Between February 2009 and December 2010, we spoke to hundreds of people about the future. A few dozen of these people were nice enough to make predictions about the future.

Some of these predictions took the form of elaborate short stories, or intricate drawings or maps.

Click on their names to see what these participants submitted to the project. (Note: to see these predictions in context, click on "Timeline & findings", above.)

Wage-earner though I am, I'll be able to live the rest of my life in Somerville, because we'll build lovely windmills on our hills and on top of our city buildings, and we'll sell so much power back to NStar that we can lower the property taxes and my rent will stop going up!

This means that I can start taking weekends off again. Maybe I'll host a cooking and kitchen safety show (Short Order Chefs) on SCTV featuring elementary-school students who have submitted particularly stellar recipes. We'll even start from the very beginning, with gardening specials at all the expanded community gardens and a field trip to the new compost yard.

Student: Goats? Seriously, you guys have goats here?

Biosalvage employee: Not many yet, but yeah.

Goats: BAAAAA

Student: What for?

Biosalvage employee: Milk!

(Cut to video of students learning to milk goats, voiceover facts & trivia about dairy goats)

Me: All right, we're going to have a taste test - Somerville goat cheese, Northampton goat cheese, and New York goat cheese.

(Video - Students do taste test, voiceover explains that they unanimously decide all 3 are better with jam, end with shot of student letting goat lick out jam jar)

Join us next week for... (Screen stamped TOP SECRET) (whisper) Marshmallow Fluff recipes even your parents will like! (Screen shows wholesome-looking montage of vegetables with "nothing to see here, folks" across the bottom)

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Let's get the windmills up in 2013, and lay the groundwork for citywide reciprocal transmission so my landlord can put a little one and/or some solar panels on the roof too, so he can sell directly back to NSTAR when the city starts doing so in 2014. By then I'll have paid off my debts and be ready to start my cooking show!

(source: Columbine Phoenix)