Future Scenarios

http://vincent.callebaut.org/page1-img-grand-place.html

2036, the Internet is 50 years old ! Democracy has spread in real time and knowledge is within everyone’s reach. Lies by the State and condoned genocide are no longer possible. We are moving towards world peace. Information and communication technologies have considerably modified the layout of public spaces, the consumer society of the 20th century and citizen movements. The economy of this cyberdemocracy is no longer based on money, but on the intangible exchange of information.

http://www.kunstler.com/Mags_Forecast2009.html

The big theme for 2009 economically will be contraction. The end of the cheap energy era will announce itself as the end of conventional "growth" and the shrinking back of activity, wealth, and populations. Contraction will come as a great shock to a world of conventionally programmed economists. They will toil and sweat to account for it, and they will probably be wrong. Unfortunately, this contraction will do its work in unpleasant ways, driving down standards of living, shearing away hopes and expectations for a particular life of comfort, and introducing disorder to so many of the systems we have depended on for so long. People will starve, lose their homes, lose incomes and status, and lose the security of living in peaceful societies. It will become clear that the Long Emergency is underway.

Major Driving Forces Affecting Life in 2030
http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/ecology/scenario.htm

1. Increasing threat of the 2008 Financial Collapse
   to the stability of the global economy
   
   
2. Increasing threat of global economic meltdown caused by uncontrolled globalization.
   
   
3. Increasing Globalization
   
   
4. Increasing population growth
   
   
5. Increasing demand for fossil fuels
   
   
6. Increasing divisions between the
   First and Third Worlds
   
   
7. Increasing immigration from the
   Third World to the First World
   
   
8. Increasing collapse of global ecosystems
   
   
9. Increasing global warming and climate change
   
   
10. Increasing growth of Failed States
    
    
11. Increasing threat of Terrorism
    
    
12. Increasing growth of the internet and
    instantaneous global communication
    
    
13. Increasing development of renewable energy
    
    
14. Increasing outsourcing of jobs from the
    First World to the Third World
    
    
15. Increasing threat of global pandemics caused
    by the growth of anti-biotic resistant viruses
    in the Third World
    
    
16. Increasing division between the Globalized World
    and the Islamic World
    
    
17. Increasing threat of bankruptcy by the United States.
    
    
18. Increasing threat that OPEC will switch the global reserve currency from Dollars to Euros.
    
    
19. Increasing concern about the rising number of
    immigrants in the First World.
    
    
20. Increasing scarcity of natural resources.
    
    
21. Increasing costs of scarce natural resources and
    fossil fuels.
    
    
22. Increasing growth of a global consumer culture.
    
    
23. Increasing threat of WMDs threatening global
    society and economic stability
    
24. Increasing threat of war and violence in the declining Third World countries.
    
    
25. Increasing threat to societal stability caused by
    economic insecurity and the growing division between the very wealthy and the vast majority.
    
    
26. Increasing threat of global environmental collapse caused by Global Warming and the destruction of
    Global ecosystem.
    
    
27. Increasing global insecurity caused by the interaction of environmental collapse and
    economic insecurity.
    
    
28. Increasing fear of economic and societal breakdown.
    
    
29. Increasing distrust of political and economic leaders.
    
    
30. Increasing fear that our political and social
    institutions aren't working
    
    
31. Increasing fear that the future will be worse
    than the past.

2bcont'd...