This is a new section in my blog where I will be writing on the exploration of futurism. It is not about making wild predictions about the future; instead, futurists track today’s changes, explore questions and engage in new thinking that connects today’s pressures with tomorrow’s realities.
The IFTF (Institute for the Future) focuses on comprehending big, complex transformations – rather than just one thing, one event. IFTF “looks at the interconnection between technologies and society and economics and organizations.”
As Cecily Sommers writes in her book Think Like a Futurist, thinking is “focusing on the deep, structural forces that are constant and cast longer shadows on the future.” She points out that futurists must look at what she calls the four forces of change: Resources, Technology, Demographics and Governance.
Futurism requires people who are specialists in trends analysis. It requires the ability to think critically, creatively, and systemically about the future. Fortunately for me, in 1976 I began my career in trends analysis for a Fortune 500 company, National Distillers & Chemical Corp. I was tasked with following growth trends in the U.S. distilled spirits market. I took to it early, too, and realized it was a strength for me, gathering data and making sense of what was happening in the market. But I began to delve deeper because I wanted to know why these trends were happening. In a nutshell, way back in 1976 my team and I were discovering some of the whys: our brands, which were heavily rooted in our “old boy” bourbon, gin, vodka and rum brands, were suddenly losing out to a new competitor. It wasn’t another scotch or some other distilled spirit (liquor); it was the growing emergence of the white wines becoming a new fad in America during the 1970s.
So, I got my start early in my career, looking out for trends that would shape the future. Later in my career, around 1988, I discovered The Futurist magazine, and a few years later, I authored an article, Convenience Stores in the Year 2000 (at the time, I was Executive Director, Marketing and Market Research for Convenience Store News and seven of its sister trade publications).
According to Coursera’s Five Principles for thinking like a Futurist:
1. Forget about predictions
2. Focus on signals
3. Look back to see forward
4. Uncover patterns
5. Create a community
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I went for a bike ride today and it was 98 degrees outside. As I lifted my bike off the bike rack, I noticed a man coming off the trail, carrying something in his arms and walking toward his car. As he got nearer, I saw it was his dog. I asked him if it was the heat or an injury and he replied it was the heat. His dog was not old, probably only 2 or 3 years old. He got them to his car and they quickly drove off. I began riding and quickly noticed no one else was on the trail. After a while, a lone young woman, perhaps about 20 or so, was jogging alone. I kept on riding and eventually I passed two older people (60s?) walking slowly. After a while I turned to go back to my car and a lone bicyclist passed me. That was it for today. Five people and an overheated dog. In a normal day, I will pass 50 or more people, couples, friends in groups, packs of joggers, lone walkers or riders.
As I was riding, it got me to thinking about the heat. Lately, I have been seeing articles predicting what humans will look like 1,000 years from now. Futurists do not try to make those type of predictions. What I will be looking at is a host of factors. Certainly, one of them will be climate change. If humans are to be imagined 1,000 years from now, the human race will need mutations to adapt to a hotter planet. But, mutations take generations and we will need to understand the pace of heat increase counter-balanced with our limitations to adapt in a short time span.
We can expect a major loss of humans as people in hotter and poorer climates will be more exposed to global warming and shrinking resources (arable land and food sources, for one). This will affect population growth curves in a negative direction, or at least in a less positive growth pattern.
According to the United Nations Population Division, world population doubled from 1800 to 1927 and it took 127 years. Contrast that with population growth doubling from 1927 to 1974; that milestone took only 47 years. However, from 1974 to 2022, world population again doubled, but it took 48 years. So, although health and lifespans have improved, we need to understand other factors that have been occurring: birth rates are declining in most countries.
Yes, it is fine that population growth is slowing. After all, the world is already crowded. But growth is good and necessary, right? Well, we have certainly depended on growth for thousands of years. But now? How much is too much? Or what if growth is not enough to power society forward?
I will be exploring many trends in this series:
- An aging population and other demographic trends
- A changing workforce especially in light of AI taking over everyone’s jobs
- The continued reshaping of society by technology
- Climate change and how it threatens geographic regions
- Massive changes in transportation and how we transition to shared ownership of cars
- How changes in medicine and science might provide solutions
My job will be to digest all these trends, projections, studies, assorted data and try to provide some light at the end of the tunnel.
I look forward to providing some insights.
Chris Ebel
7/29/25