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Reviewing Futures: The Shell Energy Scenarios to 2050

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Reviewing Futures: The Shell Energy Scenarios to 2050

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Reviewing Futures: The Shell Energy Scenarios to 2050

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Published on January 30, 2012

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Science fiction has a cousin—another genre of stories set in the future. Governments, corporations and militaries worldwide use scenarios and scenario fictions to explore strategic alternatives. They aren’t trying to predict the future—that’s impossible. What they’re trying to do is build resilience into their planning process. One of the most famous of these ongoing foresight efforts belongs to Shell, which most famously used scenario-based planning to ride out the energy crisis of 1979 and come out far ahead of its competitors.

Scenarios aren’t exactly stories; they’re more like the pile of raw material that you put together to make a story. They are foreseen settings, situations, trends and possibilities. The lines between scenario and story can blur, though, particularly when scenario findings are presented as fiction, as I’ve done, with, eg. my work for the Canadian army in Crisis in Zefra. In the interest of blurring these lines even more, I thought I’d write a few reviews of current and famous past scenarios. In doing so I’m looking to tease out the meta-narratives of our age—the scenarios we all subconsciously use to construct our own visions of the future. These aren’t the specific narratives of the future we find in works like Frankenstein or 1984; they’re the grand themes of fear and aspiration which we find lurking behind words like Progress and Apocalypse.

In the case of the Shell Energy Scenarios to 2050, the word (acryonym, actually) is TANIA: There Are No Ideal Answers, and the grand theme it points to is… well, I’ll get to that.

TANIA is the 2008 revision of Shell’s strategic message from the 1990s, which was TINA (There Is No Alternative). TINA referred to the decarbonized, energy-efficient future without which we’ll all collectively choke. Already, though, the report is wallowing in irony: if Shell really believes TINA, then there should be massive investment happening in technologies like carbon-capture and sequestration. Yet currently we stagger forward with only a couple of pilot-plants operating world-wide, and a global investment in technologies like carbon air capture that are in the millions, rather than the billions that companies like Shell are capable of.

To its credit, the Scenarios to 2050 document doesn’t shy away from these ironies. It presents two scenarios, Scramble and Blueprints:

Will national governments simply Scramble to secure their own energy supplies? Or will new Blueprints emerge from coalitions between various levels of societies and government, ranging from the local to the international, that begin to add up to a new energy framework?

In Scramble, countries are too worried about energy security to give much thought to long-term trends, including those who know how to invest in Bitcoin UK trends. Quick returns on investment—as with China’s continued foray into coal-powered electricity—trump sustainability at every turn. Nations jockey for control over these resources producing a realm of haves and have nots—and short-term prosperity for the haves—but when they do inevitably become scarcer everybody who’s bet on them is left in a severe energy crisis. Similarly, nobody pays much attention to green technologies until there are major climate shocks. Shell optimistically predicts that this dire situation can’t continue forever—but in Scramble, it does for long enough to guarantee a prolonged economic slump out past 2020.

In Blueprints, organizations and countries find ways to profit by going green, and a slowly-building momentum pushes the world in the direction of radical decarbonization. This push is not motivated by altruism, but by a parallel set of interests: both climate and economic concerns demand greater energy efficiency and a shift from outmoded technologies. Cities and regions take the lead in this scenario, and provide the safe-haven necessary for capital to flow into sustainable investments. Growth is continuous in Blueprints, despite the U.S. using 33% less energy by 2055.

Scenarios to 2050 was published in 2008; four years later, after the failure of several key climate change conferences, it looks like Scramble is the scenario that’s coming true. Appearances can be deceptive, though, and knowing which will of these stories ‘comes true’ isn’t what this exercise is about, as you’ll see below. If companies like Shell have been aware of TINA since the 1990s, they’ve had lots of time to lay the groundwork for weathering massive disruptive change; that’s what scenario documents like this are for, and Scenarios to 2050 is only one of many such planning documents that now exist. Governments, multinationals, and citizens have all in fact been making plans for a decarbonized future for a very long time; the problem is, we’re all waiting for the other guy to blink first. The poor countries are waiting for the rich countries, China’s waiting for America, America’s waiting to see whether Germany and Denmark’s flirtations with renewables end in wedding bells or failure.

How to Read Scenarios

Scramble and Blueprints pretend to be two alternate futures. If scenarios were about prediction, then our next step would be to argue over which one is actually going to play out. Instead, scenarios are about building resilience into our current institutions and practices. Scramble and Blueprints don’t actually describe two futures, but two aspects of the one future we’re hurtling towards. The way I usually put it is that all futures come true, just not in equal measure. What this means in this case is that Shell hasn’t decided that Scramble is ‘true’ and Blueprints isn’t, or vice versa. These two narratives provide the two walls of a planning arena, allowing the company to design all manner of strategies—and the best strategies will be ones that would profit Shell in either scenario.

What I said above, that everybody’s waiting for the other guy to blink first, can be seen in the Blueprints scenario’s fantasy that cities and regions will act first, allowing corporations to follow. That idea reveals the true meta-narrative—the  ‘grand theme’ I talked about at the top—that Shell and so many other players are building their thinking around today.  That theme is this:

When somebody decides to lead, we’ll be ready to follow.

Everybody’s poised, everybody’s got their plans in place. The only problem is that the corporate world is waiting for governments to lead, and governments are waiting for the corporations to do it. In Blueprints, Shell recognizes the impasse and looks longingly at cities and regions as possible leaders; but there’s really no getting around the fact that waiting for the other guy to move first is a bad idea. Ultimately, Nixon had to go to China.

If Shell really stands behind the conclusions of the Energy Scenarios to 2050, then they are going to have to be willing to blink first.


Karl Schroeder has published many novels through Tor Books. He divides his time between writing science fiction and consulting in the area of technology foresight. He is currently finishing a Masters degree in Strategic Foresight and Innovation. Karl lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter, and a small menagerie.

About the Author

Karl Schroeder

Author

Author of nine novels, including New York Times Notable book "Ventus", Aurora-Award winning "Permanence," and the acclaimed Virga series. Now out: "Ashes of Candesce," the climactic resolution of the storyline begun in "The Sunless Countries." Apart from writing, I'm also a professional futurist, and have recently completed my Masters degree in Strategic Foresight at OCAD University in Toronto. I'm available for public speaking, workshops, and foresight consulting. For more information about me and my work, visit my website at www.kschroeder.com. Canadian Karl Schroeder is the author of Ventus, Permanence, Lady of Mazes, and the Virga Series. Canadian Karl Schroeder is the author of Ventus, Permanence, Lady of Mazes, and the Virga Series.
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7 years ago

Clothes made in that period and earlier were made considerably better than today, as well, with strong fabric and stitching.  Clothes were passed down generations during the time when styles didn’t change or didn’t matter.  Good luck ripping free armpits or bodices, for that matter.  

On the big Arrowverse crossover a few weeks ago, the first big fight scene was at a wedding.  The first thing the women who fought without superpowers did was rip their skirts up to their thighs so they could kick butt with ease.  For your viewing pleasure.  

https://youtu.be/RpNH0eA0TIM

 

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LordVorless
7 years ago

For people wanting to go all out...

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7 years ago

We should also keep in mind that clothes in those days were individually tailored. A lady who expected to get into situations needing more mobility than usual could have her dresses modified to give it to her.

Marie Brennan
7 years ago

 : Clothes were passed down generations during the time when styles didn’t change or didn’t matter.

I wouldn’t go that far — at least, not in the sense of clothes lasting for decades. Styles changed more slowly then than they do now, but they did still change; clothing that was ten years old could definitely look out of date. The average mass of people wasn’t rich enough to worry about that, but the average mass of people also didn’t tend to wear clothing that was hugely restrictive of movement, because they had to work for a living. And things still became stained, ripped, threadbare, etc. — so what often ended up happening was that clothing got taken apart and recycled, with the usable bits becoming decoration for a new item or a smaller garment for a kid (in that sense of “passed down generations”) or eventually just a rag.

But you’re definitely right that stuff back then (at least if the fabric wasn’t threadbare) was often sturdier, for the simple reason that really delicate fabrics are much more expensive and difficult to make, and also that hand-stitching is substantially more robust than machine-stitching, just by dint of how the thread is worked. I bet you could still split seams at least some of the time — or if not that, pop a button/rip out a pin/snap the point tying your garments together — but you’re right that it might not be easy.

 

— Yep, there are ways around the issue. It’s just that we don’t tend to think too much about where that might be necessary, or we assume the wrong things were the problem!

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7 years ago

I was thinking about a pair of Doctor’s daughters cited in a book on Victorian life. These girls led an active social life and loved fashionable clothes, which they sewed for themselves, and while they wore corsets they removed all the boning. That’s the only modification they apparently made but they were certainly in a position to do more.

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7 years ago

@1, so,re the video, evil twin or mirror universe? 

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7 years ago

I’m no clothing expert, but before Victorian times, many men would routinely be carrying swords, the personal defense weapon of choice before metal cartridges for firearms, and would have some training in their use.  I would think that, at least until the 19th Century, the clothing made for significant upper class men would be designed around this.  Later, there was not that much difference between military uniforms and civilian clothing, and military and naval officers would have been expected to wield swords. 

In other words, upper-class men’s clothing, at least to the reign of George III in Britain, would be designed for combat, just not unarmed combat. 

krad
7 years ago

Reposting what I said the last time this was posted:

 

As a black belt in an Okinawan karate style, I find this fascinating. Plus I love watching people perform kata. Thank you so much for sharing this.

I’m not actually surprised that the sleeves are more of an issue. The skirt, as you said, actually provides a certain freedom of movement, though as you also said, lowering your leg is more the problem. And you’re supposed to keep your back straight during kata, generally, and the corset actually helps with that. (Though I can think of a couple of moves in a few katas that would so totally not work with a corset even a little bit.) 

But the sleeves? Yeah. I roll them up in class regardless of weather, and I don’t know how my fellow karateka manage to train in long sleeves. *laughs*

—Keith R.A. DeCandido, sandan (third-degree black belt), Kenshikai Karate-Do Organization

 

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7 years ago

 Passing down of clothes was much more common before the Victorian period. 

@@@@@ 6.  The TV Arrowverse (ARROW, THE FLASH, SUPERGIRL, and LEGENDS OF TOMORROW) has multiple universes which are similar to the point of having the same people in each.  In the crossover event our Earth is invaded by Earth-X where the Nazis won WWII.  Most of the characters have an evil Nazi “twin.”  Yeah, it’s silly but a lot of fun.  

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7 years ago

 @9, that’s what I thought. Multiple universes are why I have problems with comic books. I thought I could handle complexity but Damm!

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