Signals: Peak Youth... Fish Forecasting... Rise and Fall of Intelligence... and more

Vol. 1, No. 4 | December 15, 2014 | AAI Foresight 

Inside Foresight SIGNALS

> Peak Youth: Preparing Now for an Aging Planet

> Fish Forecasting: New Methods for Monitoring Marine Life

> Book Note: The Rise and Fall of Intelligence

> Signals from the Foresight Community

Peak Youth: Preparing Now for an Aging Planet

The majority of countries around the world are graying, due to the so-called demographic dividend: Improved educational attainment and economic empowerment are lowering birthrates, and individuals are living longer, healthier lives.

As a result, we may soon reach “peak youth,” wherein the number and proportion of young people in the world are as high as they will ever be. Without investment in their futures, these young people could be burdens to society rather than assets, warns a new report from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA).

There are currently 1.8 billion humans ages 10 to 24, but those numbers are expected to drop as more countries benefit from the demographic dividend. Only six countries, five of which are in sub-Saharan Africa, are “youthening” rather than aging, but even these countries are expected to reverse the trend by 2020.

For societies to benefit from the demographic dividend, young people need opportunities to thrive; this means not just creating jobs for them, but also improving education and health, especially for girls, the report urges.

The time to make these investments in youth is now, UNFPA report editor Richard Kollodge told IRIN News: “Eventually a very young population will become a very old population, and you have to plan for that too. Unless steps are taken right now, then the opportunity for a demographic dividend will be squandered.”

Sources: IRIN News; State of World Population 2014 (UNFPA).

Signals: aging, birthrates, development, education, health, population, youth

Fish Forecasting: New Methods for Monitoring Marine Life

The cold waters off Peru and Chile are richly productive, yielding between 5% and 10% of the world’s fish. Researchers are now learning more about why this ecosystem, known as the Humboldt Current, is so productive, aiming to predict the impacts of environmental disturbances on these waters’ productivity.

Life in the Humboldt Current is nourished by the constant upwelling of more nutrient-rich waters from the deep, according to researchers from the Institute of Research for Development (IRD) in France. Using high-resolution sensors, they have modeled the circulation of oxygen content in these churning waters, monitoring how variations in the intensity of seasonal, low-oxygen currents from the equator affect the Humboldt’s ecosystem.

With additional modeling work, these studies will help improve forecasts of the health of important fish resources, particularly anchovy stocks.

Bioluminescence—the flashes of light generated by tiny marine organisms such as dinoflagellates—offers another unique tool for monitoring fish stocks, believes Dr. Charlotte Marcinko of Britain’s National Oceanography Centre. When fish move through the seas, the churning water disturbs the dinoflagellates and triggers the chemical reactions producing the telltale glow.

Modeling changes in the seasonal abundance of the bioluminescent organisms may better inform researchers monitoring the size and movements of fish populations.

Sources: Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and National Oceanography Centre.

Signals: ecosystems, fish, models, oceans, resources

Book Note: The Rise and Fall of Intelligence

Defense Department historian Michael Warner’s timely book The Rise and Fall of Intelligence: An International Security History (Georgetown University Press, 2014) offers an academic but accessible overview of a topic naturally veiled in secrecy and cloaked in misconceptions. The author eschews sensationalism, unlike the still-trending reactions to reactions to the so-called #TortureReport recently released by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Executive Summary: PDF).

In fact, the details and findings of the SSCI report ought not to be a surprise, as the CIA inspector general’s own review of the “enhanced interrogation program,” which occurred at about the same time that the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke, was stomach-turning (and policy-questioning) in its own right: “Not a few American officials believed the legal rationale for those techniques could not be defended,” Warner writes.

Historically, what Warner refers to as the rise of intelligence is the long-term professionalizing of the endeavors of states … to advance or protect their own interests—vital for preventing wars or winning them efficiently. …

Now, the Information Revolution has generated vastly more intelligence and more entities anxious to use or abuse it, while overwhelming analysts. “The digital revolution compounded the [analysis] problem many times over,” Warner writes. Today, we are seeing the fall of intelligence and perhaps the end of secrets.

Adapted from Foresight SIGNALS Blog. Read the review. Purchase the book. 

Signals: governance, information, intelligence, security, torture, war, world affairs

Signals from the Foresight Community

Association of Professional Futurists: Nominations for Most Significant Futures Work for 2015 are open until January 31, 2015. The awards recognize the work of foresight professionals and others engaged in advancing our understanding of the future. The work may be text (e.g., books, dissertations, reports) or digital (Web sites, games, videos, software), produced between 2010 and the end of 2014. Winners will be announced at the APF Annual Reception in San Francisco on Saturday, July 25, 2015. Details: APF (Signal via Andy Hines) 

International Society for Information Studies: Call for papers— "The Global Brain and the Future Information Society," part of the IS4IS 2015 Summit Vienna to be held at the Vienna University of Technology, June 3-7, 2015. Featuring keynote speaker Francis Heylighen, director of the Global Brain Institute, the track aims to cover the multifaceted impacts of information technology on society. One-page abstracts with links and references should be submitted by February 15, 2015, through the conference submission page. Details: IS4IS 2015 Summit Vienna (Signal via Francis Heylighen)

Club of Amsterdam: The Future Now Show is a monthly video series exploring current affairs and the visions they inspire, and sparking discussions for strategies to shape the future. Recent webisodes have covered changing universities, political transition in the Middle East and North Africa, 3-D printing and medicine, climate change and food, and more. Tune in: The Future Now Show (Signal via Felix Bopp) 

Gordon Report: Despite an encouraging figure of 5.8% unemployment in the United States, all is not well for either job seekers or employers, according to the December 2014 issue of Imperial Consulting Corporation’s monthly newsletter. The official unemployment figure does not include individuals working part time but hoping for full-time jobs with benefits, nor those who have become too discouraged to continue seeking work. Meanwhile, employers are struggling to find workers with the high-level skills they need. This is a problem that employers may need to address more aggressively themselves by investing in training. Learn more or subscribe: Gordon Report (Signal via Edward Gordon) 

Send us your signals! News about your work or other leads, tips, and ideas are welcome. Contact Cynthia G. Wagner, consulting editor. 

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Feel free to share Foresight SIGNALS with your networks and to submit any stories, tips, or “signals” of trends emerging on the horizon that we can share with other stakeholders and the foresight community. And if you’re interested in becoming a blogger for FS, please contact Cindy Wagner, our consulting editor, at CynthiaGWagner@gmail.com

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The Indian Ocean: Growth and the Jobs of Tomorrow

By Timothy Mack

It is often stated that productivity-enhancing technology may eliminate jobs, but innovation will create more. The experience of Réunion Island in the Indian Ocean offers an illustration and test case for this principle.

AAI Foresight recently had the opportunity to assist some regional business leaders in exploring the Indian Ocean’s widely presumed potential for rapidly becoming a powerhouse of economic, social, cultural and political development. In fact, the Indian Ocean is truly poised to be one of the twenty-first century’s leading strategic theaters as a crossroad of global trade and economic growth, as well as potential crises.

That future is not without challenges. Réunion’s regional job market has been struggling, with 40% of population below poverty line. As a formal Department in the government of France, Réunion can rely on economic and logistic support from its home country, but there are limitations to this assistance.

On the other hand, the island it is not without domestic resources. Réunion Island has dominion over more than 315,000 square kilometers through its Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), based on its mere 2,500 square kilometers of dry land.

Over the next 20 years, several areas of uncertainty will accompany the rapid social, cultural, technological, and geopolitical changes expected throughout the Indian Ocean region. This transformation will be enhanced by extraordinary growth in a range of technologies, especially in renewable energy, food science, and biotechnology.

Unfortunately, these projected increases in the outputs of industry, agriculture, and fisheries, as well as rising levels of consumption worldwide, are already exerting environmental pressure on the ocean. All nations must find means to reduce the environmental impact of this economic growth and its byproducts, so that development activities can meet present needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own challenges.

Global strategic military activity will also likely expand in arenas beyond traditional geographic conflicts, including cyberspace, outer space, and the oceans, as well as around new biotech weapons of all sorts, including disease-based weapons.

The Ocean as a Resource

The global food and agricultural system is now in crisis, and the future is likely to be worse. Some countries will meet only 30% of their food consumption needs (or less) using domestic production resources.

The ocean is a treasure trove of future resources that can replace the loss of land used for agriculture and mineral resources. It accounts for 30% of world petroleum reserves and half of natural gas reserves. Nearly three-fourths of the earth’s oxygen is generated by ocean biomass, one-third of freshwater evaporates from the ocean, and half of the carbon dioxide currently generated is absorbed by the ocean. Note, however, that the ocean’s production of oxygen is dropping and CO2 is rising.

Ocean-based biofuels are one possible direction for energy development, but ocean power is an almost inexhaustible path. Ocean power consists of both wave and tidal-driven kinetic power. Both provide predictable patterns of power delivery though a medium more than 800 times denser than air, thus allowing for more compact and durable turbines than wind-power generation. Annual direct investment in ocean-based power (wave, tidal, and thermal) has grown tenfold over the past few years, and this trend is very likely to continue.

The Case for Réunion Island

Viable strategies for Réunion Island include sustainable agricultural and energy practices, using innovative technologies for integrated coastal and ocean management. These practices would address biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption by enhancing resiliency in all these systems, mitigating manmade hazards, and combating such growing crises as marine debris accumulation (and the related global jellyfish epidemic) and carbonic acid buildup in the oceans due to increased CO2 absorption (with shellfish and coral reefs especially at risk).

Réunion and other islands face additional challenges from coastal erosion, algae bloom due to pollution, and sea life die-off. Accordingly, we need to know much more about the causes and mediation strategies for these conditions. This is especially true concerning extreme weather from climate change and the threat of increased typhoon activity to shipping, recreation industries, and coastal integrity.

Potential biotech breakthroughs to address these challenges will require modeling submicroscopic systems, which could be enabled by expanding the IT capabilities on Réunion Island. We can reliably expect an astronomical increase in computer processing power per unit of cost over the next 15 years. This enhanced computing power will enable us to break down the boundaries between living and nonliving systems and enhance their interactivity: Look for increased convergence among the “info-bio-nano-hydro-cogno” sciences, and for the resulting impact on social, ethical, legal, and political structures.  

The sectors with high potential for job growth in Réunion include materials-intensive applications such as ocean habitat and recreational development, shoreline expansion, deep-water exploration, and harvesting and mining equipment. The development of floating and anchored offshore cities within the island’s EEZ could also offer a possible strategic adaptation to the likely scenario of rising ocean levels. 

Planners should take caution, however, to consider the impacts of an overly rapid expansion of shoreline and recreational activities. An example is China’s Ocean World resort and casino off Macau, which will be the largest such facility in Asia and involve a nearly half-billion-dollar (US) investment. The environmental impacts of a project of such size should be carefully reviewed. The Ocean World development sits on top of an extensive and well-established oyster breeding ground, though this fact is not likely to reshape the project in this case. 

Global warming is another critical environmental issue affecting future economic prospects. Of great concern in coastal zones is the potential for shifts in the large-scale ocean-current patterns running from the equator to the Arctic. Such shifts could alter the climate and ecological profile of islands like Réunion. These patterns, their tipping points, and the potential scale of current shifts are not yet fully understood—and they must be explored.

Forecasting Future Jobs

Policy planners and development leaders in Réunion and other emerging regions would do well learn from trends in larger bellwether arenas such as the United States, where a variety of forces are driving the development of new markets and products—and growth opportunities. For example:

• Increasing corporate and government surveillance is expanding markets for new privacy products.
• Widening income gaps are stimulating growth in the private security arena, as the “haves” seek tighter protections for their real estate and personal property. 
• The abundance of identical manufactured products increases markets for handcrafted and unique items.
• Increasing technology capabilities are inexorably expanding market for virtual-reality products, wearable computing, and personalized learning software. (Note the “high touch,” personal and experiential aspects of these high-tech developments.)
• Similarly, the markets for personal digital agents with greater capability will grow, such as buyer bots and other agents on the Internet.
• Hectic modern lifestyles are driving markets for solitude and simplicity vacations. 

Job seekers will also need to develop new skill sets. According to McKinsey & Co., 85% of new jobs involving knowledge work will also require problem-solving and strategic skills. In addition, creativity, analytical problem solving, teamwork experience, mental flexibility, and increased decision-making speed will all be critical to success for job seekers. Finally, loyalty to organizations and task ownership, strong work ethic, and personal integrity will be highly valued by employers. 

Meanwhile, a more unsettling trend is that increasing numbers of white-collar and semi-professional positions may be replaced by decision software and expert systems, as the automation of manufacturing continues to expand. 

One of the most productive approaches to address the viability of various strategic or tactical approaches is benchmarking comparable entities worldwide, to see if similar paths might be effectively followed.

Conclusion

Réunion Island has significant opportunities. It has committed leadership, viable economic models, and both tangible and intangible resources to utilize in enhancing its future. 

What may be missing is a critical mass of strategic partners, sufficient overseas investment, and the political will to marshal the public support necessary to move ahead. The path is clear, and it only takes a committed group to launch a new beginning for Réunion. 

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Timothy Mack is managing principal of AAI Foresight. Mylena Pierremont (Ming Pai Consulting) contributed to this report.

Useful links:

• Réunion Island, general information 
• University of Réunion Island 
• Technopole de la Réunion, public-private innovation consortium 
• Reef Check