The New Year brings us three years closer to the turn of the century, an event that could, according to extremist views, trigger Armageddon or mark the felicitous dawning of the Age of Aquarius. Gerald Celente, founder of the Trends Research Institute, a trend-tracking consortium based in Rhineback, N.Y., embraces neither extreme, but he does predict bleak and perilous times that eventually will give way to a global renaissance as the 21st Century unfolds.
The Trends Research Institute, which Celente founded in 1980, is a network of 25 experts–scholars, artists, scientists, writers and business people with experience in many fields.
They study and analyze information, largely from major newspapers, trade publications, specialized and popular journals, tracking several hundred separately defined trends each day.
“No trend exists in isolation,”Celente says. “Opportunity misses those who view the world only through the eyes of their own profession. The key to our system is making connections between seemingly unrelated fields.”
The Trends Research Institute forecast the 1987 stock market crash. It warned of a civil war in the Balkans and in the former Soviet Union and the downsizing of the middle class and the growing disparity between the incomes of rich and poor. It also predicted the green revolution in marketing and the boom in gourmet coffee (at the time when Dunkin’ Donuts was regarded as the quality standard).
Inevitably there have been misses, notably Bill Clinton’s election to the presidency in 1992 and the economic recovery that followed.
In his new book, “Trends 2000″(Warner Books), Celente predicts imminent nuclear calamity, either an accident in Russia or a terrorist act that “will spark a very, very strong outcry from the world public to dismantle nuclear power plants and research facilities.”
The quality of life will be threatened not only by nuclear contamination but also by accelerating damage to the environment.
Celente, speaking on the phone from Rhinebeck, foresees a “series of plagues that are going to sweep through parts of the world and are going to take their toll of people’s immune systems, sort of an environmental AIDS brought about by pollution, the food supply, the stresses of life.
“It’s not going to be democratic like the plagues of old. It’s going to hit the weakest: the elderly, the young and those people in the worst shape.”
Health concerns, he says, will become the top priority, and a health-fitness-nutrition trend will move into high gear.
Aging Baby Boomers, who “previewed” the illnesses and deaths of their elders, will flock to longevity centers devoted to boosting immune systems and lengthening healthy life.
“The longevity center business is going to be a big booming business,” Celente says. “It’s where people are going to go for sabbaticals, for extended vacations, to recover and to learn how to take care of themselves.”
Health crises and continuing food scares (salmonella and E. coli outbreaks, tainted fruit) will create a demand for “clean food”–hormone-free dairy products, poultry and meat without antibiotics, organically grown produce, uncontaminated by unsanitary processing and shipping. Microfarms, similar to microbreweries, will spring up in exurban areas to fill these needs. Suburban lawns will give way to vegetable gardens as Americans grow their own produce.
Celente says that health food stores will “turn pro” to provide clean food and informed advice, and that vitamin counseling will become a booming new health specialty.
A simpler way of life
While vitamin counselors may prosper, many Americans will continue to face the prospects of stagnant wages, low-paying jobs and job insecurity as corporations continue to export jobs overseas. The standard of living will continue to decline.
But, according to Celente, it won’t be all bad, as more people–involuntarily at first and then enthusiastically–embrace “voluntary simplicity,” a values and lifestyle change that rejects consumerism and favors quality of life over quantity of possessions.
“Anti-materialism is going to be very much in vogue because overconsumption will be looked upon as wasteful, unnecessary and unfulfilling,” Celente says. “Young people are not going to be able to buy (things) the way their parents did, so they’re going to be very anti-materialistic.”
Colleges will be priced out of the range of the middle class. As enrollments plummet, colleges and universities will downsize and some may even close. But interactive, on-line learning and some sort of videophone technology will revolutionize education, Celente says, allowing students to be schooled at home yet have access to the best and brightest teachers.
In general, Celente views the changes leading into the 21st Century as the last gasps of the Industrial Age and its antiquated institutions.
“We look at the judicial system, the political system, the educational system and even traditional religions and the family, and there’s a breakdown in systems,” he says.
“These systems and many of these institutions were developed during the Industrial Age and that age is coming to an end. Future historians will look upon the Industrial Age as the dark age of modern times.
“It’s a time when economic needs are put before human needs, machinery before people, and even now high technological advancement before human development.”
Still, Celente predicts that a combination of corporate downsizing, home offices and interactive technology will result in the creation of post-industrial communities in rural areas.
“We’re going to see a redevelopment of communities that are going to be lively, thriving, democratic places,” Celente says. “We use the term `technotribe’ because technology is allowing it to happen.
“Communities right now are weak and fragmented, and technology is going to be the glue that brings them together. There’s nothing new about people working in or near their homes. It was only during the Industrial Revolution that we were yanked out of them and put into central locations.”
Domino effect
As Celente himself often says, everything is connected, and this move to the countryside will free up time for family life and result in more families opting to school their children at home. Because fewer people will be commuting, roads will be less congested and air pollution lessened. People will dress casually and the fashion industry as we now know it will die out. So will shopping malls as more Americans buy direct from manufacturers or distributors via computer.
Housing, according to Celente, will become less affordable, and “with people’s income declining, both young and old are going to be forced to live together in more extended circumstances than we did during the nuclear-family era.
“We’re going to see co-housing (with commune-style shared amenities and shared responsibilities), boarding houses and shared housing, where unrelated people buy a house and live together because it’s affordable and practical.”
Consequently, Baby Boomers and Generation X-ers will be thrown together and will discover common ground.
“The differences between Boomers and Generation Xers are really a matter of age rather than ideology,” Celente says. “There isn’t the psychological ocean that separated Boomers and their parents. Boomers and Xers have the same social agenda as far as the environment, being anti-establishment. Many of them even listen to the same music. The Doors and the Beatles are still popular.”
Solidarity between generations will reinvigorate the environmental movement and will result in a “super segment” that marketers will court.
While the New Age movement has been losing steam, Celente says there will be a new spiritual revival tied to a feeling of “connection with the planet and the inter-relationship that people have and the responsibilities they have for all living things.”
Celente predicts that an energy revolution will radically transform the world.
“It’s only going to be a matter of time before a clean, free energy source emerges,” he says. “It’s either going to happen through solar (energy) or any kind of photo-voltaic cells. Even possibly cold fusion, which has been widely dismissed and we’re aware of that, but the fact is that it works.
“The grip that the chemical and petroleum industries have on energy will not last forever. When that changes, that is when the big revolution and the renaissance will really take hold because it will free up an enormous amount of capital for the individual, for industry and for nations.”
This global renaissance, he says, will return art to the status it enjoyed during the first Renaissance and will result in new technology being combined with old values to rehumanize all aspects of life.
“There’s a very optimistic and bright future ahead,” Celente insists. “The darkest days are just before dawn.”
HEADLINES FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
– Consumerism in decline
Fashion industry collapses as casual dress becomes the norm
– Hug that tree
Ecotourism, to destinations close to home, will be the fastest-growing segment in the travel industry, fueled by Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and their children.
– Marcus Welby returns
As community solidarity increases, doctors will begin making house calls as in days of yore.
– Computer possibilities
The interactive, on-line learning trend will result in a demand for software, hardware and services and provide opportunities for teachers, artists and scholars.
– Lock those doors
Security and safety-oriented businesses and services will boom in the next two decades to cope with crime generated by some members of the underclass and immigrant populations.
– Universities close down
Soaring tuitions cause enrollments to plummet, sparking widespread protests about the gap between the poor and rich.
