Making predictions

Making predictions is a tricky business, but it’s also a natural and necessary process. Reading the future is not a mystical exercise for soothsayers. We do it all the time. If you want to plan ahead in anything, you have to make some kind of judgement call about the future. Should you take an umbrella with you on your walk to the newsagents? Do you need to buy a pint of milk while you are there? The answers to those simple questions will be founded on current circumstances, previous experience, and educated guesswork. This is true on the macro level as well as the micro. As individuals, families, towns, nations, and as a species, living well in the present depends on us remembering the past and anticipating the future. The bigger the scale, the greater the consequences of getting it wrong. The biggest scale of all is predictions that affect the future of the planet. They carry the most serious consequences, and they’re the most complex and the most controversial. There’s no single body responsible for species-wide planning, but a patchwork of international institutions, government departments, think tanks, NGOs and research institutes. There are patterns of behaviour affecting our future, and being able to read them and respond is vital. Feeding the world, stewarding resources, protecting species, keeping the climate in balance, protecting human life and avoiding conflict – all of these depend on long range forecasting, identifying trends, and drawing up policy accordingly.