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3.	SD Scenario-Building
	Everyone knows theory is one thing and practice is another. Now there may be a way of bringing the two closer together thanks to new simulation models that help people explore 'alternative futures'. Each model allows users to predict the impacts of different policy choices, given a basic set of assumptions about how the world works. The invention of computers has boosted this scenario-building activity enormously, providing the capacity needed to process massive amounts of information quickly and reliably. Computer models have, for instance, been developed to simulate the national budget in US classrooms. They have also been used by the Vancouver-based Sustainable Development Research Institute to create community-level SD models, as well as ‘back-casting’ tools which allow users to decide on a desired end state and build backwards to determine what shape their decisions need to take. Even more ambitious models offer tools for the SD planning of entire nations. The Millenium Institute's Threshold 21 National Sustainable Development model, for example, uses over one thousand equations to link fifteen sectors, from energy to trade to technology. Another model called TARGETS (Tools to Assess Regional and Global Environmental and Health Targets for Sustainability), from the Dutch National Institute of Public Health and the Environment (RIVM), was recently used by the United Nations Environment Program to generate different perspectives on global change for its new biannual publication, the Global Environmental Outlook or GEO (see LitScan). The Stockholm Environment Institute's PoleStar Model provides another impressive tool for comparing different development paths. It can be used to calculate gasoline consumption and air emissions, for example, among many other possible outcomes of different policy regimes, providing a 'bird's eye view' of areas of potential stress between particular choices and a sustainable future. Not only do these models help people plan for the future, they improve society's understanding of the consequences of present-day decisions on future generations. As each model makes assumptions which may or may not be right, users are challenged to keep improving on overall realism and efficacy. Plans are underway to develop online versions of many SD simulation models for use as public education tools on the Internet. The US Centre for Community Economic Research, for instance, plans to feature its national budget simulation on a new Internet 'Toys for Democracy' website. As scenario-building models become increasingly powerful predictors of the future – and more widely accessible to the public at large – their popularity looks set to blossom in the policy-making, planning and educational communities. [using computer models for SD future casting]
	alternative futures n. model-generated scenarios of different development paths perspective-dependent models n. simulations which vary with one's assumptions about sustainable development artificial society n. a computer model consisting of a 'population' of independent agents, each following a clearly defined set of decision-making rules within a wider 'environment'
	Rotmans, Jan and de Vries, Bert (eds.) (mid-May 1997) Perspectives on Global Change: the TARGETS Approach. Cambridge University Press. (ISBN 0521621763) Andrew Clayton and Nicholas Radcliffe. Sustainability: A Systems Approach. Boulder, Co: Urstures Press, 1996. 258p.
Virtual Ideas	Some SD models - PoleStar, Millennium Explore 'artificial societies' generated by computers