How are the Institute's forecasts for the nineties getting on?

Some of the Institute for Social Inventions' forecasts for the nineties (drawn up with help from the Institute's consultants and published in December '89) turned out to be prescient, although the majority have yet to (and may never) come about. Thus of its forecasts specifically for 1991, the at-least-half-right predictions were as follows:

- 'The key battle of our times is between the decentralists and the centralisers, and happily the various decentralist Davids around the world are defeating the Goliaths, whose empires of power are crumbling. This irresistible process will continue to gather pace during 1991: the Baltic republics will regain their independence, Yugoslavia will disintegrate into its constituent republics, and perestroika will sweep through the African continent, particularly Malawi, Zimbabwe and Zambia.'

In the event: correct in outline, although of the three African countries named, only Zambia experienced this perestroika.

- 'The most depressing clashes in 1991 will be, not between the Davids and their Goliaths, but between these Davids and their own dwarf Davids - for the newly autonomous nations will prove unwilling to give sufficient autonomy to their own minority groups; civil war and ethnic turmoil are on the horizon for 1991, with places such as South Ossetia in Georgia, Gagauz in Moldavia and Kosovo in Yugoslavia as likely flashpoints.'

In the event: the flashpoints were elsewhere, but the general tendency has been sadly as prepared for by the Institute; in the same month that the civil war broke out in Yugoslavia, it published the book 'Can Civil Wars be Avoided?' by Dr David Chapman.

- 'As for the Gulf situation, war with Iraq seems likely in February, but should end within weeks with Iraq's defeat. The bigger danger is the instability of Islam ... So, for instance, Egyptian involvement in the war with Iraq, or fundamentalism in Algeria could lead to Islamic civil wars in 1991.'

In the event: the ground war with Iraq did take place in February '91 and ended in days with Iraq's defeat. There were no civil wars in Islamic countries, apart from inside Iraq itself, although there were violent clashes with fundamentalists, street disturbances and killings in Algiers.

- '[There will be growing environmental] ... concern (at present voiced almost solely by Dr Clube of Oxford's Dept. of Astrophysics) about the fragmentation of the Taurid-Arietid meteor stream and cometary core; there will be growing anxiety about ... the danger of ice ages resulting from a 'cometary winter' caused by the impact on the planet of Tunguska-scale bodies.'

In the event: this concern hardly achieved a high public prominence during the year, but it is spreading slowly: there was an international conference of more than 160 planetary scientists, astronomers and engineers in San Jaun Capistrano, California, on the dangers of near-Earth asteroids:

'Half the earth's population might die after an asteroid a mile across had collided'

David Morrison of Nasa's Ames Research Centre was reported in the Times as saying: 'we're talking about almost unbelievable widespread death and destruction.' Half the earth's population might die after an asteroid a mile across had collided and damaged the climate and farming, he said.

Dr Morrison said that such an asteroid hit the earth every 300,000 to one million years. The risk was greater than that of being killed by fireworks, tornados, volcanic eruptions, nuclear accidents or terrorism.

Astronomers want more early-warning telescopes like the American Spacewatch camera, at Kitt Peak, Arizona. Dr Bailey said that six of these telescopes, costing L250,000 to L500,000, should be placed at different longitudes and latitudes to observe asteroids and to measure their orbits accurately. This could give us years of warning, allowing us to take action, perhaps by blasting the incoming asteroid with nuclear explosives.

Predictions for the nineties

Of the longer-term predictions for the nineties published by the Institute in December '89 the following seem to have been on the right tracks:

- 'As for nationalism, 'you ain't seen nothing yet', with the prospect of a dozen Northern Irelands [in Eastern Europe and elsewhere] and a new role for NATO and the Warsaw Pact trying jointly to curb these outbreaks.'
- (An Institute prediction published in the Times in December '88:) 'In Eastern Europe there will be emerging confederations of small nations'
- 'There will be a rise in very right-wing anti-immigration movements in Europe.'
- 'Russia to follow the path of Eastern Europe towards democracy before the end of 1990, and to suffer the same upheavals.'

In the event: this forecast about Russia was premature by a few months.

The main predictions for the nineties which have not yet happened, but which the Institute stands by, include:

'Hong Kong will never be handed back to the Chinese. By the due date, China will itself have convulsed its way out of communism, and will allow Hong Kong and Tibet their independence'

- 'Hong Kong will never be handed back to the Chinese. By the due date, China will itself have convulsed its way out of communism, and will allow Hong Kong and Tibet their independence.'
- 'A collapse of the Common Market - unable to take the strains of accommodating Eastern Europe, the Tower of Babel at Brussels will collapse, with the EC at best remaining as a Commonwealth of Europe.'
- 'There will be further moves towards cantonising South Africa along Swiss lines, and this Swiss cantonisation model will begin to be adopted in Eastern Europe, as a way of tackling the problems of ethnic conflict.'
- 'There will be an independent Scotland and an independent Northern Ireland.'
- 'There will be an outbreak of nuclear or chemical terrorist blackmail against a European city' (with the dire consequences outlined in 'Social Inventions' Journal No. 19, page 8).
- 'Sell your Channel tunnel shares. The tunnel will not last ten years, given its vulnerability to terrorists, and its symbolic value to them.'

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