Inventing the future: scenarios, imagination, mastery and control

The complexity of mixed social, behavioral, and natural systems—such as those encountered while analyzing, understanding, and trying to manage aspects of climate change and sustainability, requires more common theoretical frameworks and technical tools than either can bear. How does human activity relate to greenhouse gas emissions, changes in the atmosphere, climate variability, and multiple impacts, outcomes, and effects? Some of the connections can be observed and measured, many cannot. Uncertainties of every conceivable sort can occur. As the time frame into the future extends, uncertainties essentially dominate conventional theories, tools, experiences, habits, processes, and so forth. The scientific consensus linking human activity to climate change is now all but settled according to The Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The consensus says little, however, about who should be doing what and for what reasons under this singular, even unique circumstance. There are no data about the future on which to rely. We are challenged to imagine many different and possible “futures” as humankind seeks to exert its mastery and control. This essay considers and then weaves together several basic issues, ideas, and topics: complexity, the concept of human intentionality, several means used to exert control in organizations and social systems, and different methods being used to imagine, invent, and communicate the future.