The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been making headlines for the past few weeks. I have been thinking of writing about this for some time, and it has now dawned on me that this issue is a perfect opportunity to invoke one of the very best analytical methods of Futures Studies. Futurists like me are not merely interested in predicting the future. In fact many of us have little or no interest in prediction. Above all, futurists also like to analyse futures, and because the future does not exist yet, the best way to do this is by taking a deep look at the major issues that are effecting the world now. The oil spill is a perfect opportunity to introduce one powerful method by my favourite futurist, Sohail Inayatullah (www.metafuture.org).
Now, I admit I am slightly biased here. Sohail was the supervisor for my doctoral thesis, which I did through the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia. Sohail has worked with numerous governments across the world with a process called Causal layered Analysis, or CLA.
CLA is very simple. It involves taking an issue and breaking it down into four levels. These are the litany, the social/system, the worldview/paradigm, and the myth/metaphor levels. When I use the process, I add a fifth level, the Consciousness Level. This is because I feel that the deeper workings of the human mind and the spiritual context of our lives requires a level all on its own. This obviously reflects my own interests as a person and a researcher, and my personal biases come into play at that level.
Taking a look at the Louisiana oil spill using Causal Layered Analysis, some very interesting things emerge.
