Future Tense

A SYMPOSIUM ON THE NEW

AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

WE ARE IN A PERIOD OF CHANGE SO PROFOUND, IT'S AS IF THE CLOCKS ARE STRIKING 13. THE FULFILLMENT OF THE PROMISE OF THE INTERNET, AN "ECONOMIC PEARL HARBOR," THE GREEN REVOLUTION, A YOUNG BLACK MAN IN THE OVAL OFFICE-IT'S ALL HAPPENING RIGHT NOW.

SO WHAT LIES AHEAD?

THINKERS. IS THE FUTURE IN YOUR HANDS?

THE ACE OF THE BOTTLENECK

During the darkest days of World War II, the British government designed a simple poster intended to bring reassurance and comfort to the civilian pop­ulation. It showed a yellow crown on a red background, with the slogan "Keep calm and carry on."

This poster was never circulated. Perhaps it was thought that since the population was already keeping calm and carrying on, they might be insulted by it. But it made its appearance in many gift shops just after the onset of the financial meltdown this past autumn, and it was snapped up as quickly as it was deployed.

One was given to me and my partner as a joke. "Hang it in the bedroom," quipped a bystander, and being of the age at which such advice is sometimes both appreciated and necessary, that is what we did.

With the global Financial superstructure in a precari­ous if not crumbling state and the environmental bal-

ances that sustain us on the verge—we're told—of tipping over into full-blown catastrophe, there's quite a lot to try to keep calm about, though there's a good deal of perplexity about how exactly we should carry on. Most people are willing to do whatever it takes, but whatever will it take, on both the economic and the environmental levels? And will this "whatever" be enough? Are we in fact entering the Age of the Bottleneck?

The human race has been through bottlenecks before: those moments in time when adverse conditions such as terrible weather, plagues and diseases or crop failures produce mass die-outs. There are too many mouths and not enough food to fill them. Wars and famines take their toll. Some manage to squeeze through the bottleneck, but many do not.

Scientists tell us that there must have been one such moment around 50,000 years ago, during which homo

sapiens—driven per­haps by scarcity — began spreading out from Africa. In Europe, the Black Death of the 14th century was another bottleneck. If enough individuals make it through those narrow places, then societies can regen­erate. If enough do not, then extinction is the result, as it has been for an increas­ing number of spe­cies over the past 300 years, many of which have died out because of us. This time, it's not only ourselves we have to squeeze through the bottleneck—it's much of the natural world as well. Without it, we can neither eat nor breathe.

How can we turn the negatives in our rapidly changing pic­ture into positives, or at least minimize their worst effects? We're feeling overwhelmed;

if we want to keep our heads above water we have to swim with the flow, Figure out where the bottom is or build a boat. We're presently attempting to do all three. But where are the currents taking us, and how deep is the bottom?

And which of our human-made boats will float? Any­thing that helps us do more for less energy will have

ready adopters in the immediate future. Remote modes of com­munication will become increasingly popular as long as they are cheap. Home greenhouses, clotheslines, airships and trains will make a comeback. And what about new options like solar fabrics? Thin, flex­ible and, with their tube or bubble structure, much more efficient, they'll enable us to turn our old-style energy-spewing buildings into energy generators. And if you happen to know anyone who's working on cheap desalination devices or gizmos that can pull water out of the air, don't call them crazy.

We're an inven­tive species. Arguably, it's our inventiveness that's helped us into our present quagmire: We've altered the world's energy flows without anticipating

the consequences. But it's our inventiveness, too, that may help us out of that quagmire: that and our optimism. So "Keep calm and carry on" isn't such a bad slogan to have on your wall. It assumes that if you do carry on, you can get through the difficult parts. As we can. Can't we? Margaret Atwood, author of The Blind Assassin, recently published a new novel. The Year of the Flood.