Conscious Choice: Possible Futures

December 1999

Possible Futures

The Best and the Brightest Contemplate the World as it Could Be

Shouts and murmurs about the millennium have worn thin, but there’s no denying the power of round numbers. Like most everyone else in the West we’ve been thinking about the future. Specifically, we’ve been asking ourselves and others what an ideal future might include. Here are some thoughts on the subject by friends and luminaries in their fields.

Bruce W. Boyd

Bruce W. Boyd is the Director of the Nature Conservancy of Illinois. He has had a lifelong interest in conservation and his work at the Conservancy has allowed him to use his skills in small business management while pursuing his interest in preserving the planet for future generations.

In addition to his work at the Conservancy, Boyd is Chairman of the Board of Sustain, Vice-Chair of Chicago Wilderness, and a member of the Board of Governors of Opportunity International, which creates jobs and alleviates poverty by making low interest loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world.

"On my blank slate I would etch peace and equity. And, I would etch respect for the planet. Unfortunately, modern man has shown little respect for the earth, this rare, perhaps unique, life giving system. We have sought to subjugate the planet, showing little concern for the impact of our actions on the health of our environment. The planet is telling us that it is not well, that we must change our ways. Are we listening? Can we change?

"I wish that it had not come to this. I wish that we had thrived as a species while understanding that our long-term health depended upon the health of the larger system on which all living creatures depend. I wish that we had valued wild, open spaces more than we had valued sprawling homes and fast cars. I hope that we can learn to live differently, that there is still time to change. If we change our ways, if we heal the earth, we will heal ourselves."

Jacky Grimshaw

Jacky Grimshaw is a longtime political and social activist who served as a key advisor in Harold Washington’s mayoral, state senatorial, and congressional campaigns. She joined the Washington Administration in 1984 as Deputy Director of the Mayor’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs; she became Director in 1985. Since her resignation in 1987, she has been a talk show host at WBEZ-FM Radio, a columnist for Crain’s Chicago Business and Deputy Treasurer for Economic Development for the City Treasurer. Currently, she is the coordinator of transportation and air quality programs for the Center for Neighborhood Technology.

Fair, equitable, just, and sustainable are the words Jacky Grimshaw uses to describe her ideal society. If she could recreate society, she says, the principles she would put in place would include an emphasis on mutual support (over individualism), conservation, and fairness. The goal of Grimshaw’s utopia is sustainability.

Paul Simon

Paul Simon is a professor at Southern Illinois University, where he teaches classes in political science and journalism. He joined S.I.U.’s faculty in 1997, just weeks after retiring from the U.S. Senate, where he was Illinois’ senior senator.

In his role as a senator, Simon wrote the National Literacy Act, the School-To-Work Opportunities Act, the Job Training Partnership Act amendments, several provision of the Goals 2000 Act, and the 1994 reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Legislation he initiated led to the designation of the first five federally chartered future, high-speed rail corridors, including the St. Louis-Chicago-Detroit-Milwaukee corridor.

A prolific writer, Simon has eighteen books to his credit on topics ranging from world hunger to the dollar crisis. He also is the founder and director of the Public Policy Institute at the Carbondale campus, which promises to "find new ways of solving some very old problems."

"My vision of the‘ideal society’ is not one that doesn’t have police or jails or problems. That would be dreaming. But I would like to see a society where opportunity is here for everyone. I’m embarrassed by the fact that the United States leads all the industrial nations by a huge margin in the percentage of our children who live in poverty. And an ideal society would be concerned about events in other countries and respond to them quickly before they evolved into the kind of tragedies we have seen in Rwanda and Kosovo.

"These are not unrealistic hopes. They do require leadership that is willing to do more than pander to us.

"And for those who view this as‘pie in the sky,’ we should remember that at one point slavery was common throughout the world and there were those who said you can never eliminate slavery. For all practical purposes, with the exception of a small pocket of slavery in Sudan, humanity has moved ahead.

"We can continue to move ahead."

Charlie Trotter

Charlie Trotter is a world-renowned chef and the author of six cookbooks. His new cooking show, The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter, airs nationally on PBS, and his namesake restaurant has established itself as one of the finest restaurants in the world.

Naturally raised meats, game birds, organic fruits and vegetables form the heart of Trotter’s cooking. Small independent farmers from around the country provide the balance of his ingredients.

In addition to his culinary work, Trotter also is involved with a variety of charitable organizations, including the American Cancer Society, Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, Make-A-Wish Foundation and Providence St. Mel High School. Trotter is a Trustee of the James Beard Foundation and serves on the Kennedy-King College Culinary Advisory Board.

"In my perfect world, sustainable agriculture would be the norm rather than the exception. Through continual education and dialogue, consumers would learn what goes into their food and come to realize that even organic pesticides can disturb the ecology surrounding the farm and must be used wisely to feed the population yet save the ecological dynamic surrounding us. Farmers, culinarians, scientists, and parents would all come together to continually improve the way that we treat our food, our bodies, and our environment.

"Culinary education would begin in elementary schools. In addition to art and music, the culinary arts would be a mainstay in children’s learning. It has been shown through various programs that children will eat foods that their parents would never imagine feeding them if they first experience the food through cooking it themselves. Once kids have the opportunity to feel, smell, and observe the food cooking, they would make more nutritious choices in the cafeterias.

"The cultures of the world would be investigated through the medium of food in conjunction with a regular course of study. Similarly, chefs and restaurateurs from around the world would come together to share ideas. Culinary exchange would bring chefs to other cultures to experience food firsthand."

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