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GLOBAL 2000: RADAR FOR THE SHIP OF STATE

Ned W. Dearborn

The way the US Global 2000 report has (and, especially, has not) been reacted to and publicly debated illustrates many fundamental problems in developing workable and efficient radar for the ship of state. The text and footnotes draw atten- tion to eg conflicting assumptions in different agencies, or the superficial but unchallenged criticisms of analyses by senior government officials. Many important principles are not even addressed.

Keywords; global model; US government; decision making

ON 24 JULY 1980, the US Government published a landmark study: The Global 2000 Report to the President. 1, The significance of this study results from its objectives, its conclusions, and (most importantly) the stimulus it has provided for further learning and action.

The study represented the first time that an American President directed the US federal agencies, on a coordinated basis, to:*

l project th e 1 ong-term implications of present world trends in population, natural resources, and the environment; and

l assess the foundation for the government’s long-range planning.

The study reached two major, corresponding conclusions:

l “Vigorous, determined new initiatives are needed if worsening poverty and human suffering, environmental degradation, and international tension and conflicts are to be prevented. There are no quick fixes. The only solutions to the problems of population, resources, and the environment are complex and long-term”;3 and

l “The US Government needs a mechanism for continuous review of the assumptions and methods the Federal agencies use in their projection models and for assurance that the agencies’ models are sound, consistent, and well

Ned W. Dearborn, 2745 Macomb Street NW, Washington, DC, 20008, USA. The main text of this article was originally prepared for a symposium “The Global 2000 Report to the President: The Authors Update Their Work”, sponsored by Gerald 0. Barney, and held in Washington, M3, on January 4, 1982, as part of the Annual Meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science. The author acknowledges his enormous debt to Dr. Barney, the Global 2000 Study Director, for the sage guidance and encouragement received while serving as a member of the Global 2000 Study StaK

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documented . _ . Collectively, the executive agencies of the government are currently incapable of presenting the President with a mutually consistent set of projections of world trends in population, resources, and the environment.“4

Since its initial publication, the Report has stimulated increasingly widespread and vigorous discussion and debate regarding its conclusions. Several private publishers (including both Penguin Books and Pergamon Press) have reprinted the original Government Printing Office publication, and to date over one million copies of the Report have been distributed worldwide (in either the original English or in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, and Spanish translations) .5

Most recently, a coalition of over 60 public interest organizations has announced plans to sponsor a major two-day conference following up on biophysical issues raised in the Report (to be held in Washington, DC, on 2-3 June 1983). Prominent opponents of the Report’s conclusions are also planning to sponsor two seminars on the Report, as part of the Annual Meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science (to be held in Detroit on 29 May 1983)>

Unfortunately, public interest in issues raised by the Report has not been matched by offrcia! action by the US Government for complex reasons, many of which are subsequently discussed in this paper. The reaction of the present Administration to the conclusions of the Report has, to date, been non- supportive. Furthermore, although various Congressional hearings have been held on isoIated issues raised in the Report, none has been held that dealt directly and comprehensively with the interrelated sets of issues raised by the Report as a whole. In contrast, major studies relating specifically to the Report have been commissioned by the Canadian, Chinese, and West C&man governments, and both the Italian and West German legislatures have held extensive hearings specifically on the findings of the Report.7

This paper examines aspects of this situation from an analytical standpoint, focusing on the explicit content of the Report’s second major conclusion and the debate which it has and has not stimulated. It argues that serious analytic problems currently impair the US Government’s ability to plan for the future and that these problems are not being effectively resolved - or even addressed - by the Government. As a result, the plans that guide the various US federal agencies continue to be based on mutually inconsistent assumptions that severely contradict each other. Further, these analytic problems are not likely to be ellectively addressed until certain fundamental political problems have first been resolved. These political problems, in turn, are not likely to be resolved until the electorate demands that they be resolved.

At this point, it seems only fair to warn the reader that the following analysis is not disinterested; it is highly partisan, as the author has been deeply involved in both the preparation of the Report and the aftermath of its publication. Specifically, I am the principal authop of the 150-page section of the Report that describes and analyzes the way in which the government’s projections were developed. I am also the editor of the IO-page appendix that summarizes advisory critiques of the Report, as well as the author of over half of these

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critiques.9 My professional training is in policy and systems analysis, with special emphasis on strategic planning, management science, and computer simulation systems. Most of my professional work over the past decade has involved analyzing issues related to long-term global resource projections.

The views expressed in this paper are my own professional judgments and not necessarily those of any other individual or organization. In particular, these views do not appear to represent positions advocated by the Executive Branch of the US Government. The following discussion is centrally concerned with that problem.

Serious analytic problems

Reflect for a moment on that key phrase in the second conclusion of the Report: “incapable of presenting the President with a mutually consistent set of projections.“lo As volume II of the Report discloses in detail,” the analytic tools currently used by the executive agencies produce projections that contain gross, substantive inconsistencies, not trivial ones, when viewed as a whole. Important decisions-involving billion-dollar federal programs and the national security, not to mention life, liberty, and the pursuit ofhappiness-are partially based on these inconsistent projections.12 Yet for better or for worse, the Report’s projections are the most consistent such set that the government has ever produced.13

To cite but one of the myriad inconsistencies discussed at length in the Report: the Report’s population projections developed by the US Bureau of the Census were based in part on the supposition that fertility rates will continue to decline significantly throughout the less industrialized world. This supposition, in turn, was based in large part on the assumption that social and economic conditions will significantly improve throughout these areas. But this assump- tion is explicitly contradicted for many regions by the Report’s economic growth and food projections, which were developed by other organizations and not used by the Census Bureau. 14 If the Report’s economic growth and food projections are correct, then the Report’s population projections are likely to understate further population problems significantly-at least, with respect to this particular inconsistency.

To cite another representative inconsistency: the Report’s food projections developed by the US Department of Agriculture assumed that there will be no large-scale loss or degradation of arable land, due to mismanagment or environ- mental deterioration, throughout the less industrialized world. But this assumption is explicitly contradicted by the Report’s environmental pro- jections, which were developed by organizations other than the Agriculture Department and based in part on cables independently prepared for the study by various US embassies around the world. 15 If the Report’s environmental projections are correct, then the Report’s food projections are likely to under- state future food problems significantly-at least with respect to this particular inconsistency.

These inconsistencies, which are legion, arise largely because trends in the real world do not tend to follow bureaucratic divisions of responsibility-unlike the methodologies used by the government to project those trends. These

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methodologies were developed by different people, at different times, using different assumptions and techniques, to meet different needs. Moreover, the methodologies have been used independently by the various agencies in sup- port of their own, often conflicting objectives. Thus, the government’s analytic tools produce projections that contradict each other in serious ways. This situation originated in part in the uncoordinated way in which the tools were developed. It has been perpetuated in part by pressures from interests that benefit, at least in the short run, from the current state of analytic disorder.

Perhaps the Report’s two major conclusions are best understood and inter- preted metaphorically.16 Imagine, for a moment, a huge oil tanker with a multimillion dollar cargo at sea in a dense fog. According to the ship’s radar, which is known to be only marginally reliable, massive threatening shapes seem to be looming in the distance, dead ahead. The ship’s captain knows that the tanker requires considerable time to change course. Even though the threaten- ing shapes are only ill-defined, it seems only prudent for him to begin changing course at once to preserve his options, as well as those of the crew and the cargo. In the meantime, urgent work needs to be undertaken to improve the ship’s radar.

Steps to be taken

Many concrete suggestions for improving the ship of state’s radar have been made in both the original report itselfi and by the Presidential task force that responded to (and endorsed) the original study.18 For example, modest improvements could be readily initiated through two Presidential actions:

l the establishment of minimal basic analytic standards for the disclosure and evaluation of the premises, rationales, and conclusions used in all major Executive Branch analyses; and

l the establishment of a central coordinating oflice for implementing and enforcing these standards. This new ofice would be responsible for dealing with a wide range ofholistic analytic issues-including the identification and resolution, where feasible and appropriate, of major inconsistencies in analyses prepared by different agencies within the Executive Branch. To be effective, this new office would have to be located within the Executive Office of the President.

Major improvements, however, would require much more than disclosure, evaluation, and a central coordinating office. At a minimum, they would require both a new institutional commitment to the development of long-term, global analytic procedures throughout the government, and a much greater investment in time and resources than was available for the original report.19

This is because the inconsistencies identified in the Report are not mere technical or administrative oversights. Instead, they are indicative of funda- mental intellectual and social tensions that are not likely to be readily resolved:2” It is true that the government’s projection methodologies are significant in themselves, since they are used to inform and support major policy and programmatic decisions. But even more important, they embody in an outward and visible form many of the assumptions present in the minds of those

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responsible for the government’s long-range planning. And those assumptions are demonstrably confused.

Fortunately, one major advantage of making use of quantitative analytic techniques is that they require many of those assumptions to be specified explicitly before the techniques can be used. Thus, the projection method- ologies provide a major opportunity for the assumptions to be examined and revised, as appropriate. But advantage cannot be taken of this opportunity unless the methodologies embodying these assumptions are fully described and evaluated in written documentation, and that documentation widely dissemi- nated for review by those with different perspectives. Regrettably, this is rarely done at the present time.21

Because of these underlying unresolved tensions, there are great potential dangers in making the analytic process overly rigid. For example, not all inconsistencies are foolish, and some bring the advantages of parallax vision. But no inconsistency or set of inconsistencies is helpful unless, at a minimum, it is disclosed and evaluated.

There are also potential dangers in making the analytic process overly consequential. For example, not all consistent analyses are correct or useful in all contexts, and sometimes intuitive insights and negotiated compromises serve higher purposes. But to the extent that analytic procedures are used to inform governmental decision-making, the political leadership should be held responsibleforensuring that these procedures meet minimal analyticstandards.

The political leadership should also be held responsible for ensuring that analyses address the harder issues identified in Appendix B of Volume II of the Report. As many thoughtful commentators have observed, “the function of prediction is not, as often stated, to aid social control, but to widen the spheres of moral choice.“y’ Simply improving the government’s ability to project trends does not meet this need. Normative analyses-analyses that identify future desirable states and seek paths to them-must also be undertaken.23

!Serious political problems

Unfortunately, since the Report’s release, no major steps have been taken to improve the US Government’s basic way of projecting long-range, global trends. Various minor improvements have been made to small parts of the government’s projection methodologies. But from a holistic perspective, the government’s foundation for long-range planning has actually deteriorated since the study, and will deteriorate further if present trends continue in the government’s use of analytic techniques. 2-l The minimal coordinating discipline of the study no longer exists.25 Analytic budgets in most agencies have been severely reduced, with key employees lost or transferred to different functions.26 And-most serious -a change seems to be occurring in the perceived legitimacy of analytic discourse itself.

For example, highly professional analyses performed by the Congressional Budget Ollice have been irresponsibly attacked at the highest level as being “phony.“27 Virtually the whole set of disciplines associated with the social sciences has been derided, and funding for basic research in the social sciences has been severely cut .~a The President is even reported to have said that he

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didn’t see much accuracy in past reports on future problems and that, in any event, he thought the population menace was overblown-apparently imply- ing that further analysis would be wasted effort .29 Little attempt has been made to delineate the bases for these extraordinarily adverse opinions in any publicly disclosed analyses, which could then be examined and evaluated in reasoned debate. Moreover, numerous other commentators (and decisionmakers) seem to be reflecting the President’s views on these matters with equally little proffered justification.

What is at stake is not just the concrete issue of population trends and what they portend. At stake are the very ground rules under which analytic discourse proceeds-the very rules by which concerned citzens agree to debate pressing matters of public policy. For example, with which of the Census Bureau’s premises or rationales, if any, does the President disagree? And what, if any, are the analytic bases for his differing opinions? At present, the President need not answer these questions because there is little effective public demand that he do so.

All too often in public policy debate, under present and past ground rules for analytic discourse, underlying analytic assumptions and their sources need never be disclosed. Analytic results need never be reproduced or otherwise confirmed by neutral referees. Premises, rationales, and conclusions need never be compared to those advanced by analysts holding opposing views. Analytic inconsistencies need never be identified, debated, or resolved. And it is con- sidered fair game to refer to government analysts and their computer-based projection methodologies as out-of-town jaspers with hot pocket calculators.~”

Whereas both the legal and scientific professions, for example, make good use ofgenerally accepted and enforced rules governing deliberations over matters of substance, the policy analysis profession does not-due to a lack of client interest in promoting and enforcing such rules. Neither the Cabinet, nor the Congress, nor the hustings has any generally agreed upon and enforced standards for making analytic points. There has been little effective political demand for such standards, as noted previously.

There are many underlying reasons why such analytic standards have not been established or enforced. Some are based on crass self-interest, and some on simple expediency, but others are crucially related to the very nature of the political process itself. That process often requires the analytic premises, rationales, and conclusions that support a given decision to be formulated somewhat ambiguously. Without such ambiguity, it would often be much more difficult to build a constituency, form a coalition, or reach a consensus-all of which can be prerequisites to taking effective action.?1 Hence, it is not surprising that the opportunity for examining and revising basic assumptions, described previously, is frequently evaded.

The full consequences of not having acquired such analytic standards are extremely serious and largely unrecognized. As previously noted, the government’s analytic foundation for long-range, global planning is highly self-contradictory. As a result, the use ofthis foundation may often contribute to the formulation of mutually antagonistic, self-defeating policies and programs among the different agencies-or policies and programs that are effective at accomplishing unintended objectives.32

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There is another kind of consequence even more serious. Without full analytic disclosure, even the best-informed citizens have little basis for dis- tinguishing good analyses from bad. As a result, they are increasingly tending to view the results ofall analytical studies with distrust (and rightly so), and this is leading them to become increasingly confused and frustrated. This confusion and frustration are, in turn, causing many people to begin questioning the potential effectiveness of various decision-making processes and institutions in our society, and hence their legitimacy. This questioning also stems from a mounting perception that many of the decisions made in our society are not dealing effectively with America’s problems, and are likely in the long run to entail severe consequences. In many instances, according to the Report, this perception is correct.

Most people are not aware that much of their confusion and frustration over the limitations of many analytic studies is due to the absence ofestablished and enforced analytic standards. Not surprisingly, in the absence of this awareness, they produce little effective political demand for the establishment and enforce- ment of such standards. Leading them to such an awareness will demand exceptional political skill and courage.

In the first place, procedural analytic issues are by their very nature both difficult to understand and of little interest for most people. Second, there is great danger that closer familiarity could cause the public to become even more disillusioned with the nation’s decision-making processes than is the case today. The ship of state’s radar has many deficiencies that can be horrifying to the uninitiated. Third, there is also greater danger that the public could develop a cynical disregard for serious future problems that have already been identified using the government’s admittedly imperfect foundation for long-range planning. But with the exercise of exceptional political skill and courage, a basis could be established for making fundamental improvements to that foundation and hence to all our lives, not only in the United States but throughout the world.

Conclusion

America urgently needs better radar to guide her. As the Report points out, the modern world is becoming increasingly complex and interdependent. Changes are occurring at a faster pace and on a larger scale than happened when the world was less populated and less industrialized. These changes often have far-reaching consequences that are not readily foreseen without the assistance of complex, evolving analytic tools. Fortunately, these new mental prostheses33 offer us real opportunities to develop effective plans for safeguarding our future. Better radar will not make the potential problems of America (or the world) disappear, but it will certainly provide a major aid to navigation. By enabling the nation (and the world) to anticipate the future more accurately, it will enable us to take more effective action to deal with it. By providing this capability, better radar will also help build greater public confidence in the potential effectiveness of our decision-making processes-at least in the long run.

For all these reasons, initiating a major programme to improve the nation’s

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present foundation for long-range planning is arguably one of the major political challenges of our time-for any captain who wishes to command something other than a noisy ship of fools or scoundrels. There are many seasoned analysts who would rally at once to assist the President in rising to meet this challenge. But the challenge is not essentially analytical, for the basic principles ofanalytic disclosure and comparative evalution (the skills needed to initiate the programme) are essentially well understood. The challenge instead is political and requires skilled and courageous leadership. Without such leadership-and the political demand for it from the electorate-the problems associated with initiating such a programme may well be insoluble.

Notes and references I. The Global 2000 Report to the President: Entering the Twenty-First Century, vol. 2, Technical Report,

Gerald 0. Barney, Study Director (Washington, Government Printing Offtce, 1980), pages 45 l-599. The Report is comprised of three volumes: a summary report, a technical report, and a report presenting the original documentation of the government’s global sectoral models. The Report was sponsored by the US Council on Environmental Quality and Department of State, supported by 11 other federal agencies. (Refiort, vol. 1, page v).

A special preface has been written by Dr. Barney that explains the background, structure, and evolution of the Study and answers some questions raised since the Report’s release by the White House on July 24, 1980. This special preface should not be confused with prefaces appearing in Report; it appears in The Global 2000 Report to the President of the US: Entering the Twenty-First Century, Vol. I: The Summary Report, Special Edition with the Environment Projections and the Government’s Global MO&~, Gerald 0. Barney, Study Director (Pergamon Press, 1980). This preface will subsequently be cited in these notes as Report, Pergamon.

2. This is a paraphrase of the President’s directive establishing the Study, which is found in Jimmy Carter, The President’s Environmental Program, 1977 (Washington, Government Printing Office, May 1977), page M-l 1.

Credit for developing this inspired, artful interpretation of the directive-an interpret- ation that gives equal weight to (a) developing projections and (b) improving the way such projections are developed-belongs entirely to Dr. Barney. Both his decision to adopt this interpretation and his skill in winning approval of it from the Study’s sponsors were of fundamental importance in determining the future course of the Study. The implications of this interpretation and the deliberate structuring of the Study to respond to it are discussed in Report, vol. 1, pages 6-8, Report, ~012, pages v-xiii, 3-4,453~460,659, 685, 7 13, and 723, and Report, vol. 3, pages v-vi. Note, however, that the most interesting aspects of these matters are set forth only in Report, Pergamon, pages vii-xvii.

3. Report, vol. 1, page 4. The validity of this basic finding, in the context of analytic problems associated with the government’s projection methodologies, is specifically affirmed and discussed in Report, vol. 1, pages 5,8, and 43-45, Report, vol. 2, pages viii, 5,427-43 1,480-l) 659-68 1, and Report, Pergamon, pages xiii-xvii.

4. Report, vol 1, page 5 and ~012, page 5. 5. Full citations may be found in Global 2ooo in Germany, preface by Gerald 0. Barney,

translation by George Chestnut (published by Gerald 0. Barney and Associates, Inc, 1730 North Lynn Street, Suite 400, Arlington, VA. 22209, 1982), pages iii-iv.

6. Further information regarding the June 2-3 meeting may be obtained from the Global Tomorrow Coalition, 1525 New Hampshire Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20036. Further information regarding the May 29 meeting may be obtained from the AAAS Meetings offtce, 1101 Vermont Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005.

An excellent set of news memoranda covering the full range of extensive current institutional and individual activities associated with improving the foresight capabilities of the US Government may be obtained at no cost by writing to Peters D. Willson, The Alan Guttmacher Institute, Suite 305, 1220 19th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036.

An excellent overview of major issues and organizations associated with improving the foresight capabilities of the US Government (currently in preparation) may be obtained by

FlmNtEs ApIll 1983

7. 8.

9.

10.

11. 12.

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writing to Lindsey Grant, Consultant, The Environmental Fund, 1302 18th Street NW, Washington, DC 20036. Global 2ooo in Germany, reference 6, page i-ii. Others made major contributions to this section. Their contributions are specified in Report, ~012, page xi, and in Report, Pergamon, pages x-xvi They include Gerald 0. Barney, Judith Johnson, Jennifer Robinson, and Pieter Vander Werf. In addition, material from the original documentation of the government’s global sectoral models and from Report, vol. 2, Ch. I-13, was selectively used throughout this section, as appropriate. Report, vol. 2, 713-722. The names and affiliations of the Report’s informal adivsors and integrative experts are presented in Report, vol. 2, pages xii-xviii. To date, the Report’s second major conclusion has received little public attention and thus evoked little public concern. Despite repeated recommendations from Dr. Barney and his staff to the contrary, the Study’s sponsors insisted on not featuring this major, corresponding conclusion in the summary volume of the Report and in press releases concerning the Study. Their primary concern was that the second conclusion might be perceived as undermining the first conclusion, which they felt was far more important. My view, then and now, is that they made a serious mistake, but that the mistake can still be corrected.

I believe the Study’s sponsors were right to think that the public would react negatively to the second conclusion if it were emphasized, but they were wrong to conclude that this was sufficient argument for not featuring both conclusions equally. They did not seem to realize that the projections would not inspire action unless the bases for the projections were well understood and accepted. And they did not seem to realize that constructive public exam- ination of problems associated with the way the projections were developed might become a learning experience that could lead to enough acceptance of what was most valuable in the projections to spur appropriate action.

No doubt my personal participation in the assessment process partially influenced my judgment. However, I was also influenced by my direct involvement over the past several years in the domestic energy policy debate. In my opinion, widely shared, that debate was largely incoherent. Participants argued at length about tactics without ever determining, much less discussing, the extent to which they agreed or disagreed about most underlying data, structural relationships, or fundamental purposes and values. In short, there was no commonly accepted structure for the debate and, more important, no coherent process underway for its development. There still is not.

Thus, I was concerned that if the Report’s second major conclusion were not emphasized, then its first would be debated in much the same manner as domestic energy policy. However, my professional training and experience also indicated that unrushed, widespread participation in analyzing underlying data, structural relationships, and fundamental purposes and values can be an important prerequisite to meaningful negotiation and agreement about tactics. In short, what was initially needed was a coherent process for developing a commonly accepted structure for debating the first conclusion. And the Report’s second conclusion seemed capable, properly presented, of stimulating the start of such a process-a broadly participatory experience in societal strategic planning.

To their credit, the Report’s sponsors did not suppress the second conclusion. They permitted it to be published in its entirety in Report, vol 2, and permitted two brief, understated allusions to it to appear in Report, vol. 1, pages 4-5 and 6-7. Given their perspective, this was an act of considerable political courage and reflected a high sense of professional responsibility.

As a result of their forbearance, this conclusion and all the’analysis that supports it have become widely available for constructive purposes as a matter ofpublic record in the Report. Several such purposes are discussed later in the paper, the most important ofwhich involves restoring to people the belief that they can take meaningful action to influence their future-that it is not entirely out of control, beyond knowing and beyond choice.

These matters are briefly discussed in Report, Pergamon, page xii, in response to questions stimulated by a few sensational and somewhat misleading press reports (eg Jack Anderson, “A gloomy preview of the year 2000”, Wmhington Post, June 25, 1978, page D7). Report, ~012, Ch. 14, pages 453-499. See especially pages 461-469. Simply from the standpoint of cost effectiveness, it should be apparent that even an extremely large budgetary allocation for improving the government’s foundation for long-

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range planning should be readily justifiable, given the relatively enormous sums at risk. When criteria other than simple cost effectiveness are taken into consideration, the justifi- cation becomes still easier. These points are briefly noted in Report, ~012. pages 454 and 482.

13. A wide range of relevant governmental commissions, studies, and task forces preceding the work of the Study is surveyed in “Lessons from the Past” by Robert Cahn and Patricia L. Cahn (Report, vol 2, App. A, pages 321-348). For a qualification regarding government models with more feedback and interactions than the models used in the Study, see the second footnote in Report, vol. 2, page 3.

14. Some of the ramifications of this typically complex issue are briefly discussed in Report, vol. 2, pages 481-2. The exact consequences to the projections of resolving this inconsistency and other apparent inconsistencies are often not straightforward. Arguments can be advanced regarding both the robustness (Report, vol. 2, pages 480-481) and the uncertainty (Report, vol 2, page 718-720) properly attributable to estimates of these consequences.

In the context of this particular inconsistency, it is instructive to compare the Report’s demographic assumptions for India, set forth in Report, vol. 3, pages 42-44, with recent reports of unexpectedly high net population growth in India (“India’s population growth unchecked in 10 years”, New York Times, March 19, 1981, page Al3), despite faltering gains in life expectancy (Robert Reinhold, “Gains in life expectancy faltering in poor nations”, New York Times, February 8, 1981, page 23), coupled with resumed purchases of foreign wheat for the first time in four years (Michael T. Kaufman, “Mrs. Gandhi under fire for importing wheat”, New York Times, July 13, 1981, page A4).

15. Summaries of these embassy cables are presented in Report, vol. 2, App. C, pages 723-738. In the context of note 11 above regarding India, see especially Report, vol. 2, pages 728-729.

Comments on the elements of this inconsistency (and others like it) are scattered holo- graphically throughout the Report. For example, for material directly related to assumptions about arable land loss and degradation, see the following: Report, vol 1, pages 2-4, 17-21, 32-35, 41, and 44-45, Report, vol. 2, 68-70, 96-101, 232-238, 246, 273-274, 276-283, 287-288,332-333,337,382-387,392-416,429,458-459,464-471,486, 490-491,526-527, 530,550,557-558,598,6 11,6 19,628-629,639,650,66 l-681,7 10, and 7 19, and Report, vol. 3, pages 165-166,212-213,234-236,260-261, and 288.

16. The basic outlines for this metaphor are largely borrowed from Dennis L. Meadows, “Toward a science of social forecasting”, Proceedings of th National Academy of Sciences USA, 69, 12, December 1972, page 3828-a seminal article.

17. These suggestions include potential technical improvements and the need to incorporate broader perspectives through increased interaction with the private sector, educational institutions, &her nations, and international agencies. See Report, vol. 1, pages 4-5, and Report, vol. 2, pages and 482-484.

18. US Council on Environmental Quality and Department of State, Global Future: Time to Act (Washington; Government Printing Office, January 1981)-especially pages I-liii and 156-192. Two prior reports also contain important, carefully considered suggestions: (1) Gouernment and the Nation’s Resources, Report of the National Commission on Supplies and Shortages, December 1976, pages 80-101 and (2) Peter House, Roger Shull, and Ted Williams, ‘Plan” Is not necessarib afour letter word, an analysis prepared for the White House Conference on Balanced National Growth and Economic Development (Washington; US Department ofEneregy, January 1978; DOE/EV-0001 UC-13).

19. The Study, conducted over the 1977-1980 period, cost approximately $950,000 in current dollars (Report, Pergamon, page x). Much can be accomplished with minimal investment (see Gerald 0. Barney, “Foresight in the Federal Government: Perspectives from the Experience of Directing the Global 2000 Study”, statement to the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power, Committee on Energy and Commerce, US House of Representatives, Washington, DC, December 2, 1981, Committee Print 97-00, October 1982).

However, it would not be unreasonable or undesirable to see such an effort gradually grow to the funding level ofa small Apollo Project. First, the need for major improvements (eg the need for better data from the less industrialized nations, as the Report’s Samual Baum and Nicholas G. Carter have often pointed out) is very great and likely to be extremely expensive. Second, as note 9 above, points out, it should not be diff%zult to develop progressive justifications for such an investment. Such an effort should, ofcourse, proceed one step at a

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20.

21.

22.

time, and should include regularly scheduled evaluations and reappraisals. These tensions are particularly pronounced in the field of economics, as the following especially insightful analyses make clear: (1) frokm the perspective of traditional economic topics, Robert L. Heilbroner, “The new economics”, The New York Review of Books, February 21, 1980, pages 19-23; (2) from the perspective of systems theory, Nicholas Georgescu- Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, (Harvard University Press, 197 1)) especially pages 220-275; (3) from the perspective of conceptual paradigms, Gunnar Myrdal, Asian Drama: An Inquiry Into the Poverp of Nati vol 1 (New York, Pantheon, 1968), especially pages 5-35; and (4) from the perspective of social change, Hazel Henderson, The Politics of the Solar Age: Alternatives to Economics (Garden Gig, New York, Anchor Books, 1981).

The waters become even muddier when economic theory is applied to demography. A clear technical summary of these confused matters is presented in Marcel Fulop, “A survey of the literature on the economic theory of fertility behavior”, The American Economist, xxi, 1, spring 1977, pages 5-13). A far broader, less technical description and evaluation of how these matters are customarily handled is presented in Report, vol 1, pages 12-13, Report, vol. 2, pages 8,24-28,50n, 67,230-251,390-392,407-410,422-427,46-463,469-478,481-482, 485-487,490,503-506, 518-519,521-526,598,661-681, 714n, and 719, and Report, vol. 3, pages 15-16,39-40,63-64,79-89,96-97, 10, and 170-173.

The introduction of normative evaluative criteria to economic and demographic topics complicates matters still further, as may be inferred from Douglas Rae, “The egalitarian state: notes on a system ofcontradictory ideals”, Daedalus, fall 1979, pages 37-54.

I agree with the position expressed in Patricia Roberts Harris, “. . .And intellectuals’ failure”, New York Times, May 3, 198 1, page E2 1, though it is only a partial truth:

Although there is continuing and frequently impassioned discussion of public-policy issues among intellectuals, there is little effort by them to inform the general public of the complexity of issues or to correct deliberately misleading use of data by political figures. Instead, intellectuals join politicians in tailoring their public positions to the results of public-opinion polling. The failure of political leaders in proposing real solutions to our problems is a reflection of the sterility of the political activity of the nation’s intellectuals.

Fortunately, there are important exceptions to this rule, though these exceptions tend not to be well-known. For example, over most of the past decade, the US Department of Energy and its predecessor institutions have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars documenting and evaluating the Department’s Midterm Oil and Gas Supply Model. Even during the present fiscal austerity, the Department’s Energy Information Administration has con- tinued to fund a project (almost completed to assemble and prepare an annotated index of 140 documents that describe and evaluate this important computer-based analytic tool (contract no. DE-ACOl-81EI-11976, task number 1: 049-1001). The intent of this project, with which I have been involved. is to nrovide a foundation for heloine determine:

the actual strengths and weaknesses of the model; a ”

the aspects of the model on which attention has and has not been focused; the sources of this attention and the periodicity of their interest in various topics; the future use and development of the model; the generic dynamics of model use and development, inferred from the ten-year experi- ence of this model; and the generic dynamics of model description and evaluation, inferred from the ten-year experience of this model.

In addition, the Center for Applied Mathematics, an office of the National Bureau of Standards, has been continuing to provide the Energy Information Administration with a series of important working papers. These working papers.attempt to formulate possible acceptability criteria that might be used to determine when the Mideterm Oil and Gas Supply Model and similar computer-based models should and should not be used to address a variety of analytic issues (interagency agreement DE-AlOl-76PRO6010, formerly EA-77- A-01-6010, task order 96, amendment no. 5, procurement request Ol-81EI10668.001, task 1). Both these and other trail-blazing quality control programs have been managed largely by the skilled George M. Lady and Douglas R. Hale of the Department of Energy. Daniel Bell, “Twelve modes of prediction-a preliminary sorting ofapproaches in the social sciences”, Daedalus, 93, summer 1964, page 873, as cited in Irene Taviss, “Futurology and the

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I22 Global 2000

problem of values”, International Social Science Journal, 21, 1969, page 580. 23. “People should think less about what they ought to do and more about what they ought to

be” (Meister Eckhart, as cited in Aldous Huxley, The Perennial Philosophy (Harper & Row, 1970), page,1978). By far the wisest discussion I am familiar with on this topic is in Willis W. Harman, An Incomplete Guide to the Future, Palo Alto, California: Stanford Alumni Association, 1976 (also published by W.W. Norton and cited in Report, vol. 2, page 721). I strongly recommend that this book be read carefully in its entirety.

24. Most of the Report’s sectoral projections were prepared during the fall of 1977, and most of the agency analysts’ interpretations of those projections were completed during the first half of 1978 (for reasons discussed in Report, vol. 1, page 6, Report, vol. 2, pages 3-4 and 457-460, and Report, Pergamon, pages viii-xii). Between that time and the publication of the Report on July 24, 1980, several important enhancements to the government’s foundation for long-range planning seemed to be occurring, as discussed in Report, vol. 2, pages 460n (though some now appear to have had less substance than was originally thought).

Then a major change occurred. As of late December 1981 (according to the analysts who developed the Report’s non-environmental projections): l The World Bank’s SIMLINK model has been retired and not replaced with any model

capable of making comparable or better integrated GNP projections; much greater emphasis now is given to individual country or regional models that tend to be used independently of each other; there has, however, been some attempt to link the Bank’s projection methodologies to the Mesarovic-Pestel world model described in Report, vol. 2, pages 615-625, with only very limited success to date;

l the Bureau of the Census has not prepared any comprehensive sets of global population projections since the Study, due to a lack of requisite resources; Census analysts feel that the Study’s projections have become significantly dated and that it is important to develop a new set of projections;

l the Department OfAgriculture’s GOL model has been retired and not replaced with any model capable of making any projections of international food trade that are long-term and integrated; in the meantime, agricultural economic theory has advanced significantly beyond the theory embodied in the GOL model;

l the Department of Energy’s IEES model for making integrated international energy projections continues to be used, but less frequently and for less extensive analyses; it has not had its econometric parameters comprehensively re-estimated since the Study; in general the Department is placing much less emphasis on long-term, integrated analysis and much more emphasis on supply disruption analysis; and

l the Malenbaum methodology for making non-fuel minerals projections has not been used to develop any projections for the Bureau of Mines since 1977 (when projections com- missioned by the Bureau in 1972 were updated by projections commissioned by the National Science Foundation) and has not been replaced with any methodology capable of making comparable or better long-term, global projections.

25. A. Alan Hill, Chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality, has announced that the Administration has begun to take steps to establish, under the leadership of the Council, an interagency working group on global issues (in testimony before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations and the Subcommittee on Energy Conservation and Power, Committee on Energy and Commerce, US House of Representatives, Washington DC, December 2, 1981, Committee Print 97-00, October 1982).

According to Mr. Hill, this working group will be part of the Cabinet Council System and will have representatives from approximately 20 agencies. Mr. Hill said he is currently planning to commit 25% of the Council’s personnel resources (ie 4 man years) to providing staff for this group, adding to any from participating agencies. Mr. Hill said the global issues group will be advised by a global forecasting team, composed of experienced technical professionals. Special attention will be given to improving coordination and linkages between models.

This is an encouraging development. However, at the time Mr. Hill testified, only 12 ofthe 20 members had been named and the group had not yet met. Mr. Hill expressed the hope that the naming would be completed by Christmas 1981, and that the group would meet shortly thereafter. It should also be noted, as it was at the hearing, that this development will

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26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

Global 20&l 123

be occurring at a time when the Council has had its staff cut from 54 or more to 16 and its budget from $3.5 million to slightly less than $1 million. Mr. Hill said he was expecting a further budget reduction of about 10% for the next fiscal year. He also indicated that he expected significant support for the group from the participating agencies.

More recently, Mr Hill (as Chairman of the working group) distributed an extensive questionnaire to all US Executive Branch departments and agencies. The questionnaire sought information regarding the state of the US Government’s current store of information on global population, resource, and environmental trends. All expected responses are now said to have been received. Current official information regarded the exact status of these activities may be requested by writing to Mr A. Alan Hill, Chairman, Council on Environmental Quality, 722 Jackson Place NW, Washington, DC, 20096. Exact figures are not readily available. However, I contacted most of the agency analysts who developed the Report’s projections, and all confirmed that their agencies had severely reduced their analytic resources and that the brunt of the reductions was experienced in areas related to long-term, global, and integrative analysis. Concise perspectives on the President’s comment, which he later qualified, are presented in: ( 1) “More than mere numbers”, Washington Post, March 19,1981, page A22; (2) Kenneth H. Bacon, “Forecasting flap: who is right?“, Wall Street Journal, March 23, 1981, page 1; and (3) Hobart Rowen, “Reaganomics: it’s time for a ‘Phase II”‘, Wmhington Post, December 10, 1981, pageA31. Philip J. Hilts, “White House uses social sciences, but cuts funding for research”, Washington Post,June29, 1981,pageAl.Forexample: “ . . . At the NSF, basic research in three fields-social, behavioral, and economic science- costs little more than half the price ofmaintaining the Pentagon’s military bands. Neverthe- iess, social science has been hacked and the bands remain. . .-from $49 million in 1981 to $16 million in 1982. . .”

Colman McCarthy, “The challenge of confronting future economic and environmental battles today”, Washington Post, March 8, 1981, page K5. According to Mr. McCarthy, the comments were made by the President in October, 1980, before he was elected, in a rambling response to a question about the Report. Ben Wattenberg, “What ‘population explosion’?“, Washington Post, May 18, 1981, pageA15. Mr. Wattenberg seems to argue that the Study should have made use of “numbers compiled by the US Census Bureau’s International Demographic Data Center”.

This is an odd criticism, since the Report’s projections were prepared by the Bureau of the Census (by Samuel Baum, who in 1978 was Assistant Chieffor International Demographic Statistics, Population Division, Bureau of the Census, and in 1980 was Chief, International Demographic Data Center, Bureau of the Census), as noted in Report, vol. 1, page v, Report, vol. 2, page xxv, 3, 7-24,67,230,425,462,469,479,485-586, page 501-520, and Report, vol. 3, page 1, 38,41,63,65,67, 70, and 106. One of the principal findings of the Report, in fact, was that even though the Study did incorporate assumptions like the following: ‘1 . . . over the 1975-2000 period, fertility rates in Bangladesh are projected to decline 39%. In Mexico, the projected decline is 37% over the same period and in the People’s Republic of China, 38%. . .” Report, vol. 2, page 598.

even so:

“Rapid growth in world population will hardly have altered by 2000. The world’s popu- lation will grow from 4 billion in 1975 to 6. billion in 2000, an increase ofmore than 50%. The rate of growth will slow only marginally, from 18% a year to 1.7%. In terms of sheer numbers, population will be growing faster in 2000 than it is today with 100 million people added each year compared with 75 million in 1975. Ninety percent of this growth will occur in the poorest countries.” Report, vol. 1, page 1.

This would seem to provide a good example of how important it is to disclose underlying analytic assumptions and their sources. It also provides a good example of how important it is to have some established ground rules and structure for constructive analytic debate, as also discussed in note 10, above.

Other critics of the Report have been somewhat more careful, but they have still tended to

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I24 Global 2000

avoid using the Report’s analytic structure as a framework for debate or offering an alternative systematic structure to be rebutted. Instead, many of their critiques have tended to make use long lists ofanecdotal counter-examples to trends presented in the Report, often coupled with (a) assertions that the Report’s analytic assumptions and sources are undis- closed, (b) ad horn&m attacks based on the authors’ and advisors’ professional aifiliations and associations, or (c) both.

Examples may be found in: Julian L. Simon, “And now, the good news: life on earth is improving, but forecasts for disaster grab the headlines”, Wa.shington Post, July 13,1980, page El, which is excerpted fmm Julian L. Simon, “Resources, population, environment: an oversupply of false bad news”, Science, 208, June 27, 1980, page 1431; in Julian L. Simon, “Global confusion, 1980: a hard look at the Global 2000 Report”, Public Interest, 62, winter 198 1, pages 3-20, which is also excerpted from his Science article and from Julian L. Simon, The Ultimate Resource (Princeton University Press, 1981); and in Herman Kahn and Ernest Schneider, “Globalony ZOOO”, Palip Review, IS, spring 1981, pages 129-147.

Many published responses to these critiques, in turn, have tended to make use of similar techniques. Examples may be found in Katherine Gillman, ‘Julian Simon’s cracked crystal ball”, The Public Interest, 65, fal1 198 1, pages 7 l-80 (to which is appended a counter-response, Julian L. Simon, “False news is truly bad news”, pages 80-89, written in much the same spirit); and Garrett Hardin, “Dr. Panglos meets Cassandra” (a review ofJulian L. Simon’s The Ultimate Resource), The New Republic, October 28, 1981, pages 31-34. (A more evenly tempered, analytic response has recently been published in Lindsey Grant, The Cornucopian Futlacies (Washington, DC The Environmental Fund, 1982) .)

It is by no means clear that this is a constructive, coherent anafytic pmcess likely to result in improvements to the government’s foundation for long-range planning. In fact, the obvious emotional force of many of these responses and counter-responses strongly suggests that deeply held convictions are at stake, and that the debate is really about something much different than it appears to be.

As in note 10, I am reminded of my experience in the energy policy o&e. I remember finding it odd that many conservatives opposed government support for solar energy for antithetical reasons that they seemed to feel no obligation to resolve (arguing eg that such support was unnecessary because solar energy was already commercially successful, or because solar energy remained uneconomical). I also found it odd that many progressives seemed to be equally comfortable in making common cause using antithetical arguments.

At that time, going through a collaborative learning experience to try to determine the “facts” about solar energy seemed to be the last thing most conservatives or progressives wanted to undertake together. Yet it seemed to me that inducing such a process might be one of the most promising ways to force the true issues to the surface, so that they couId then be dealt with more effectively. It stili seems to me that inducing such a process with regard to issues raised in the Report might accomplish the same objective.

Perhaps the single most important (and least studied) issue related to improving the US Government’s foresight capability involves developing a more sophisticated understanding ofhow group learning experiences can best be initiated and encouraged. At the present time, only minima1 attention seems to be offtciaily paid to preserving (much less enhancing) vartous aspects of the Government’s institutional memory, and virtually no attention seems to be officially paid to setting explicit group learning goals for the future. It is almost as though the insights of individua1, group, and organizational psychology of the past hundred years were being purposely ignored or resisted - in a manner not a little analogous to the official response of the present Administration to the conclusions of the Report.

Like the absent bark of the Baskervilles’ hound, this phenomenon merits further consideration. Ultimately, analysis of the Report’s second conclusion (and the debate which it has and has not stimulated) should encompass both latent and manifest content, in the psychotherapeutic sense. Analyses limited to explicit content are not IikeIy to be sufficient, in and of themselves, to produce the understanding necessary to induce signiiicant change.

Perhaps the second most important (and least studied) issue related to improving the US Government’s foresight capability involves developing a more sophisticated understanding of how paradigm formation and modification inevitably dominate projection results.

Two excellent, ifsomewhat neglected, source books capable ofproviding significant aid for these further explorations are O.W. Markley, D.A. Curry, and D.L. Rink, C~~~~~a~

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Societal Problems (Menlo Park, CA, Stanford Research Institute, June 1971); and Donald N. Michael, On Learning to Plan and Planning to Learn (San Francisco, Jossey-Bass, 1973).

31. Difficult problems involved in attempting to establish political consensus are discussed especially well in Beryl L. Crowe, “The tragedy of the commons revisited”, Science, I&3909, November 28, 1969, pages 1103-1107; and in Barry Bosworth, “Re-establishing an economic consensus: an imposible agenda”, Daedalus, summer 1980.

Purposeful ambiguity can also be an important tool for effective senior executive manage- ment, as is especially well discussed and documented in James Brian Quinn, Strategies for Change: Logical Zncrementalism (Homewood, IL, Richard D. Irwin, Inc., 1980), pages 65-95.

32. It should be noted that the government’s foundation for short-range and domestic planning may be just as self-contradictory as its foundation for long-range, global planning (for there is little reason to believe that the problems the Study identified in the government’s way of projecting long-range global trends are confined only to those types of projections). Thus, the use of this foundation may also contribute to the formulation ofself-defeating policies and

33. programmes. It is not easy to speculate with any confidence about the direction in which these new mental prostheses may be taking us, any more than it would have been easy to speculate in a similar way at the occurrence of the first amphibian or the first hominid with language skills. There are, however, developmental analogies that are highly suggestive. For example: l from biology, an analogy involving the processes of cell differentiation and integration

and neural evolution (well presented in a different context in Duane Elgin, Voluntay Simplici& (New York; William Morrow, 1981), pages 282-295);

l from psychology, an analogy involving planning and the individual’s psychic growth needs (well presented in a different context in Martin H. Krieger, Advice and Planning (Philadelphia; Temple University Press, 1981), especially pages 191-198); and

a from literary criticism, an analogy involving the transformation of a concept in a changing historical setting (well presented in a different context in Erich Auerbach, Scenes from the Drama of European Literature (New York; Meridian Books, 1959), pages 1 l-76).

It may at first seem surprising that the tradition of literary criticism might be useful in attempting to discern the future thrust of analytic modelling. However, the use of models is not unique to the quantitative professions. For example: “When the real is no longer accepted as the truth embodied in appearances, abstracted and reflected by thought, then the world of appearances must be left behind, re-imagined, reconstituted in accordance with the mind’s ideal. A major theme of Renaissance literature centers on the techniques of controlled and experimental withdrawal into an artificial world-a ‘second nature’ created by the mind-where the elements of actuality are selec- tively admitted, simplified and explored. In this respect the more sophisticated forms of pastoral poetry and scientific method have much in common.” [Harry Berger, Jr., “The Ecology of the Mind”, Occasional Stiles (New Haven, Connecticut; Ezra Stiles College, Yale University, September, 1962, page 82).

It is also helpful to consider that:

“Ifeverybody would agree that their current reality is a reality, and that what we essentially share is our capacity for constructing a reality, then perhaps we could agree on a meta- agreement for computing a reality that would mean survival and dignity for everybody on the planet, rather than each group being sold on a particular way of doing things.

“Thus self-reference is, for me, the nerve of this logic ofparadise, that is, the possibility ofa common survival with dignity of humankind. “That paradise is something very concrete, founded on the logic of self-reference, on seeing that what we do is a reflection of what we are. .” [Francisco Varela in conversation with Donna Johnson, “On observing natural systems”, Co Evolution Quarterb, summer 1976, page 26.1

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