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  3. An Interview with American Futurist Peter Schwartz Mr. Yan

An Interview with American Futurist Peter Schwartz Mr. Yan

游客2024-03-01  22
问题                  An Interview with American Futurist Peter Schwartz
    Mr. Yang, presenter of the CCTV English Dialogue Programme
    Peter Schwartz, chairman of the Global Business Network and senior partner of Monitor Group
    Y: To my knowledge, you are a futurist. What makes a futurist?
    S: Well, I think it’s two things. One is someone who is .just hopelessly fascinated by the future. One is someone thinking about the future, but perhaps more importantly, interested in influencing the future, helping to shape a better future. I think most people in the profession of future studies in one way or another are interested in trying to produce a better future. A futurist, I think, uses serious methodology. We study economics, politics and technology and social changes to try to understand the deeper forces that create the future, it’s a rigorous discipline that forces you to think systematically and imaginatively about the future.
    Y: So what are you doing and what have you done to change the future?
    S: We work with large companies, start-up companies, entrepreneurial companies and even countries. For example, I am going from here to Singapore where I do a great deal of work with the government in Singapore -- the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Defense and Singapore Airlines. So Singapore has adopted some of the messages that I have developed in scenario planning and have been using those to think about and plan the future Singapore.
    Y: What are the major forces that would change the future of the world?
    S: Well, politics of course, also economic development, especially important in these days, science and technology, and even more important are environmental forces.
    Y: But science and technology can create a happy future and can produce disasters, such as nuclear technology and human cloning.
    S: You know the history of human kind over, say, the last 500 years, since the scientific revolution, life for human kind has really got much better. We really wouldn’t want to go back to the 15th century. The revolutions in science and technology improved healthcare, improved education and transportation, energy and so on. Life is a lot better today because of science and technology. And on the whole I think the progress that has come from science and technology has benefited human kind. Well, it’s true that you have got more powerful technology that can do harm. One person or a few people can kill a vast number of people. That is something that is genuinely worrying. However, we have been very fortunate in that we have been very judicious in our use of that technology.
    Y: One negative impact of chemical or biological weapons could be the destruction of the environment. Do you think environment also accounts for a good part of our concern about our future?
    S: Absolutely. I think most people are very concerned about the consequences of industrial economic development on the environment -- air pollution, water pollution, the loss of species, the loss of habitat. This is really a big issue. However, I am quite optimistic about the future development. First of all, we have now become concerned about it. And if you look at many cities around the world, for example, their water supplies, they are cleaner today than they were 25 or 30 years ago, because we have explored new technology of water purification and of much cleaner automobiles. The automobile today is 95 percent cleaner than the automobile of 20 years ago.
    Y: Not the case for developing countries.
    S: I think that is true. You know there is an equation and it goes like this the environmental impact is the product of the number of people times the economic statistic times the technology they use. But we are slow in our population growth dramatically on the earth. The UN has lowered its long-term population forecast by half a billion. The second thing is most people would like m be affluent. They would like to have decent standard of living, a decent home, good education for their children, healthcare, transportation, vacatinns, all these sorts of things. So the biggest lever we have in the environment is technology, better technology, cleaner technology, more efficient technology, cleaner efficient technology, cleaner factories, cleaner industrial processes, and so on.
    Y: But advanced technology cannot stop global warming.
    S: That’s really a good point. The answer is I think there are two different and related phenomena when you talk about global warming. One part of global warming is the natural phenomenon. The climate of the earth changes from time to time. The second reason is in fact mostly burning of fuels, oil gas, coal and so on to produce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which is greenhouse gas. Now we are seeing new technologies coming along. So gradually over the next 20 or 30 years, we are going to be shifting the technology of energy production to much cleaner technology. And this will take a long time to have its effect.
    Y: But it is expensive.
    S: It’s getting cheaper actually. It is expensive, I agree. But it’s getting cheaper all the time.
    Y: Coming back to the future study itself, can you tell us when you decided to devote yourself to future studies?
    S: Well, it came out in the 1960s. I was a student in 1968. And I was very active in the anti-war movement in the US and the movement for social change. What I realized then was that I knew what I didn’t want. I didn’t hike a great deal of what I saw in the world. So I wanted to find some work that would allow me to think about the question of what would be a better future. And I found indeed there were people who got paid to do just that.
    Y: I read one of your articles about how to promote people’s life span. Don’t you think the world would be burdened with too much population?
    S: No. One of the interesting things that has happened -- we have learnt this over a long time -- is that the longer people live, the fewer children they have. So in fact, in the very long run there’s going to be a decline of population. It will take 150 years to get them. The biggest issue our species would have to face 150 or 200 years in the future is that there won’t be enough children.
    Y: What would be your predictions about the future of China as a futurist?
    S: I am very optimistic about the future of China. I must say I have never been optimistic enough. I’ve done a lot of work on the future of China. It’s true you have many problems but you’ve done a remarkable job of managing those problems. I have seen many studies on the future of China. Every single one of them knows all the problems. And every one of them was underestimating the capacity of Chinese leadership to manage the problem of education, of social tensions. If you look at the aspirations of the Chinese people, the intelligence and skills and the willingness to work hard and the remarkable ability of the Chinese leaders to manage that, one can only be optimistic. [br] Now all countries in the world are faced with the same environmental problems, air pollution, water pollution, the loss of species, etc.
选项 A、Y
B、N
C、NG
答案 C
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