A Short History of the Future

The author of what the BBC rightly calls 'a good, all-round primer on the state of the planet' was an Australian Senator for nine years, serving on the parliamentary standing committee for science and the environment. Incredibly well-informed and wide ranging, the book is divided into four parts. The first looks at the main drivers in terms of energy, population and poverty, climate, food and water. The second looks at the directions in which science, business and finance are travelling. Mason sees the six main drivers combining dangerously in the decade from 2030, arguing that the history of the future will be profoundly affected by the way in which we deal with these drivers in the next 20 years. He comments that there is little evidence have been understood by policymakers and financiers, whose focus is predominantly short term. The author presents the relevant facts bluntly but always with a view to taking positive action, as reflected in a box entitled 'optimal future history' at the end of each chapter.

He is not the first to point out that the diversion of a small proportion of arms expenditure would be sufficient to resolve many of our problems, but this requires a fundamental shift in thinking, away from separation to oneness, from nationalism to global consciousness, involving what he calls an upgrading of the individual. This naturally has implications for the way we educate our children and requires genuine new thinking on the part of academics. The final chapter brings all the threads together, describing the world which is likely if we continue with business as usual, before suggesting key policy objectives. As a politician, Mason puts forward two basic axioms for real change: that useful change is likely to come only if it can provide an equally obvious and general benefit (otherwise resistance will overcome it) and that proposed solutions must take the lowest common denominators of human nature realistically into account. So here you have a well-informed and realistic analysis and a blueprint for action. But will we have to wait for a systemic crisis before the necessary action is taken?