Page 20 RAIN June 1981 ACCESS FUTURES --- ~ -- --- -~- - Environmental Education Report, "Futures" (Jan. 1981) and "Renewable Energy" (March 1981), $2.50 each from: Center for Environmental Education, Inc. Suite 206 1925 K Street, NW Washington, DC 20006 Interested in following up on the Glohal 2000 Report? (See RAIN Nov. '80.) If so, you'll be pleased to know about EER's issue on " Futures." It features a variety of articles and reviews on Global 2000 . including an interview with Dr. Gerald O. Barney, the government's man behind the report. There are also two pages of educational resources that should be helpful to teachers and others trying to convey the impact of Global 2000 to children and students. EER's " Renewable Energy" issue shouJd also be a welcome aid to educators focusing on energy issues. MR The Book of Predictions by David Wallechinsky, Amy Wallace and Irving Wallace, 1981, 520 pp., $12.95 from: William Morrow and Company 105 Madison Ave. New York, NY 10016 1985: Most family homes havl! installed flushless toilets that com post wastes. (One brand of toilet uses a sound track that makes a flushzng noise whenever the toilet lever is pressed, even though no water is used in the system.) 2000: Computer printol~ t terminals in every neighborhood will publish and bind any book you request right before your eyes. 2010: A robot can now cross a busy high way without being hit. 2030: Spacekind issues a Declaratio11 of Indeplmdence from Earthkind. What do Karl Hess, Timothy Leary, Lane deMoU, Andrei Sakharov, Shere Hite, Robert Rodale, F. Lee Bailey, Isaac Asimov, Amory and Hunter Lovins, Helen Gurley Brown, and Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder, to name a few, have in common? Well, according to The Book, they're all "predictors. " The Book contains their predictions on outer space, wars and disasters, home and family, heaJth, income, science and transportation, leisure, famous people, and just about anything else you can think of. Many of the contributions are truly fascinating. Taken as a whole, however. The Book offers little more than an incoherent mishmash of some 4000 predictJons. There is no unifying methodology, no coh sion to speak of. While some senous futurists are included in its pages, the end result is a book that sits comfortably on your coffee table, though probably not on your reference shelf. One section of Th e Book appeals directly to skeptics-those who twenty years ago would have been hard to convince that portable computers, videotape machines, microwave ovens, bu th-conrrol pills, heart and kidney transplants. moonwalks, or a U.S. President who would resign from office were plausible developments in the next two decades. Perhaps most amaZing in this regard is the story of the Frencb-born prophet Nostradamus who, when he died in 1566, secretly arranged to have a metal plaque buned with him. When his grave was opened in 1700 the plaque was found lying on his skeleton. On it . was inscribed the date 1700. - MR Dreams's Edge: Science Fiction Stories About the Future of Planet Earth, Edited by Terry Carr, 1980, 314pp., $5.95 from: Sierra Club Books 530 Bush St. San Francisco, CA 94108 Dream's Edge is a Science Fiction fan's delight and it will be appreciated by everyone with an interest in our future. One might wonder, " Why a Science Fiction book discussed in RAIN 7" I found it strange when I first glanced through this collection that it is published by Sierra club Books. As one begins to read, however, no mystery remains. Terry Carr has assembled twenty well written Science Fiction stories which all deal with the near future. Sci-Fi has always discussed "what might be" but rarely have I come across any mention, let alone a collection, of avenues for reaching the future. The first selection, The Green Marauder (Larry Niven) sets the stage for the collection by putting our concept of time in perspective. Then Frank M. Robinson's East Wind, West Wind demonstrates that not all future scenarios are livable. Terry Carr rounds out the anthology with Virra, a haunting story of cognizant love in the final years of Sol's life giving energy. It gives me pleasure as a reader to find so many new authors mixed in with Poul Anderson, Ursula K. Le Guin and other Sci-Fi masters. This is not a Science Fiction book which seems "unbelievable or implausible." Its issues are our issues, its future is now. - Dante Gilman . Robot washing car before being allowed to go out and play.
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