The Future

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The Future

1Akiyama
Mar 8, 2007, 5:14 am

What would you like the future to be like?

And what do you think the future will actually be like?

Post your wishes, forecasts and book recommendations here!

* * *

I would like to see a future in which these ideas become accepted by all politicians. I mean, really accepted, not just given lip service to in speeches:

1. Freedom benefits everyone. Free markets, free trade, free culture, freedom from an intrusive state, freedom from poverty, ignorance and fear.

2. Economic development must be sustainable. An end to short-termism and ignoring hidden costs, and a realisation that capital doesn't just mean dollars.

3. Wealth and power are not ends in themselves. Health and happiness must be put above wealth and power, as important national goals.

4. The population cannot continue to grow indefinitely.

5. It is immoral for wealthy nations to tolerate a huge gap in living standards between their populations, and people living in the Third World.

I don't think this is too much to ask. All these ideas seem like common sense to me, and yet at present anybody who takes even one of them seriously will be viewed as a crazy radical.

* * *

What I think will actually happen - I think starting around the turn of the millenium, we entered a period of increasing scarcity. This is due to unsustainable economic growth. Climate change, population growth, and the rapid growth of the Chinese and Indian economies, will all make things worse. The "clash of civilisations" between the democracies, Islam and China will become more noticable as resources run down. Things will get worse, for the next 20 to 40 years.

By 2050 we will either have destroyed our civilisation in a third World War, or we will have learnt how to live together on a small planet. I reckon the former outcome is more probable than the latter :-(

Book recommendation: A Planet for the President. It's not a serious book but it is a good read!

2GoofyOcean110
Modificato: Mar 8, 2007, 9:50 pm

Chesapeake Futures, edited by Donald Boesch and Jack Greer

http://www.mdsg.umd.edu/CB/futures.htm

Also, check out Millenium Ecosystem Assessment

http://www.maweb.org/en/index.aspx

3MaureenRoy
Giu 13, 2012, 12:56 pm

The Value of Nothing: How to reshape market society and redefine democracy , which is just the latest book written by Raj Patel on solutions to the global maldistribution of food. Here's his website:

http://rajpatel.org/

4MaureenRoy
Gen 7, 2016, 2:53 pm

UCLA professor Jared Diamond (and after him, British Astronomer Martin Rees) talk about how our planet can sustain our own species or not. Choices are identified. It is *not* yet "Game Over." https://www.ted.com/talks/jared_diamond_on_why_societies_collapse?language=en

5MaureenRoy
Modificato: Ott 25, 2016, 5:00 pm

Here is a discussion which doesn't really fit anywhere else in our Sustainability group except this thread, The Future. I originally found it on Reddit online:

"What you're referring to is something called capacity factor, and you rightly pointed out that it's an issue with renewables.

However, it may surprise you that all sources of power generation have capacity factors less than 100% (even hydro, nuclear, and natural gas)!

A good starting point (even though it is Wikipedia): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacity_factor

Source: Currently completing a Masters of Science in Sustainable Energy Development"

Note: The above Wikipedia entry includes graphs that illustrate "capacity factor."

From a different website (advanced solar electricity training), here is a more extended overview of capacity factor:

http://ussolarinstitute.com/glossary/capacity-factor/

6MaureenRoy
Ott 27, 2016, 7:40 am

October 27, 2016 -- an article from The Guardian online newspaper, quoting Lord Stern on the 10th anniversary of the Stern report on the global sustainability outlook. He says today that the low-carbon economy is our only possible future, made even more feasible by low-carbon energy costs dropping in the last 10 years by a factor of almost ten:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/oct/27/10-years-on-from-the-stern-r...

7MaureenRoy
Modificato: Nov 12, 2018, 2:48 pm

November 2018: In California, CalFire and the state department of forestry are working to reduce our state's risk of future wildfires. In SoCal, my family and I evacuated 2 days ago during the Woolsey wildfire (90,000 acres currently). We are safe and our mountain neighborhood is safe so far. The Santa Ana winds are forecast to end on Tuesday night, Nov, 13, 2018. Rain is in the forecast for the end of next week. I will pray for rain ASAP. For the record, 98% of California wildfire damage in the 21st century was to land owned by the US Federal government, so a joint Federal and state approach to wildfire mitigation would be a great step forward.

I will be back online in the next week to recommend another batch of books.

8John5918
Nov 12, 2018, 10:38 pm

>7 MaureenRoy:

Stay safe.

9MaureenRoy
Ott 23, 2019, 9:55 pm

In the future, there will be increasing amounts of regenerative agriculture, which is described by the Patagonia company as follows:

Patagonia is helping to lead the shift to regenerative agriculture, which sequesters carbon rather than producing it. Here’s how it works.

1. Create healthy soil
During photosynthesis, plants use solar energy to extract carbohydrate molecules, or sugar, from carbon dioxide. Those carbon-based sugars are extruded from the plant’s roots, feeding bacteria and fungi into the nearby soil. Those microorganisms turn soil minerals into nutrients that feed plants and fight disease.

2. Avoid pesticides
To keep the soil as healthy as possible, growers eschew chemicals (akin to organic farming), relying instead on natural methods—from hanging lights at night to physically removing and killing insects by hand.

3. Plant cover crops
In between seasons of growing cash crops such as cotton, farmers cultivate cover crops such as turmeric and chickpeas, which make the soil hardier by protecting it against nutrient loss and erosion, as well as helping to control pests. The farmers then have an additional crop to sell to supplement their income.

4. Use low-till farming
Tilling churns and disturbs roots—where most plants store a significant amount of their carbon—and other rich organic matter in the soil, making it less robust and productive. Even worse, it releases carbon into the atmosphere. By contrast, low- or no-till growing lets the carbon remain sequestered in the soil. Even when the roots decay, the CO2 emissions take a long time to reach the earth’s surface and atmosphere.

A version of this article appeared in the November 2019 issue of Fast Company magazine.
About the author: Jeff Beer is a staff editor at Fast Company, covering advertising, marketing, and brand creativity. He lives in Toronto.

10MaureenRoy
Feb 11, 2020, 1:40 pm

February 11, 2020: Analysts from one of the top management consulting firms are finally, finally giving seminars to business leaders on the erroneous climate assumptions built into virtually all business models, mortages, other financial instruments, etc.:

https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-a-warming-planet/will-big-business-fina...

11MaureenRoy
Modificato: Dic 4, 2020, 7:39 am

Lectures by scholars from around the globe on future trends for Homo sapiens:

https://kenan.ethics.duke.edu/facing-the-anthropocene/webinar-series/

12MaureenRoy
Dic 4, 2020, 8:10 am

In the far, far future, Earth's supercontinent Pangea may reform:

http://www.geologypage.com/2020/12/what-will-the-climate-be-like-when-earths-nex...

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