VISIONS OF THE FUTURE
"We are now living in [a] period of significant
transition—a foreshortened span of time, during which
our surroundings and experiences will change more than during
any era in history. Humanity has never lived through the
convergence—and, in some cases, the collision—of global forces of such magnitude and diversity. . . . One
foreseeable outcome might be global instability; another, a
planetary renaissance. In any case, during the next two decades,
almost every aspect of life will be fundamentally reshaped."
The Arlington Institute
WELCOME TO YOUR FUTURE. . . or at least some possible
versions of your future, brought to you by the Arlington
Institute, a world-renowned research organization that
specializes in anticipating our global destiny. According to the
Arlington Institute and its founder, John L. Petersen, the best
way to get a sense of what lies ahead is to create "scenarios"
—"rigorously designed mental images of the most
significant possibilities that might evolve." In the ten
scenarios that follow, your imagination will be stirred by
visions of the future that fast-forward us into realities in
which life as we know it has been drastically, and perhaps
irrevocably, altered—realities that are already in the
making. As you turn each page, you will encounter two such
scenarios, one that stretches the mind with extraordinary
possibility, and the other that threatens widespread peril. Our
future is tensioned between these two poles—"global
instability" and "planetary renaissance"—and if the
Arlington Institute is right, that future may in fact be closer
than most of us realize.