by Eugene Linden

Let me start by saying, that this book is something of a feat. Eugene Linden, journalist for Time Magazine, has written a book uncovering the clues to the future, after which he proceeds to describe possible scenarios of that future. And it is potent stuff, I tell you.

The first part of the book is an attempt to reveal the destabilising forces gathering beneath the apparent stability of the present. He outlines nine clues - from as diverse fields as the environment, the market, population, and the ongoing battle between science and religion. The clues suggest that lying just around the corner are a fateful series of global events, affecting the skies, the earth, and society. He makes it very clear, that although they have been set in motion by human activities, they are today largely beyond our control.

In the second part of the book, he then proceeds to play with the readers imagination as he speculates on how the instability, which he is predicting, will change the way people act and think in the coming decades. He has created eight scenarios of the year 2050 taking us to from the Phillipines to New York to London to a remote village in West Africa, and spanning health, the environment, the change in the way of the market, and much more. These scenarios are impressive, thought provoking, frightening and heartening at the same time.

Is it a doomsday picture? Well, the future does not look bright in this book. But what Eugene provides us with here is a picture which is thoroughly researched. It is a broad overview, encompassing a variety of fields and sectors, of where the choices we have made and continue to make are leading us to. He is pointing out the clues that - though right before our eyes - we seem to be blind to. His eight scenarios from 2050 are not all about gloom and doom. They are interesting pieces of possible futures, and possible responses to the impending environmental and economic destabilisation (that to Eugene are a fact).

It made me think, and especially the concluding chapter, where he wonders about the main questions that he still carries with him about the future and how we will shape it. And here he manages to frame the issue of the consumer society in a startling way. I will let him speak for himself:

"The true genius of the consumer society is in its relation to discontent. Outlaw energy that would bring down the system (such as protest movements, counter culture, the enviromental movement, the new age movement) becomes domesticated into purchasing decisions that instead help expand the system."

"This is it's paradox: The consumer society taps as a source of energy the discontent it helps create. This is what makes the system so supremely resilient and adaptable... If every public expression of fear, anger, or outrage is assimilated as a market opportunity, the system cannot change."

So is it here to stay - even as we work against it, and try to find its succesor, or...?

"Around the world today there are stirrings of a reaction to the consumer society and a search for something beyond material satisfactions. Do these stirrings represent a true threat to the consumer society, or are they just another manifestion of the dicontents that the consumer society produces and then domesticates?"

Well worth picking up on your next trip to the bookstore (virtual or real ;-)

• Reviewed by Marianne Knuth

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