World Future Scenarios

World Future Scenarios

by Adin Kachisi

If we are lucky the recent protests and growing dissatisfaction with Wall Street, the banking system and current economic systems disproportionately benefiting a few on top at the expense of the whole planet, could give birth to a new future. The next decade beginning now will most likely be marked by significant decisions and bold actions to shape the future of the world. Failure to choose a meaningful path in the next decade could mean inescapable doom for humanity.

It is clear that the next few decades and century will not be just a continuity of the predominant social-economic system we have today, characterised by high consumption and business as usual. Five possible scenarios are visible when observing current trends and possible turns, namely collapse, technological solutions, return to paradise, sustainability and a combination scenario.

i. Collapse: the first possible scenario is a collapse of society as we know it.
This future involves humanity contunuing to consume resources as now or at an accelerated rate due to population increase, more destruction of the environment due to agriculture, industry, habitation, and pollution, continued migrations to urban cities for economic reasons, and climatic change marked by more floods, rising sea levels, and other natural disasters. After several decades of 'business as usual' the interlocked systems that maintain industrial societies or modern habitats would begin to fail. Climatic change would alter to environment radically, reducing habitable spaces; population would be so high and unmanagable, leaving billions to starve and be shelterless; fossil fuels would deplete resulting in serious energy crisis, because of energy crisis production of many goods would stop resulting in empty shelves and empty bellies. All the problems would then culminate wars and barbaric violence for survival, with no livestock for meat, no vegitables or grain for food, and no drinkable water, humans would probably turn to canibalism. The end result would inevitably involve a major "die-off" of human population turning human habitats into post-apocalyptic landscape.

However, for this crisis & conflict scenario to play some prerequisites have to be met. The powers interesting in 'business as usual or blind consumerism have to prevail over the emerging ideas of sustainability. Presently, the dominant paradigm running the planet is consumption and profit over ecology, there is a broad base of political and business leadership unwilling to recognise climatic change and or the urgency to preserve the environment. Unless this changes, the environmental destruction will continue to increase at an accelerated rate making human habitats and the planet as a whole uninhabitable.

ii. Technological solutions: this second scenario plays out if human technology can achieve exponential growth or leaps in the coming few years. Considering the past leaps or jumps of technology in the past decades, it is a viable possiblity for new technological miracles to change the direction of the world.
Geo-engineering is one sphere where progress could result in solution reversing climatic change and repairing the damaged ecosystem. Progress in other areas like nanotechnology could also reverse heavy reliance on natural resources for the production of goods. We could see technologies allowing us to effectively recycle all used materials after producing them with renewable energies at zero pollution or impact to the environment.

Technological breakthroughs in health and genetic engineering could also change the direction of human civilization. The improved quality of life in the modern era has increased human life expectancy but has also resulted in increased numbers of old citizens considered to be dependants. Advances in genetic engineering could trnasform high life expectancy to delayed aging and more years of youthfulness. In other words, aging may be delayed from 50 years of age to 80, making an 80 year old person as youthful as a 40 or 50 year old. The production of G.M.O foods may also be transfromed into something less suspicious but very useful like (GMO) Genetically Modified Organics. These crops would yield high quantity nutritious produce without destroying the soil or polluting the environment or yield.

Technological development could also solve our reliance on fossil fuels through the introduction of zero emission or renewable energy vehicles, or even totally get rid of such vehicles by introducing displacement machines capable of instantly teleporting humans or goods from one location to another with zero pollution or resource consumption.

iii. Return to paradise: this future scenario involves a return to pre-industrial paradise. Faced with current economic failures and growing environmental problems, humanity or large portions of it might just withdraw from modern life and retreat to the countryside, villages or jungles to basically relive the ancient past. The intension of such a move will be to allow the ecosystem to recover from the industrial assault. However, this solution would not work for a large population of 7 billion people. The planet does not have enough farming land for 7 billion people, and even if it did such mass farming would further demage the ecosystem. As for hunting and gathering, there is barely anything in the forests today to gather and live by, and not enough animals to hunt. Therefore a return to pre-industrial paradise would result in failure, tribal wars, wars for food and land, and mass starvation.

iv. Sustainability: the fourth future scenario of sustainability is a very possible scenario. There is currently a growing interest in sustainable living and preserving the environment. The major environmental problems we face today is because our current world paradigm is consumer capitalism based on the notion of limitless expansion on a finite planet. Our modern cultures have been evolving in that environment and within habits of taking from the environment without giving back. However, our population and consumption habits have grown way beyond our planet's capacity to sustain.

As Graeme Taylor puts it in 'At the Cutting Edge of Evolution', "..Humanity has no choice: if global civilization is to survive, it must evolve into a completely new type of sociatal system. A consumer society cannot be transformed into a conserver society without structural change."
Sustainable planning, lifestyles, economics, production and technologies will be the only way humans can survive on a planet in peril. For this to work, large populations of humanity will have to force the political and business leadership to adopt sustainability as a new paradigm of operation.

v. Combination scenario: the last and most likely scenario to play out may be a combination of parts of several scenarios. Firstly, an increase in ecological problems and more collapses in economic systems will force the majority of the world to understand the reality of the ecological crisis humanity is facing. With such clarity the will put pressure of their political and business leaders to implement reforms and new policies towards sustainability for survival. Governments will then put policies and rules as well as systems in favour of sustainability. The news systems will be aided by new technologies promoting sustainable lifestyle and clean energies. The end result will be a paradigm shift towards sustainability and restoration of the ecosystem.