Megatrends 

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While paging through The Salt Lake Tribune recently, I was transported to a conference in Boston I attended way back in the Reagan years. The keynote speaker was a futurist, self-described. Dapper and witty, he was no gazer of crystal balls or reader of tea leaves. He was, he said, a student of the megatrend.

Once identified and analyzed, megatrends could be predictive. The speaker explained how his company relied on newspapers to map the future. A team of analysts monitored their pages, documenting the ebb and flow of subjects being reported around the world. Because the news hole—i.e., the space between the ads—was finite, stories had to compete in a zero-sum business. No room was available to upstart subjects without retiring some threadbare ones. If a certain subject became widely reported—showing up with increasing frequency in the news hole month by month—analysis might disclose an incipient megatrend.

What triggered my memory of the Boston futurist was an entire page of stories about veganism in the Tribune. And not too many days passed before veganism cropped up again. Then again. I read a story about Vegan Fridays in New York's public schools. I lingered over the vegan chocolate bars at Caputo's Deli, took note of the plant-based sausage in Emigration Market's freezer and read about Salt Lake City's vegan bakery, City Cakes.

But it was the display of vegan backpacking food at REI that launched another time warp. I was suddenly back to my years as a soldier when Meals Ready to Eat (MREs) were replacing C-rations as the meal du jour in foxholes. MREs were a welcome improvement, but by the end of the Gulf War, soldiers were referring to them as Meals Rejected by Everyone.

The prospect of eating C-rations could cow a vegan, a foodie or an incorrigible child. Each C-ration meal comprised four or five small cans of Spam-inspired food. Although P-38 can openers dangled from everyone's dog-tag chains, many of the cans were discarded unopened.

I routinely ditched the gelatinous Scrambled Eggs and Chopped Ham. Nobody ate the Lima Beans and Ham. "Beanie Weenie"—aka Beans with Frankfurter Chunks in Tomato Sauce—was more welcome fare. Cans of fruit, crackers, jam, bread, cheese spread and peanut butter were popular enough to have trading value. A can of sliced peaches accompanied by a can of cookies had the status of two pairs in a draw poker game.

Each meal included an accessory package. In it were a plastic spoon, instant coffee, creamer, sugar, salt, pepper, Chicklets gum, matches, toilet paper and cigarettes, usually a four-pack of Lucky Strikes or Chesterfields. Like the tinned food, the unfiltered cigarettes weren't appealing, but we smoked them anyway.

Heat redeemed the bland, congealed food somewhat. The cans could be warmed on the engine of a truck, by burning Sterno or by lighting a dollop of C-4 plastic explosive. If you needed to heat water, you used your canteen cup. It was also an alchemical vessel in which combinations of canned food sometimes yielded gold.

Even loathsome Lima Beans and Ham could be reimagined as a tolerable porridge by mashing the beans, adding a couple of handfuls of crushed crackers, a can of cheese spread, a little water and lots of salt and pepper—or Tabasco if you had some.

You never had everything you wanted, however, and ingenuity often plugged the gaps. I watched a mess sergeant make coffee by wrapping two pounds of grounds in a T-shirt and boiling it in an industrial-sized pot.

Still, I am thinking that the Tribune's page of veganism signals a megatrend that this longtime reader of newspapers has overlooked. That being the case, I think veganism is more likely a contributing trendlet to a megatrend of decarbonization—weaning the world off fossil fuels—which has now become imperative and urgent. In other words, veganism as viewed through the lens of global warming. Converting to a plant-based diet would reduce the methane and carbon dioxide emissions that clog the troposphere, warming the planet. It would also curtail water-intensive beef production which accounts for 1,800 gallons of water per pound to process beef.

Water Sustainability is one of the "megatrend" mutual funds launched by Fidelity Investments last year. The goal is to "anticipate long-term market-shaping trends such as increased competition for natural resources due to population growth and resource scarcity."

Sound familiar? Utah's population is projected to add 2.2 million people by 2060. Meanwhile, drought-depleted reservoirs are at historic lows even as Utah continues to use more water per capita than almost all other states chiefly to grow lawns and alfalfa.

You know how problematic water has become when the Utah Legislature interrupts its meddlesome agenda for a boondoggle over the Formerly Great Salt Lake aboard Army helicopters. You know it's serious when the town of Oakley halts construction of new houses because aridification has left the little town near Kamas short of water.

You might make money betting that Utah's Republican overlords would do the right thing by embracing a megatrend grounded in science. It's a long-odds bet, however. While waiting for the Legislature to bestir itself from the culture wars, you can align yourself with a megatrend that incentivizes riding the bus, xeriscaping the yard, giving up beef and voting for candidates who don't engage in post-truth posturing.

The handwriting is on the wall. It doesn't take a futurist to read it and act on what it says.

Private Eye is off this week. Send feedback to comments@cityweekly.net