Tragic events strike Everstate. We witness tornadoes and drought, war in the Middle East and even a major industrial accident, while a new episode of financial crisis starts. These are instances of the various conditions presiding to Everstate’s destiny, considering what has been done, or not, globally, regionally and within Everstate.
The same set of events should be used to stress test each scenario. The logic of the scenario will however comes first, assuming it impacts the plausibility of the event. In that case, ….
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A Bibliography Bibliography on energy security for strategic foresight and warning (not exhaustive) built while working on energy issues, notably as senior scientific adviser for the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of the Deputy Director for Energy/Environmental Security (2008-2010). Energy security and foresight Bray, David A., Sean Costigan, Keith A. Daum, Helene Lavoix, Elizabeth L. Malone, and Chris Pallaris, “Perspective: Cultivating Strategic Foresight for Energy and Environmental Security,” Cambridge Journals, Environmental Practice, volume 11, issue 03, Septembre 2009. Lavoix, Helene, Why Strategic Foresight and Warning? The case of Energy Security, (slides), RSIS, Public lecture, NTU, Singapore, 19th April 2010 Millennium Project, 2020 Global Energy Scenarios, 2008. Shell Scenarios, Looking ahead. Energy Demand Bartis, James T. and Lawrence Van Bibber, Alternative Fuels for …
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Last episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. To face the various difficulties and widespread discontent, in a first scenario, Everstate’s governing bodies implement as policies the conclusions of the Mamominarch Commission: a programme of drastic reduction of public expenses over five years through devolution, privatisation and outsourcing. By 2218 EVT, the policies do not lead to a current account surplus as expected nor to a reimbursement of public debt but to a rising current account deficit as well as to the withering away of the nation’s income.
(The reader can click on each picture to see a larger version in a new tab – a navigating map of posts is available to ease reading – research note at the bottom of the post).
The withering away of the nation’s income would imply, under a system other than Mamominarch (minimization of state’s spending as core principle), an acknowledgement of the need for new resources and income.
Here, however, considering the core beliefs upheld, this is impossible. Yet, taxes still exist, including the new, temporary ones decided back in 2212 EVT. Those should allow bridging the gap until the budget situation becomes balanced again and a large part of overseas debts is reimbursed. Now, as the overall income of the nation shrinks (added to other linked factors) and as no new resources are looked for, the overall level of resources extracted decreases, despite the 2212 EVT supplementary taxes. This, in turn, does not lead to a balanced budget as hoped, but to a renewed deficit, although smaller. Meanwhile, debts cannot be reimbursed.
Going on trying to balance the budget through the Mamominarch system will only lead to a regressive spiral of further reductions of state’s expenses, which, in turn, will mean less income for the nation, which will imply further slahes in state’s expenditures, etc.
The shrinking of the income of Everstate as a nation also impacts the power of the ruler, i.e. the nation and its governing bodies. This weakens, unsurprisingly, the bargaining position of the ruler regarding the elite and the strength of the central order. Those impacts are in line with the Mamominarch system, which promotes privatization and outsourcing on the one hand, devolution, on the other.
Another factor seriously undermines the power of the nation and of its governing institutions: the dissolution of the legitimate monopoly of violence. First, outsourcing spreads when external military pressures and threats do not relent. Meanwhile, outsourcing added to an ever weakening central order and power means less control over the way threats are perceived, monitored, labeled and faced, while the entities perceiving, monitoring, labeling and acting on the threats are driven by profit and not by national interests.
Then, local criminality and organised crime are on the rise. In the poorest areas of Everstate, the minimal level of local public funds makes it difficult to hire the police force necessary to face rising difficulties, and impossible for private contractors to take over as benefits would be too low. Nationally, despite Novstate’s central database and communication system, the delocalisation of police force and the use of multiple private contractors makes it extremely complex to follow, analyse and understand flexible criminal organisations used to take advantage of weaknesses of central power, while coordinated action is even more difficult. As a result, spreading pockets of lawlessness develop, while Everstatans start experiencing very different lives according to where they live.
Finally, the withering away of the nation’s income impacts Everstate’s governance.
True enough, devolution, increased reliance on the Regional Union and management by the private sector were meant to compensate such probable impacts. However, as seen, things did not work this way on the whole territory and governance increasingly becomes fragile, and less efficient.
As further example, the sudden inflow of capital and arrival of highly paid foreign executives at the beginning of the Mamominarch period led to a sharp increase in real estate prices in those areas favoured by foreign investors. As it had not been anticipated, and as, anyway, it favoured real estate owners, notably elite groups, it was considered as positive. Yet, the real estate boom also created a difficult situation for local people, as wages remained frozen considering the otherwise uncertain and even negative global context. In those cities, areas and villages where the real estate boom occurred and where prices still remain very high, demonstrations and protests take place.Yet, they are never of a national scope – as different places are impacted differently – and rarely mentioned beyond local news. Those responsible for local governments do not either report them to central authorities as, anyway, at national level, there is no one in charge of this problem anymore. Each locality deals with the problem solely according to its own idiosyncrasies, and with its own resources, which impairs the implementation of sustainable solutions.
In those areas of the East and South, which have not attracted foreign investment, unemployment rises, poverty and inequality increase and a feeling of injustice deepens and spreads. Yet, these provinces used to be rich as they were those where agriculture had traditionally been done. But now, even rising food prices do not allow smaller exploitations to live properly considering the surging cost of life, notably generated by unmitigated new resources’ conditions. Left to their own device, without any help from local administrations too poor to do anything, people migrate away to richer areas, where they are used as cheaper labour. As the situation is far from full employment, they generate hostile feelings from the indigenous populations who cannot compete. Completely new tensions, declined in nationalistic terms, start appearing, when none existed previously.
Meanwhile, some wealthy Everstatian entrepreneurs start buying land in those areas at a very low price. For example, one of them is contracted by a foreign company, Novcybio, which develops new biotechnologies, to test its products on his land for a high premium.
Everstate’s economy has grown very inefficient for the vast majority of Everstatans. The security provided to Everstatans has not only not been improved but, on the contrary, is degrading.
We are thus back to dynamics similar to those existing in 2212 EVT, before the Mamominarch Commission, but to those must now be added the unintended unfavourable impacts specific to the Mamominarch system.
As we progress in the scenario, it becomes obvious that the initial model could be improved along at least two lines:
As noted initially, if the model was computerised, we should be able to truly follow dynamically, time segment by time segment, the evolution of the situation. Here, because of the absence of such a computerised power as well as for the sake of narration, we have to take a much less detailed approach and to synthesise it by broad themes. This leads us to reflect upon the way we are used to organise and present our thoughts, more according to categories than to dynamic processes, and that could, in itself be an impediment to a proper handling of transition situations, when “everything seem to happen at once.” Research on other ways to present situations, that would nevertheless be appealing and cognitively understandable could be rewarding.
Recalling the difficult problem of levels of analysis, as identified by Waltz (1959), it would be interesting to develop also the model on different layers, i.e. global, regional, central and national, local, according to the various existing layers of governance.
Considering any issue in terms of strategic foresight and warning for national security demands, first and foremost, a minimal understanding of the issue itself, which is notably obtained by reaching out to experts in the related fields, as done by the ICA. This is true for water as for any other issue. Without this initial enquiry, it is impossible to even hope delivering proper foresight and warning to policy-makers. It is only after the issue is understood that we may sieve our analysis through the various filters of national security, mission of the institution carrying the analysis and finally complex policy-making system.
Focusing initially on an understanding of water, without any self-imposed restriction, will underline three major points, already sparsely evidenced in the ICA, and upon which we could build more systematically for an even better, and more actionable strategic foresight and warning on water related security issues.
Moving beyond a deceptive anthropocentric water usage
First, and as underlined by all studies on water, including by the ICA, water on Earth is distributed according to various forms and places.
The most widely used estimate of water distribution was established by Igor Shiklomanov (1993) and is similar to a more recent assessment (Gleick, 1996), as the two tables below, extracted from the USGS website, show. It would appear that the ICA uses the same figures, approximations on percentages apart.*
As a result, most studies dealing with water as security issue mainly focus on freshwater, especially freshwater most commonly used by human beings, i.e. rivers and lakes, as well as groundwater. This is how the ICA proceeds, indeed emphasising that “we do not do a comprehensive analysis of the entire global water landscape” (Scope Note). However, one also finds throughout the assessment, evidence that the ICA does not actually limit itself to this approach, as we shall see.
It is indeed necessary to define and most often reduce the scope of any study, as well as to focus on specific objectives, here national interest. Human usage of water is obviously crucial for survival, likely to generate tensions and thus of primary importance to national security. However, because we are here considering potential threats and opportunities to national security, are we sure we can reduce our area of concern to human usage?
Indeed, usage on the one hand and threats or opportunities on the other are not synonymous, notably in the context of climate change and other anthropogenic changes (i.e. changes caused by humans) we must face nowadays.
For example, we now know that a drop in biodiversity may enhance the risks of epidemics (Suzán et al. 2009; Sohn 2009). Hence, if biodiversity is reduced as a result of water-related changes, then we could have increased risks of diseases, which go beyond those already underlined by the ICA p.5.
“Patterns of threat” by Rivers in Crisis – data
Instances of such risks to biodiversity have been identified, for example, in “Global Threats to Human Water Security and River Biodiversity” (published in Nature in 2010 and with a dedicated website showing, among other, interactive maps of threats). This study finds notably that “80% of the world’s population is exposed to high levels of threat to water security… while “biodiversity,” is jeopardized, “with habitats associated with 65% of continental discharge classified as moderately to highly threatened.” It shows that technological efforts in richer countries focus on reducing threats to human water security, but do not pay attention to biodiversity.
Thus, most probably, the risks of epidemics are not only higher than emphasised in the ICA, but also present on a much larger territory – including most of the so-called richer world, as shown in yellow on the map – and could involve a wider range of diseases. Such qualifications of threats cannot be neglected in terms of national security.
This example means that our assessments would be enhanced if we were changing the initial focus of investigation. Security issues related to water usage for humans are only one aspect we must address. We need to consider water even when it is not of direct use to humans, i.e. when it affects biodiversity.
Interestingly, the ICA itself underlines this point – and more – when it judges “that, from now through 2040, improved water management will afford the best solutions for water problems” and explains that efficient water management is the “use of an integrated water resource management framework that assesses the whole ecosystem and then uses technology and infrastructure for efficient water use, flood control, redistribution of water, and preservation of water quality” (p.6).
It would be highly beneficial – if difficult – to start working towards a process allowing us to also include systematically such integrated approach for threats (and opportunities) assessment.
Integrating the whole water cycle
Second, as far as water is concerned, the Earth is most often considered as a closed system (USGS), i.e. a system that only exchanges energy with its environment.**
If we are in the case of a closed system, this means that the overall amount of water on earth, whatever its form, does not vary. It can neither augment nor diminish but is transformed and transported through the water cycle, as depicted by the USGS picture below, where humans are represented as part of fauna. Animals will take in water from freshwater storage and plants and then return water through evapotranspiration and waste products.
The water cycle shows, even more than the previous point, the need to stop limiting ourselves to freshwater usable by humans. We must, on the contrary, consider all types of water. Indeed, freshwater is obviously heavily dependent upon other types of water, spheres (as in biosphere or hydrosphere) and processes.
Any change either to one component of the cycle, to the flow, or, worst, to the cycle itself – and this at both global and local (ecosystems) levels – has a potential to produce threats to security – or opportunities – to alter timelines for both threats occurrence and response, and to change likelihood. For example, to completely remove anything related to the oceans from water-related threats assessment may create very unfortunate blind spots indeed. As, in terms of national security, this “cycle approach” is already adopted in the case of snow, glaciers and melt-water, including in the ICA, it only needs to be applied systematically.
Considering interactions between cycles
Finally, the water cycle is also linked to two other major cycles, the carbon and nitrogen cycles.
The Carbon Cycle by Wikipedia
The water and carbon cycles are linked, notably through the processes of respiration (living beings). Thus, any change in one cycle has the potential to feed back on the other, creating chain reactions with potential threatening impacts, or, on the contrary, opportunities.
Nitrogen is a vital element of life. As explained by John Arthur Harrison, it is “an essential component of DNA, RNA, and proteins, the building blocks of life” (VisionLearning). Without entering into the details of the complex nitrogen cycle (see for example “The Global Water and Nitrogen Cycles” by the University of Michigan), the water and nitrogen cycles can interact in many ways, for example through atmospheric nitrogen and acid rains, changed water pH, freshwater polluted by excess nitrogen, eutrophication, etc. Again, change to one cycle will affect the other with impact on threats and opportunities assessment.
Parts of the feedbacks between cycles are already considered, for example, through the increasingly reduced availability of safe drinking water, and through various water-related impacts on food security. However, it would be necessary to develop a multi-disciplinary effort that would allow us to truly and exhaustively envision potential feedback effects between cycles aiming at improving threats and opportunities identification and evaluation (including impact, timeline and likelihood).
Grounding systematically global water security and related threats and opportunities assessment in an approach moving away from restrictive and deceptive anthropocentric usage, focusing on the whole water cycle at both global and local level and integrating feedbacks with other related cycles would yield crucial further insights in terms of likelihood, timeline, impacts as well as nature of threats.
It would thus enhance the overall product, as well as pertinence for policy-makers and decision-makers. It would also generate vital improvements in terms of indicators and monitoring, which would need to be organised with outreach, considering the scope of the endeavour.
Transition towards such an approach is already underway as many of its elements, besides the more classical national security orientation, are found in the ICA, if we take the “Global Water Security” assessment as representative of anticipatory products for national security. Change needs however to be systematised.
* The source given by the ICA, “World Bank 2010,” is incomplete and insufficient to trace the data used.
** We should however note that the endogenous and the exogenous (for example “having been delivered by comet impacts – e.g. Morbidelli et al 2000”) appearance of water on Earth seem to be still debated (UCLA IGPP) and that the water system can also be considered as open through exchanges at the level of the atomic constituents of water (hydrogen and oxygen).
This article was selected to be re-posted as part of AlertNet’s special multimedia report Reuters Foundation – “The Battle for Water:” The Battle for Water – Global water security: moving towards worldwide assessment
References
Gleick, P. H., 1996: “Water resources.” In Encyclopedia of Climate and Weather, ed. by S. H. Schneider, (Oxford University Press, New York, vol. 2).
Morbidelli A. Chambers J. Junine J.I. Petit J.M. Robert F. Valsecchi G.B. and Cyr K.E. 2000. “Source regions and timescales for the delivery of water to the Earth.” Meteoritics & Planetary Science 35: 1309-1320.
Shiklomanov, Igor “World fresh water resources” in Peter H. Gleick (editor), 1993,Water in Crisis: A Guide to the World’s Fresh Water Resources (Oxford University Press, New York).
UCLA IGPP Center for Astrobiology – NASA Astrobiology Institute; “Cosmochemistry in an astrophysical context – relating the origin of the Solar System to processes of planet building elsewhere (Hansen, Lyons, McKeegan, Morris, Shuping, Wasson, Young); accesed 27 March 2012.
Vörösmarty, C. J. et al. “Global threats to human water security and river biodiversity.” Nature 467, 555–561 (30 September 2010) doi:10.1038/nature09440.
Last episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. To face the various difficulties and widespread discontent, in a first scenario, Everstate’s governing bodies have transformed the conclusions of the Mamominarch Commission into policies: a programme of drastic reduction of public expenses will be implemented over five years. Despite hopes to quickly achieve a positive trade balance, after a few months of improvement, the situation worsens in terms of export of services, notably because of a decay of the education system, while youth unemployment soars. The exports of goods does not fare better because of the difficulty Everstatan industries meet to face, alone, the new resources’ condition.
Trade balance (2)
In Everstate, the situation regarding energy becomes also very worrying, all the more so that energy is vital for most modern activities, including trade. As underlined by the International Energy Agency,
“Rising transport demand and upstream costs reconfirm the end of cheap oil. Short-term pressures on oil markets may be eased by slower economic growth and by the expected return of Libyan oil to the market, but trends on both the oil demand and supply sides maintain pressure on prices. We assume that the average IEA crude oil import price remains high, approaching $120/barrel (in year-2010 dollars) in 2035 (over $210/barrel in nominal terms) in the New Policies Scenario although, in practice, price volatility is likely to remain.” World Energy Outlook 2011, Executive Summary, November 2011, p.3.”
The high cost of the energy that can be used for trade, mainly oil, resulting from the failure of the world to be prepared for Peak Oil (point of maximum production) and to anticipate early enough the transition to other adequate types of energy, implies, among others, a slow down of global trade and a generalised increase in prices.* Once more, the shrinking of Everstate’s central governing authorities becomes soon a disadvantage as no national policy can be endeavoured.
True enough, the Regional Union carries weight and should not only compensate but also allow for better results in international negotiations and design of efficient energetic policies across impacts. However, first, the Regional Union, is also built according to the old organisational model and, more than once, fails to see connections between issues and second and third-order impacts. Second, the Regional Union model still relies on and involves the power of each member-state. The reduced administrative staff of Everstate’s state bureaucracy, practically, facilitates neither this reliance nor favours Everstate in negotiations internal to the Union. Witnessing this, Novstate, using its high level contacts, starts a strong lobbying that favour its interests and those of its friends companies. It is, however, only one company among many using the same tactics. Finally, once decisions have been taken, the shrunken Everstatan administration acts as a stovepipe and ends up blocking implementation. Slowly, the Regional Union administrative staff starts dealing directly with local Everstatan administrations.
As a result, all Everstatans, companies – save for Novstate and its friends – and individuals, are affected by the changing energetic order without much chance to be heard and even less to play a role.
As far as the trade balance is concerned, the impact is a deficit, with more costly imports, which are a necessity, and, in a world of lowered trade volume and heightened competition, less exports.
Net transfers and factor income
What happens with the other terms of the current account, that could maybe help towards the initial aim, reimbursing the public debt?
First, as aid and cooperation were transferred to NGOs and the private sector, transfer payments stopped and cannot burden anymore the current account. However, the cost for the nation in terms of influence, notably considering the overall scramble for resources as well as all pressures and threats, can be major, if difficult to measure.
Then, what is the situation regarding net factor income?
The inflow of capital (inward Foreign Direct Investment – FDI) that took place in 2212 – 2213 EVT, notably with the privatizations, leads, the following years, to a considerable increase in dividends paid abroad. Meanwhile, the arrival of highly paid foreign executives brought in by the investors implies an increase in the amount of remittances going out of the country, although relatively marginal compared with other factors. Added to the interests on public debt still paid overseas, income payments do not diminish, on the contrary.
Income receipts, for their part, do not increase much. Most of the dividends received from abroad originate from investments made by Novstate. However, the new “friends network” concept developed by Novstate also minimises direct investment. It implies that the benefits received by Novstate are not translated in flows captured by traditional aggregates.
Emigration does not considerably increase as seen previously. As it has never been very high, remittances coming in are negligible. As a result, income receipts show a deficit and contribute to a rising current account deficit over the years. Thus, the current account cannot contribute to reimburse the public debt.
Furthermore, the increasing current account deficit leads to a shrinking income of the nation-state, which only adds to the diminishing income resulting from the sale of the nation’s resources.
In a world of polities organised as nation-states and under pressures, it would seem that reducing drastically state expenditures also implies withering away the Nation’s income, with unexpected consequences.
Lately, a few specialised think-tanks and companies, notably Exxon and Shell, have started emphasising further changes in the energetic order, indicating that the renewed investment made by oil companies added to shale gas, shale oil, and tar sands exploitation would lead to newly available oil and gas supply, which leads to extrapolations on a potential sustainable decrease in prices, as explained by a Bloomberg recent article: Ayesha Daya, Brian Swint and Rakteem Katakey, “Iran Power Declining in Oil Market as Explorers Spend $90 Billion: Energy,” March 13, 2012. However, the high environmental cost of some of the techniques involved for shale gas and fracking (e.g. geology.com), and for tar sands as well as the high technological cost of unconventional oil and of some of the newly found deposits of conventional oil imply that more research would be needed for further synthetic detailed assessment. See also, for example, Roland Vially, , IFP, November 2011; “Shale gas” – March 5 2012 by Energy Bulletin.
The ODNI has released the unclassified version of the latest US Intelligence Community Assessment on Global Water Security (Feb 2012). Very interesting! For thoughts on the ICA see Building upon the 2012 “Global Water Security” IC Assessment.
Click on the image below to download the ICA in pdf.
Images related to complexity science I found useful in putting together a presentation dealing with Strategic Foresight and Warning and Complexity
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Last episodes’ summary: In 2212 EVT, Everstate (the ideal-type corresponding to our very real countries created to foresee the future of governance and of the modern nation-state) knows a rising dissatisfaction of its population. To face the various difficulties and widespread discontent, in a first scenario, Everstate’s governing bodies have transformed the conclusions of the Mamominarch Commission into policies. They have thus started implementing the programme of drastic reduction of public expenses through privatization and outsourcing, transfer of responsibilities to local administrations and increased reliance on The Regional Union, accompanied by a temporary increase in income and consumption taxes. The first months of reforms have been successful and the situation appears to improve.
Everstate’s capacity to reimburse its debt should also come from a positive current account, fed, in part, by a positive trade balance, aggregating results in trade of services and trade of goods.
Trade balance (1)
Initially, the well-educated population and the disappearance of many positions of civil servants leads to an abundance of expert personnel. Through Novstate and its friends companies, benefiting from the positive perception the reforms undertaken in Everstate generate, the export of services skyrockets.
However, with time, it is becoming increasingly difficult to send children to school. The provinces have now to manage the education system alone or with the private sector, and the latter sees no immediate interest in funding primary or high schools. Private schooling becomes the norm, and weights heavily on the budget of the less well-off.
If the best-known universities find some funding with the new inflow of capital, this is restricted to specific branches, namely finance, economics, some areas of politics, war strategy and tactics thanks to Novstate, IT and some technologies of direct interest to the companies having invested in Everstate. As a result, research greatly suffers. To compensate the absence of public funding, universities triple their fees and only the most fortunate families can now send their children to universities. Scholarships almost disappear. The banks are not interested anymore in lending to students as the benefits are too small and as students, most often, have no guarantor. Local administrations send reports on this dreadful evolution to Everstate’s national representatives and to the central government, but the latter can only try to compensate through its yearly orientation paper, which has close to no effect as it is not assorted of any possibility of action. Hence, the number of well-educated and internationally competitive Everstatans rapidly dwindles. Furthermore, those who could receive graduate and post-graduate education are trained exclusively in those approaches at one with the Mamominarch system. Hence, as time goes by, if ever the Mamominarch system is not proving to be the ideal solution expected, will they still be considered as adequate?
After the first months of euphoria and hope following the implementation of the Mamominarch policies, the educated youth finds itself in the same conundrum as previously, but with even less prospects. If new qualified jobs are created by the foreign and domestic companies investing in Everstate and by the new outsourcing contracts, those are given in priority to ex civil servants and to foreigners. As a result, already by the second half of 2213 EVT, except in the IT sector focused on online shopping and electronic payments, most young graduates and post graduates find themselves still unemployed or under-employed, taking whatever jobs they find in tourism or industry. At the beginning of the period, those with the best academic records, and who can afford it, try to migrate, but, considering the still uncertain global situation, few succeed. By 2218 EVT, the relative position of the Everstatan educative system is such that, added to the failure of their elders to escape, hardly any smart young Everstatan still tries migrating.
Overall, the export of services cannot grow anymore.
As far as the export (and import) of goods is concerned, those depends not only on human skills and workforce but also on available resources. Now, as seen, with the exception of the tourism industry, Everstate has to face domestic shortage or sharp increase in prices (stemming among other causes of a relative decline in supply) for the resources it used to transform and to include in the goods it exports.
Furthermore, many of those resources – classical and new – needed by Everstatan producers are not located on Everstatan territory. For example, for many high-tech companies, energy and rare earth elements are a crucial industrial component.* However, those energy resources and rare earth deposits are not present everywhere and in the same quantity. For example China tends to be, currently, the lead producer. for rare earth minerals.
This new condition regarding resources, as explained previously, should imply increasing tasks in governing.
Those supplementary tasks demand new resources and income for the ruler and its staff (including the need for new staff). This, in turn, would mean further and new state spending, at least until the system is stabilised. However, as supplementary state expenditures are ruled out by the Mamominarch system, then the search for new resources and income cannot even be thought and thus novel strategies of extraction of resources can even less be identified. Thus, the increasing tasks of governing can be neither planned nor carried out. Worse still, the dismantling of so many services of the state makes it impossible to monitor, record and analyse what is happening.
As, worldwide, so many industries are competing for the same resources, national policies and negotiations are more than helpful, they are necessary. However, in Everstate, businesses cannot anymore benefit from such support and each company with supply problems must fend for itself. Each is now alone to find solutions, or it must turn to the Regional Union or to International institutions or try to find other private allies, which, in a world of hardened competition, may be hazardous. Meanwhile, other companies from other countries do benefit from their government’s support. Everstatans businesses thus find themselves at a competitive disadvantage. Indeed, relatively quickly, the young Everstatan industries dealing with those materials involving rare earth elements, for example, lose to competition. Either they go bankrupt or, when their technology is interesting, they are bought by foreign companies, which then re-localise according to their own priorities. By 2218 EVT, no Everstatan industry involving rare earth elements remain.
The situation regarding energy is similar, however with even worse consequences… to be continued.
* Among others, for interesting estimates on the whole rare earth element market, see the analyses made by the South African company frontier Rare Earth, as well as their sources. For an example of use, see articles on the electric car and corresponding batteries (although the importance and scarcity of Lithium for Lithium-ion batteries is disputed) e.g. David Biello, “New Energy-Dense Battery Could Enable Long-Distance Electric Cars: Material changes enable a new battery to store more electricity–and could boost the driving range of electric vehicles,” Scientific American, February 27, 2012; Shane McGlaun, “Science Researchers Create Fluoride Battery, Look to Replace Lithium-ion Technology,” Daily Tech (Blog), October 24, 2011.
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Further research
As underlined in the previous article, ideally, with more resources, notably a team of researchers and adequate computing facilities, the values attributed to variables should be quantified, when the variables are about quantities. Notably, it would be very interesting, assuming we were able to enter specific times for each link, to test the variation of those time periods according to changes in quantities, and vice versa. It is indeed possible – or even likely – that thresholds and tipping points may occur according to such variations. More broadly, such hypotheses could also be tested on qualitative variables, methodology to be defined.
(updated 17 April 2012) When an image is featured and is meant to represent the totality of a foresight or anticipatory product, or a large section of it, it must capture the gist of the product. Symbols and symbolism are then crucial to transmit messages. This importance of symbols should anyway be considered for any use of image (as well as when developing a scenario narrative, for example when choosing names). This will be exemplified here with the Chronicles of Everstate. The image aims at capturing symbolically the features of the contemporary (early 21st century) modern nation-state: It, of course, is an heir to Hobbes Leviathan. However, compared with the original image, the head of the sovereign is not displayed …
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Delivery to clients of strategic foresight and warning (SF&W) or futures related products is, as we saw, a crucial part of the overall SF&W process. Without delivery, there is neither warning nor foresight, however accurate and brilliant the underlying analyses. As crucial, although very difficult to achieve, is the fact that clients or customers must pay heed to the foresight product or to the warning. Initially, according to the intelligence literature, notably on surprise, or to exchanges with practitioners, this part of the process is seen as so difficult indeed that it is not considered as being the responsibility of the foresight and warning – or risk – analyst, officer or of the scientist if we include science in SF&W, given the predictive …
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