What future for science?

Consideration of science in the future is dependent on an understanding of that future. A study of the future is an interdisciplinary effort by a holistic rather then a specialised scholar. That research has been carried out, from many global environmental reports in the 1960s through the many, increasingly complex, computer models of the 1970s, to today. The forecast of increasing global damage and disruption, with a tipping point around 2030, is proving robust. This critical analysis is disregarded. Science in New Zealand is no longer organised by scientists, as was the case in the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, and subsequently the critical and questioning approach required to comprehend the future is lacking. Independent and questioning science in New Zealand does not have a viable future without a change in policy direction to recover the scientific enterprise.