By David N. Bengston
As
it was for many futurists, science fiction was my “gateway drug” to the world
of alternative futures. I was hooked by age nine or ten. We always had stacks
of sci-fi lying around the house because my mother was a member of a science fiction
book-of-the-month club. I devoured everything I could get my hands on.
In
high school, I kept up with science fiction but also started reading my
father’s environmental and futures books—classics like Silent Spring, Small Is Beautiful, Limits to Growth, The Coming of
Post-Industrial Society, and The Year
2000. Dad was a market researcher who was always looking for emerging
trends and issues. He was also an active member of the local chapter of the
nascent World Future Society in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It was through
my dad’s copies of The Futurist
magazine that I first became aware of people who called themselves futurists.
After
trying out a couple of college majors in the mid-1970s, I created an
individually designed BS degree in futures studies. With advice and
encouragement from several University of Minnesota faculty members and
inspiration from Minnesota futurists Earl Joseph, Art Harkins, and Joel Barker,
my program included three components:
- social and technological change (mostly courses in cultural anthropology, sociology, and the history of technology),
- economics, and
- math and statistics.
I planned
to go on in the new master’s program in Futures Studies at the University of
Houston-Clear Lake.
But
a funny thing happened on my way to becoming a futurist. An outstanding
economics professor got me interested in the “dismal science.” I ended up
pursuing a master’s in environmental economics instead of heading to Clear
Lake, Texas, and eventually received a PhD in forest economics.
Forestry
was fascinating, in part because of the long-term perspective: The long growing
cycle of trees has compelled foresters to plan decades and even hundreds of years
ahead, in contrast to the short-term view of most fields. Foresters are
futurists without knowing it—they’re crypto-futurists.
After
grad school, I was fortunate to land a job in the mid-1980s as an economist
with the research branch of the U.S. Forest Service. This turned out to be the
perfect job for me, working with talented and dedicated scientists, forestry
professionals, planners and policy makers on a wide range of interesting projects.
I had left futures studies behind, but over the years I often dabbled in
projects on the edge of futures.
About
five years ago, I was looking through some of my old futures books—never had been
able to part with them—and a light bulb went off in my head: Maybe I could
shift my research into environmental futures.
My
project leader in Forest Service R&D was extremely supportive. She sent me
to the five-day short course in strategic foresight at the University of Houston
taught by Peter Bishop, rekindling my youthful aspiration to be a futurist. With
strong support from the director of our research station, the first futures
research group in the history of the agency was formed—the Strategic Foresight Group—with project
leader Rich Birdsey and two other stellar colleagues.
In
the first couple of years of this new mission, I thought of myself as a “future
futurist,” not quite there yet. But after attending and presenting at the World
Future Society conferences, working with several leading futurists on foresight
projects, and starting to publish in futures journals, I can finally call
myself an environmental futurist—after just 50 years!
David N. Bengston, environmental
futurist for the U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Strategic
Foresight and Rapid Response Group, is co-author (with Robert L. Olson) of the
AAI Foresight Report “A World on Fire.” E-mail
dbengston@fs.fed.us.
