Alvin Toffler - Future Shock

Most important, increased reliance on the oceans for food will alter the nutrition of millions – a change that, itself, carries significant unknowns in its wake. What happens to the energy level of people, to their desire for achievement, not to speak of their biochemistry, their average height and weight, their rate of maturation, their life span, their characteristic diseases, even their psychological responses, when their society shifts from a reliance on agri– to aquaculture?

The opening of the sea may also bring with it a new frontier spirit – a way of life that offers adventure, danger, quick riches or fame to the initial explorers. Later, as man begins to colonize the continental shelves, and perhaps even the deeper reaches, the pioneers may well be followed by settlers who build artificial cities beneath the waves – work cities, science cities, medical cities, and play cities, complete with hospitals, hotels and homes.

If all this sounds too far off, it is sobering to note that Dr. Walter L. Robb, a scientist at General Electric, has already kept a hamster alive under water by enclosing it in a box that is, in effect, an artificial gill – a synthetic membrane that extracts air from the surrounding water while keeping the water out. Such membranes formed the top, bottom and two sides of a box in which the hamster was submerged in water. Without the gill, the animal would have suffocated. With it, it was able to breathe under water. Such membranes, G.E. claims, may some day furnish air for the occupants of underwater experimental stations. They might eventually be built into the walls of undersea apartment houses, hotels and other structures, or even – who knows? – into the human body itself.

Indeed, the old science fiction speculations about men with surgically implanted gills no longer seem quite so impossibly far-fetched as they once did. We may create (perhaps even breed) specialists for ocean work, men and women who are not only mentally, but physically equipped for work, play, love and sex under the sea. Even if we do not resort to such dramatic measures in our haste to conquer the underwater frontier, it seems likely that the opening of the oceans will generate not merely new professional specialties, but new life styles, new ocean-oriented subcultures, and perhaps even new religious sects or mystical cults to celebrate the seas.

One need not push speculation so far, however, to recognize that the novel environments to which man will be exposed will, of necessity, bring with them altered perceptions, new sensations, new sensitivities to color and form, new ways of thinking and feeling. Moreover, the invasion of the sea, the first wave of which we shall witness long before the arrival of A.D. 2000, is only one of a series of closely tied scientific-technological trends that are now racing forward – all of them crammed with novel social and psychological implications.

The conquest of the oceans links up directly with the advance toward accurate weather prediction and, ultimately, climate control. What we call weather is largely a consequence of the interaction of sun, air and ocean. By monitoring ocean currents, salinity and other factors, by placing weather-watch satellites in the skies, we will greatly increase our ability to forecast weather accurately. According to Dr. Walter Orr Roberts, past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, "We foresee bringing the entire globe under continuous weather observation by the mid-1970's – and at reasonable cost. And we envision, from this, vastly improved forecasting of storms, freezes, droughts, smog episodes – with attendant opportunities to avert disaster. But we can also see lurking in the beyond-knowledge of today an awesome potential weapon of war – the deliberate manipulation of weather for the benefit of the few and the powerful, to the detriment of the enemy, and perhaps of the bystanders as well."

In a science fiction story entitled The Weather Man, Theodore L. Thomas depicts a world in which the central political institution is a "Weather Council." In it, representatives of the various nations hammer out weather policy and control peoples by adjusting climate, imposing a drought here or a storm there to enforce their edicts. We may still be a long way from having such carefully calibrated control. But there is no question that the day is past when man simply had to take whatever heaven deigned to give in the way of weather. In the blunt words of the American Meteorological Society: "Weather modification today is a reality."

This represents one of the turning points in history and provides man with a weapon that could radically affect agriculture, transportation, communication, recreation. Unless wielded with extreme care, however, the gift of weather control can prove man's undoing. The earth's weather system is an integrated whole; a minute change at one point can touch off massive consequences elsewhere. Even without aggressive intent, there is danger that attempts to control a drought on one continent could trigger a tornado on another.

Moreover, the unknown socio-psychological consequences of weather manipulation could be enormous. Millions of us, for example, hunger for sunshine, as our mass migrations to Florida, California or the Mediterranean coast indicate. We may well be able to produce sunshine – or a facsimile of it – at will. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is studying the concept of a giant orbiting space mirror capable of reflecting the sun's light downward on night-shrouded parts of the earth. A NASA official, George E. Mueller, has testified before Congress that the United States will have the capacity to launch huge sunreflecting satellites by mid-1970. (By extension, it should not be impossible to loft satellites that would block out sunlight over preselected regions, plunging them into at least semidarkness.)

The present natural light-dark cycle is tied to human biological rhythms in ways that are, as yet, unexplored. One can easily imagine the use of orbiting sun-mirrors to alter the hours of light for agricultural, industrial or even psychological reasons. For example, the introduction of longer days into Scandinavia could have a strong influence on the culture and personality types now characteristic of that region. To put the matter only half-facetiously, what happens to Ingmar Bergman's brooding art when Stockholm's brooding darkness is lifted? Could The Seventh Seal or Winter Light have been conceived in another climate?

The increasing ability to alter weather, the development of new energy sources, new materials (some of them almost surrealistic in their properties), new transportation means, new foods (not only from the sea, but from huge hydroponic food-growing factories) – all these only begin to hint at the nature of the accelerating changes that lie ahead.

In War With the Newts, Karel Capek's marvelous but little-known novel, man brings about the destruction of civilization through his attempt to domesticate a variety of salamander. Today, among other things, man is learning to exploit animals and fish in ways that would have made Capek smile wryly. Trained pigeons are used to identify and eliminate defective pills from drug factory assembly lines. In the Ukraine, Soviet scientists employ a particular species of fish to clear the algae off the filters in pumping stations. Dolphins have been trained to carry tools to "aquanauts" submerged off the coast of California, and to ward off sharks who approach the work zone. Others have been trained to ram submerged mines, thereby detonating them and committing suicide on man's behalf – a use that provoked a slight furor over inter-species ethics.

Research into communication between man and the dolphin may prove to be extremely useful if, and when, man makes contact with extra-terrestrial life – a possibility that many reputable astronomers regard as almost inevitable. In the meantime, dolphin research is yielding new data on the ways in which man's sensory apparatus differs from that of other animals. It suggests some of the outer limits within which the human organism operates – feelings, moods, perceptions not available to man because of his own biological make-up can be at least analyzed or described.