Their aggregate effects, however, may not be easily foreseeable. We are only now beginning to see them as inherent in a multilinear-multiloop feedback system. And we are only beginning to understand how the human mind perceives this "reality." The course of human society is being driven by forces which, inseparable from our world, from one another, from ourselves, and within ourselves, influence our future in the following ways:

Planetary Change. The most formidable external forces affecting the future are changes in the basic physical systems supporting life on Earth. The Gaia hypothesis describes the geosphere-biosphere (the living Earth) as a self-generating, self-renewing system.²³ In the 20th century, however, humanity has become a force of planetary proportions for change within this system, with consequences only recently becoming subjects of scientific inquiry and policy concern. Conjectures for the future vary widely, but the weight of scientific opinion appears to regard measurable changes in the planetary system as cumulating, interacting, possibly irreversible, and impacting decisively on humanity's future. All of the threatened aspects of environmental change identified in the World Scientists Warning to Humanity are affected by anticipated changes in the global climate affecting the atmosphere, oceans, fresh water, soil, forests, and living species. Unlike the following driving forces, this concurrence of planetary forces can be influenced but not controlled by human behavior. Their properties-chemical, physical, and biological-are beyond management except where "permitted" by the laws inherent in a particular natural system.

Population. Today there is one human force that is driving the expansive course of the material economy and stressing all parameters of the natural environment. It may be the most significant factor in the prospect of societal self-destruction. This is the unprecedented and presently irreversible explosive growth, dispersal, and concentration of human populations. There are few real environmental, economic, and social problems that would not ultimately be significantly eased if world populations were stabilized below present and projected levels. The interactions of population, resources, environment, and the economy are complex and controversial. Generalizations risk error; and yet the adverse ecological and sociological consequences of unrestrained population growth seem undeniable-albeit nevertheless widely denied. If society overshoots the limits of sustainability, retrenching to a stable state would likely be painful and disruptive.²⁴ Whether democracy and individualism as we know them could survive a reverse transition is, at least, questionable.

Numbers count in numerous ways. But continuing human preemption of physical space, habitat, and natural resources seems certain to destroy the living world within which humanity evolved. It is plausible that human populations are today too large to sustain indefinitely their present demands upon the planet. Yet their numbers are projected to grow into the coming century and their demands upon the Earth to increase.

Reproductive practices that served humanity during past centuries have now become counter-productive for humanity as a whole, and are the major force driving the environmental future over which humans, in principle, have control. At some point the adverse effects of overpopulation seem certain to stop, stabilize, or reverse population dynamics. It remains to be demonstrated whether or how the so-called demographic transition to stabilization will relieve the social and environmental pressures attributed to over-population. A sudden collapse of population levels would have, at least, a short-term disruptive effect on human society. The oft-rejected concept of optimal population may have future relevance.

The question of optimality has a practical relevance to the inordinate concentration of population in urban centers, variously called megalopoli or conurbations. The socio-ecological implications of these concentrations of unprecedented size are not yet certain. Some students of behavioral abnormalities have identified a condition of "pathological togetherness" resulting from stress-inducing overpopulation in confining areas. Symptoms range from interpersonal indifference and rudeness to serious socio-psychological disfunction and violent crime.²⁵ The "urban problem" has been exacerbated as cities become havens for increasing numbers of the world's poor, low-skilled, and dispossessed, often with not easily accommodated ethnic differences.

Cities have historically concentrated populations and, given the available technologies and notably through interpersonal communication, were centers for the advancement of civilizations. Today unprecedented changes in communications technologies have diminished the importance of geographic location for numerous intellectual, economic, and professional activities. New modes in transportation similarly facilitate decentralization. Whether social demographics and the consequences of crowding will diminish the magnetism of large cities is a question yet to be answered. Advancements in television and the internet may diminish the importance of large cities as cultural centers. Decentralizing trends are proceeding in government administration.

Defensible answers to the "urban question" may well be forced before the end of the 21st century. Meanwhile, such indirect evidence as we now have regarding the effects of crowding within species does not encourage expectations of continuing benefits from growth. Stabilizing populations at significantly reduced numbers would greatly improve the human prospect. But this objective seems far from acceptable in today's world. There would be pain in the transition-the benefits in the long-range future. The plausible expectation is that humanity will be unwilling or unable to attempt this transition until it is imposed by forces exceeding human volition or control. The possibility of disastrous consequences for humanity should not be discounted.

Energy. To the extent that humans influence their future, choice in the sources of energy is fundamental. Through science-based technology modern society has drawn upon a growing number of energy sources in ever growing quantities and for growing purposes. Some of these-nuclear and (e.g., liquefied natural gas) chemical have high-risk potential and others, especially fossil fuels, have disruptive ecological and economic effects. Modern society has become absolutely dependent upon a steady flow of engineered energy. This success has had the paradoxical effect of enabling an enormous increase in the global economy and in population. It has also increased the vulnerability of society through the destructive potential of high risk forms of energy and from possible deprivation of critical energy flows. But an unlimited supply of safe, virtually costless energy would pose a formidable challenge to human judgment, restraint and morality.

Technology. Energy forces have been "harnessed" through technologies increasingly based on scientific knowledge. Technology infuses almost every aspect of modern life and, as with energy, has mixed effects. Although it has immensely advanced the quality of human life and enlarged capabilities and especially tools of learning, technology applied can have both constructive and destructive consequences. Thoughtful analyses have addressed the paradox that as humans extend technology, technologies tend to control human behavior.²⁶ "Technocracy" has become a term descriptive of the controlling force of human invention in modern society. Bio-technologies for behavioral control may become acceptable options in the future, modifying current attitudes toward criminal justice and civil rights. Their effects may be malign as well benign.

Information. What people believe or disbelieve can make a determining difference in future-shaping choices and decisions. Modern society has been definitively, although erratically, shaped by scientific knowledge and through communication technologies. Yet there is an anomaly in popular beliefs about the world and the future-a dichotomy between religious and scientific explanations about the workings of the world, and conflicting beliefs about how things ought to be. Science does not address nor have reliable answers to many questions affecting the future-and there is a popular inclination to be skeptical of scientific findings which conflict with what people want to believe. Moreover there is risk in the ever more abundant rapid flow of information causing people to suspend all belief-having no basis for assessing the validity of contradictory messages.²⁷

Convention. Custom shapes convention in many aspects of human belief and behavior-notably in values, economics, ethics, politics, and religion. In his letter on Knowledge and Faith (1841) Cardinal John Henry Newman observed that: "Many a man will live and die upon a dogma; no man will be a martyr for a conclusion."²⁸ Scientific findings have limited persuasion when not internalized by faith in the scientific approach to knowledge. Conventional belief and behavior are commonly resistant to science-based findings perceived as contrary to "common sense." Institutionalized convention, especially in government, provides social stability, but often retards needed change. But conventions may become facades, vulnerable to shattering in unforeseen attitudinal change, especially in response to post-catastrophe trauma.

Innate Tendencies. Human responses to all of the aforementioned forces are mediated by apparent predispositions in human nature. Although the world has known saints, the 20th century offers little ground for faith in the corrigibility of human tendencies toward aggression and violence. To the question of the malleability of mankind's future the insight of a poet may sometimes be as revealing of beliefs as the uncertain conclusions of empirical inquiry. Robinson Jeffers wrote that:

It is good for man to try all changes, progress and corruption, powers, peace and anguish, not to go down the dinosaur's way until all his capacities have been explored: and it is good for him to know that his needs and nature are no more changed in fact in 10,000 years than the beaks of eagles.²⁹

Basic needs and nature may perhaps remain unchanged, but may be informed and disciplined. The human future may depend upon social learning-the transposition of knowledge into culture and behavior. How this may be accomplished is being addressed by anthropologists, psychologists, and sociobiologists, and educators, although the route to an adequate answer is inherently metadisciplinary.

Assessing and evaluating the driving forces of change in our society would rationally seem a high priority for the shapers of public policy. But although society might benefit, discerning examination regarding the effect of alternative policies on the future (a goal of futurologists) has been risky to pursue in professional politics.³⁰ The Congress of the United States has repeatedly declined to consider legislation for an institutional capability to assess trends in population, resources, and environment. The National Environmental Policy Act, Title II, places this responsibility on the Council for Environmental Quality, but neither congresses nor presidents have supported its implementation. Conservative opinion rejects it as a step toward centralized social planning. Commercial interests fear constraining regulations and adverse effects on "consumer confidence." The cold reception of the cautionary Carter Global 2000 Report contrasts with the warmth of public response to Ronald Reagan's reassurance that "It's morning in America." Findings and recommendations of "blue ribbon" national commissions that address issues of basic public importance have been ignored and their very existence forgotten by presidents, congresses, the information media, and the public.³¹

A case may be argued that the principal handicap to rational and sustainable policy choice lies in the character of contemporary society which from some view points may be described as "chaotic." In our expanding and complexifying world system, conflicting forces drive toward inadequately examined and frequently incompatible probabilities. Chaos theory has been invoked as a suggestive heuristic toward discovery of which among convoluting forces are more likely to dominate the future. More influential is the belief that science-based rationality alone is insufficient to ascertain or guide the course of social development-and that collective individual choices responding to "policy-neutral" market-like forces will lead to the best of all possible worlds. Emotional and intuitive aspects of human values and behaviors are resistant to empirical inquiry-but society could benefit if their origins and consequences were better understood and evaluated.