WE’VE SEEN THE FUTURE … AND WE MAY NOT BE DOOMED
Joanie July 31st, 2008
WE’VE SEEN THE FUTURE … AND WE MAY NOT BE DOOMED
By Geoffrey Lean and Jonathan Owen
The Independent
July 13, 2008
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/green-living/weve-seen-the-future–
and-we-may-unotu-be-doomed-866486.html
Humanity stands on the threshold of a peaceful and prosperous future, with
an unprecedented ability to extend lifespans and increase the power of
ordinary people — but is likely to blow it through inequality, violence and
environmental degradation. And governments are not equipped to ensure that
the opportunities are seized and disasters averted.
So says a massive new international report, due to be published late this
month, and obtained by The Independent on Sunday. Backed by organisations
ranging from Unesco to the US army, the World Bank to the Rockefeller
Foundation, the 2008 State of the Future report runs to 6,300 pages and
draws on contributions from 2,500 experts around the globe.
Its warning is all the more stark for eschewing doom and gloom. “The future
continues to get better for most of the world,” it concludes, “but a series
of tipping points could drastically alter global prospects.”
It goes on. “This is a unique time in history. Mobile phones, the internet,
international trade, language translation and jet planes are giving birth to
an interdependent humanity that can create and implement global strategies
to improve [its] prospects. It is increasingly clear that the world has the
resources to address our common challenges. Ours is the first generation
with the means for many to know the world as a whole, identify global
improvement systems, and seek to improve [them].”
What is more, say the authors of the report, produced by the Millennium
Project of the World Federation of the United Nations Associations
<http://www.millennium-project.org/>, many important things are already
getting better. Life expectancy and literacy rates are increasing worldwide,
while infant mortality and the number of armed conflicts have been falling
fast. Per capita income has been growing strongly enough to cut poverty by
more than half by 2015 — except, importantly, in Africa.
Even better, it says, “advances in science, technology, education, economics
and management seem capable of making the world work far better than it does
today”.
Medical breakthroughs, for example, are offering the hope of defeating
inherited diseases, tailoring cures to individual patients, and even
creating replacement body parts. And computers are spreading even to remote
villages in developing countries and dramatically increasing in power to
provide “collective intelligence for just-in-time knowledge to inform
decisions”.
The report reserves its greatest enthusiasm for the internet, which it says
is “already the most powerful force for globalisation, democratisation,
economic growth and education in history.
“The internet allows self-organisation around common ideals, independent of
conventional institutional controls and regardless of nationalities or
languages. Injustices in different parts of the world become the concern of
thousands or millions of people who then pressure local, regional or
international governing systems to find solutions.
“This unparalleled social power is reinventing citizens’ roles in the
political process and changing institutions, policy-making and governance.”
And this is happening in a world that is already becoming freer and more
democratic. Over the past 30 years, the number of free countries has more
than doubled from 43 to 90, it reports, while those that are partly free
increased from 46 to 60. Just over one-third of humanity still lives in the
43 countries with authoritarian regimes, but half of these people are in
China.
On the other hand, the report warns “half the world is vulnerable to social
instability and violence due to rising food and energy prices, failing
states, falling water tables, climate change, decreasing water-food-energy
supply per person, desertification and increasing migrations due to
political, environmental and economic conditions”.
These — and other threats such as increasing terrorism, corruption and
organised crime — threaten to undo the improvements of recent years and
blight the chance of a better future.
Food prices have more than doubled in a year and have already plunged 37
countries into crisis, greatly increasing hunger and poverty. And price
rises seem set to continue because food production needs to increase 50 per
cent by 2013 and double in 30 years.
“With nearly three billion people making $2 or less per day, long-term
global social conflict seems inevitable without more serious food policies,
useful scientific breakthroughs and dietary changes,” says the report.
Global warming is occurring faster than expected. This could cause southern
Africa to “lose more than 30 per cent of its maize crop by 2030″ and help to
increase the number of people facing water scarcity fourfold to a massive
three billion by 2025.
The rate at which the world’s ice is melting, it says, “has doubled over the
last two years”, and it quotes a US military report which predicts that
global warming “can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth
of terrorism”.
Yet nuclear power — the solution increasingly favoured by governments,
which are planning to add another 350 reactors to the 438 already operating
around the world — will not do the job. “For nuclear energy to eliminate
the greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels, about 2,000 nuclear power
plants would have to be built, at $5-15bn per plant, over 15 years — and
possibly an additional 8,000 plants beyond that to 2050.”
The report says that there is not enough uranium in the world to fuel all
those reactors, that another Chernobyl-type accident could halt the
expansion in its tracks, and that the rapid spread of the atom around the
world increases the chances of nuclear proliferation and terrorism.
It estimates that there is a 75 per cent chance that terrorists will have
acquired nuclear weapons within the next 10 years, adding: “Links between
terrorists and organised crime are worrisome, especially considering that,
on average, there were 150 reports of unauthorised use of nuclear or
radioactive materials to the International Atomic Energy Authority per year
between 2004 and 2007.”
Organised crime, it adds, “continues to grow in the absence of a
comprehensive, integrated global counterstrategy”. It reckons that it is now
worth some $2 trillion a year.
There are grounds for hope, however. The use of renewable energy is growing,
and China’s largest car maker plans for half its cars to be hybrids within
two years. But the report’s authors say that governments are not up to the
job: “Many of the world’s decision-making processes are inefficient, slow
and ill-informed, especially when given the new demands from increasing
complexity [and] globalisation.” They call on world leaders to do more
long-term planning, and to join in global approaches to the interlocking
crises. “Climate change cannot be turned around without a global strategy.
International organised crime cannot be stopped without a global strategy.
Individuals creating designer diseases and causing massive deaths cannot be
stopped without a global strategy. It is time for global strategic systems
to be upgraded.”
Jerome Glenn, the report’s main author added: “There seems to be an interest
in creating global strategies, but it needs a little push. There’s more
within us now to collaborate in the face of shared problems.”
Computer power
25 years until a computer’s capacity equals the power of the human brain.
After another 25 years, everyone will be able to access processing power
greater than that of all the brains on Earth combined.
The great melt
5 years before the Arctic could be ice-free in summer. Sea-ice last year
shrank to 22 per cent below the previous record low, a level that had not
been expected to be reached until 2030-50, opening up the Northwest Passage.
Fossil fuel
850 coal-fired power stations are planned to go into operation across the
US, China and India over the next four years. Each station would operate for
about 20 years, greatly accelerating global warming.
Solar energy
25% of Europe’s electricity could come from solar-powered stations in North
Africa by 2050. African leaders and aid organisations are to invest $10bn
(£5bn) a year in renewable energy over the next five years.
