It’s ironic, but my occupation these days is a lot to do with forecasting. So one might be forgiven for thinking this topic fits like a glove. Not by a long shot. My field is somewhat technical and quantitative, usually involving uni-variate time series, occasionally bi-variate or even multi-variate. Of autoregression and seasonality; having bemused most of my readers, I must make urgent amends.

About forecasting scenarios for the world, I’m jittery. I have been quite poor at forecasting (as most people are) what could happen in my own industry, let alone the world. But I have a card up my sleeve: There is a golden rule of forecasting, called, rather immodestly Srinivas’ golden rule of forecasting: You will be wrong. The point is: even if you are omniscient, an enormous ‘if’, you still have to resolve, and foretell the resolutions of observed contradictions at various scales.

So, bravely – as Sir Humphrey Appleby would have observed – here are the forecasts:

Sunny: The human race will be extinct, suddenly. Good for the world, not so much for homo sapiens, ho hum….. humans being collateral damage.

Rainy: We will continue doing all of what we are doing, only at a larger more intense scale: Polluting, bickering, consuming, wasting etc….

Cloudy: We will all be tired of the current excesses, and ease off by moderating our behaviour. Hmmmm…. this seems far- fetched, but maybe, (esp due to the reign of Srinivas’ golden rule of forecasting) just maybe, this is the outcome on the cards. On this happy note I sign off.

I’m late this time in posting, so have glanced through the other posts….. the Friday bloggers have a more sombre, less devil-may-care perspective: Sanjana, Padmum,  Raju, Maria, Shackman , Ramana and Conrad. Enjoy, if you may, laugh if you wish, but remember Srinivas’ golden rule of forecasting.

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