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Homework answers / question archive / This article will introduce you to the concept of scenario planning
This article will introduce you to the concept of scenario planning.
? Develop three scenario overviews relating to global population growth -- one disastrous, one hopeful, and one complete wildcard (the reading will explain about wildcards).
Cite the environmental impacts of each scenario. Be creative. Be brief, but provide enough detail so that your scenarios represent well-thought-out future possibilities
Project Assignment
Select one area that you believe is of serious concern to the United States and to the welfare of this and future generations. The areas to be considered are:
1 Energy usage (electricity)
2 Water usage
3 Solid Waste
4 Hazardous Materials Generation (chemical cleaners, personal care products, lawn/car care products)
5 General Consumption (food, material goods, gasoline)
6 Forest
Project Assignment
As mentioned in the lesson, issues as widespread, long-term, and "invisible" as global air pollution are sometimes hard for the public to understand on a personal-impact level. As a specialist with the EPA, you are working to increase public awareness on air pollution. The best way to increase public awareness is through television advertising.
Your team will assume the role of an advertising team whose task it is to create a fifteen- to thirty-second television "spot" (advertisement) as a means of increasing public awareness on one of the three air pollution issues explored in this lesson. Be creative and have fun with this.
a. Write final script
b. Describe or create the graphics
c. Review and edit
d. Create the final document.
e. Submit final graphic.
Present your ad as a storyboard, the scripted language aligned with a description of the graphic images it corresponds to.
For example: The ad might open with the spoken statement, "We have only one Earth" in a child's voice, and on the screen would be a child's drawing of the Earth. The storyboard would show this scripted language alongside a sketch or description of the on-screen graphic. The storyboard would depict the flow of spoken words and on-screen graphics in this way. Or, if you'd like to go one step further, create your spot as a PowerPoint presentation.
Project Assignment
So far, you have tackled assignments on existing issues of air pollution, global warming, and population explosion. For this particular assignment, you have to design a hypothetical sustainable community and develop an overview of its sustainable systems involving any two of the following elements:
1. Transportation
2. Water/sewage
3. Energy
4. Solid waste
5. Residential/commercial building
6. Food production/distribution
Describe how each sustainable element works as a "closed loop" system and how the elements interact with one another. Include any relevant technological, economic, political, or social forces that support and enable each system.
For example, when designing an overview for water, you could consider the following questions:
• Where does the community's water come from and what happens to it following its use?
• What technology is involved in making the water system sustainable?
• What social behaviors are required, either voluntarily or by regulation, to make this system work?
The primary things you should note about the article are the "predetermined elements" and the "critical uncertainties." Make sure you understand these concepts. Predetermined elements are things that we can take as given, such as the low birth rates of developed nations. These are unlikely to rise in the foreseeable future. Critical uncertainties are things that we can't know, due to the unpredictable nature of reality, but will have dramatic effects on the outcome of the scenario. In this case, we could consider the high birth rates of undeveloped nations, and the technology related to food production as critical uncertainties. Wild cards aren't really adequately described in this article. These are generally thought of as lower-probability, high-consequence events. While a set of scenarios could be constructed to capture perhaps 95 or 99 percent of the range of outcomes, wild cards are the important extremes that lie beyond that.
Now it is a simple matter to envision the worst case scenario. Simply set all the negative critical uncertainties to the highest possible levels, and all the positive ones to the lowest. For example, the birth rate of underdeveloped nations depends vitally on changing traditional views on patriarchy - the need for one or more sons often compels families to have more children than they would otherwise. Assume that the government is unable to change this view. Also assume that the new technologies we are banking on all fail - for example genetically modified food crops. It is hoped that these crops will be resistant to pests, saving farmers money on pesticides. However, in some cases, these crops have simply attracted different pests. Then the farmers end up spending more, because the seeds for GM crops cost more. Child poverty and lack of educational opportunities are also positively correlated with high birth rates.
Now for a positive scenario, envision the opposite case for each wild card. Your wild card scenario would then be something really unlikely, but radical. Maybe something involving global warming as well as the other factors mentioned. (The more people we have, the more carbon dioxide will be produced.) Maybe we can start colonizing space. Let your imagination be your guide. A complete scenario will also include the consequences of the population growth, such as mass starvation for the worst case scenario.
