World Possible Futures

Per Alvin Toffler - www.toffler.com

  • What moral standards will we have?

    • This new way of life - it's really a new civilization or, for that matter, a "super-civilization" - is spreading out from the United States and has cells in many other parts of the world, from Japan and Singapore and China to India and Brazil. The next phase is the fusion of the digital revolution with the genetic and biological revolution.
    • We will, before the end of a decade or two, let alone a century, be able to "pre-design" babies to some extent by manipulating their genes

  • A Future for Mapping: Mapping the Future

    • By 2005, forecasters expect 62% of people worldwide to connect to the Internet via wireless devices
    • Mapping will be changed by development of anticipatory modules in software, databases and creative displays that allow users to examine alternative futures, review implications and choose a preferred future course of action

  • Infrastructure Imaging on Steroids?

    • If current research is any indication, imaging support for major infrastructures such as bridges, tunnels and roadways will occur not only from space, but also in the air, on the ground and underground.

Per Glen Hiemstra - www.futurist.com

  • The Future of Energy

    • Based on economics alone the probable future would be cheap oil, cheap natural gas, and cheap coal…nearly forever
    • The real future question for oil producers may become not will there be enough oil for all the demand, but will there be enough demand for all the oil.
    • For example, UTC Fuel Cells has developed the PC25, generating 200 kilowatts of power, enough to supply a medium-size office building.

  • Population Explosion Ends In a Whimper

    • Only four nations in the world have seen their fertility rate increase since 1980 - Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Ethiopia.
    • The world population will peak by 2025, at something around 7.8 billion, and decline after that.

  • Preparing for the 21st Century

    • The basic home computer in 2007 will have 4000 megabytes of RAM and 300,000 megabytes of storage. Into this box will come a big pipe capable of data transmission at 28 million bits a second.
    • If you reach 65 and are healthy, you can anticipate living another 20 years. There are prospects that this could jump dramatically in the early 21st Century particularly due to genetic engineering.
    • When we look back from the perspective of the year 2050, we will see that the 21st Century differs from the 20th at least as much as the 20th Century did from the 19th.
  • Over the Horizon
    • The technology will shift to devices that we wear including computing in our running shoes, augmented reality sunglasses, wireless communication buttons on our clothing, and so on.
    • A division of the world into “genetic modification free zones”, in which no genetically modified food is allowed, while other regions take advantage of these developments in biotech.

Per Terry van der Werff - www.globalfuture.com

  • Focus on the Future: Strategies for a Global Age

    • We will exit the 21st Century with 9.5 billion. In the next 100 years, India will surpass China in population, Africa will triple in size, the United States will double, and both Europe and Japan will shrink.
    • Computers will increasingly make decisions in every sphere of home and work
    • Globalization will bind countries together. Trade will flourish. Incomes and standards of living will rise, especially in parts of the world that did not fully participate in the past half century of economic growth

George Washington University - www.gwforecast.gwu.edu

  • The GWU Forecast of Emerging Technologies

    • Holistic health practices are becoming more accepted and will be well integrated in medicine by 2009.
    • Gene therapy will help eradicate inherited diseased by 2013. Organ replacement strategies will become routine, by growing genetically similar or cloned organs
    • The early 2010s will witness the most striking technological advances in terms of number and scope that our civilization has seen.
  • Social Barriers to Technological Change
    • In 1872, a large-scale, solar-powered distillation plant was in operation in Chile, providing fresh water to a nitrate mine
    • All of the technology is in place to produce electricity in space with photovoltaic panels
    • We will not experience the improvements we desire in areas such as education, health care or in the reduction of poverty until we set new standards for acceptable behavior in the pursuit of wealth.
        
  • Most Likely Year of Appereance
    • Fuel Cells:  2019. Confidence: 45%
    • Nuclear fusion: 2032. Confidence: 29%
    • Desalinized sea water: 2027. Confidence: 42%
    • Recycled autos: 2017. Confidence: 62%
  • Chronological Emerging of Technologies
    • 2010 Distance Learning
      2011 Optical Computers
      2012 Mass Customization
      2012 Fuel Cell Autos
      2013 Virtual reality.
      2013 Wall Monitors ..

2100 : Our Specie's Odyssey - 2100.org/odyssey.html

  • Technical Systems Transitions
    • Energy wastage of industrial society (up to 7 tons oil equivalent per inhabitant and per year, or 117 times the average weight of a human being at 60 kg) decreases, as resources are not inexhaustible.
    • Biotechnology can directly interfere with the chemical molecules constituting living creatures
       
  • Overview table (spiritual changes, population, health...)
    • Systematic birth control, inversion of the pyramids
    • Economic tripolar system, Dollar, Yen, Euro
    • Standardized trans cultural translation
       
  • 12 Programs for the 21st century
    • Ocean cities
    • World judicial syste
    • Planetary garden

By Patrick Dixon - www.globalchange.com

  • The genetic revolution

    • If the 1980's were the years of the computer microchip then the 1990s have already become the decade of the gene.
    • Every home will contain substances or living organisms resulting from genetic engineering

BT Exact - www.btexact.com

  • The future of everyday life in 2010

    • Computers will become intelligent personal assistants, greatly boosting our productivity
    • Most of us will change jobs frequently, working for virtual companies with a core of critical staff and the rest of us on short-term contracts
    • Cultures will mix. Power structures will evolve. We may be more loyal to a network based community of people with a similar value set than to our local geographic community
       
  • The future of community networks and local government
    • Local attractions such as museums and galleries will be accessible to all via the community network
    • People will visit cities via the net, see their attractions, explore the galleries or visit shops, without ever setting foot in the physical city. There are no car parking problems on the net, and no costly travel to keep visitors away
   

Vital Signs 2003: Overview

  • Short collection of facts from Vital Signs 2003
    • Of roughly 700 natural disasters in 2002, 593 were weather-related events. Worldwide, the number of big weather catastrophes has quadrupled since the 1960s
    • In Mexico, Peru, and Colombia, farmers are turning to drug crops like opium, coca, or cannabis because their food crops cannot compete with cheaper, mass-produced imports
   

World watch Institute News Releases

  • Roughly one-quarter of the world's 50 wars and armed conflicts of recent years have involved a struggle for control of natural resources.
  • Up to 7 billion people in 60 countries—more than the present world population—will face water scarcity within the next half-century. This scarcity, as well as water pollution, threatens rich and poor alike
  • Iowa may soon host the world’s largest wind farm, if the MidAmerican Energy company goes ahead with plans to build a 310 megawatt wind farm on 200 acres of the state’s farm
   

Global Scenarios for the 21st Century

   

World Resource Institute - www.wri.org

Mapping the Future - National Intellegence Council

  • Most of Europe in 2015 will be relatively peaceful and wealthy. Its residents will do extensive business with the rest of the world but politically will be more inward-looking than the citizens of Europe in 2000. Looking out to 2015, Europe's agenda will be to put in place the final components of EU integration; to take advantage of globalization; to sustain a strong IT and S&T base to tackle changing demographics; and to wean the Balkans away from virulent nationalism.
   

Papers and research about the world future