How different professions try to predict and plan for the future

Here is Jessica Gigot, farmer:

We don’t really plan for the weather short-term. That makes me sound like a bad farmer, but I’ve been surprised so many times that I don’t want to get too attached to one scenario. That’s what old farmers tell you: Be open to unpredictability. The drought will continue, that seems to be the consensus. And I may adjust my planting dates, putting in crops early to harvest early, and putting more in late to harvest again late. I kind of go with instincts. There are great farm planners out there and a lot of spreadsheets to follow, but I honestly don’t do that for every crop. You just get in a time bind and could spend all winter doing that and nothing else. Sometimes, it’s scary looking forward as a farmer. From our farm, we can see Mount Baker and the Puget Sound, a volcano and a rising sea. We’re kind of living for the moment, in a geological sense.

The NYT story, by Ryan Bradley, also interviews an economist, a biologist, a musician, and others.

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