Teaching for uncertain futures - Neville Freeman Agency

25four scenario worldsScenario 3Lookingback from 2030the grapesof wrathDaniel McAteer is a young parent from FerntreeGully in Victoria. A suburb on the fringe ofMelbourne, it sits adjacent to the southern sectionof Dandenong Ranges National Park. He wasbrought up just a stone’s throw from where he nowlives and scratches a living as a waste-recycler nowthat his job with the Chinese import agency, JadeAustralia, has folded.Am I optimistic about the future?Are you kidding? What is there to be optimistic aboutthese days? The whole country, the whole world infact, seems to be going to the dogs. I half expect ayoung Mel Gibson to show up any second and tell methe whole of Australia was turned into a giant set for arevived Mad Max film and that none of this isactually real.I remember so clearly what I was doing when I heardthe news that the Chinese economy had collapsed.Within days the American economy followed suit andthen everything folded like a pack of cards. It waslike some sort of giant poker game where everyonewas holding a bad hand and everyone was bluffinglike crazy.It was October 13th – Freaky Friday it became known.I recall it so vividly because the same day theflooding happened in Bangladesh, Victoria swelteredin 43-degree heat for the fifth consecutive week. Itwas so hot that the roads were starting to melt. All theschools, offices and government buildings were closedand we all locked ourselves in our homes to avoid thedeadbeats and delinquents roaming the streets likehalf-crazed zombies. Heat can do this to people, youknow. Some kids were even caught last week trying tosteal water from an 85 year-old grandmother. Theykilled her for a litre and a half of filtered rainwater.Still, to be honest, some families do actually have iteven worse than we do. Country Victoria is now adustbowl and the fires just burn until they reach the