Technology vs. the World
By Jim Bracken
A child born today will bear witness to an epic struggle between technological advancement and natural resource shortages. This long war will be waged in a series of battles that will ultimately determine the course of our species and our habitat.
By 2100, this war will have been decided, and our child will by then be elderly. At the twilight of her life, will she look upon the planet in 2100 with worried and weary eyes? Or will she view the world with excited optimism as the next generation sets itself upon a fascinating new path into the future?
On her first day of life on Earth in 2012, our child is surrounded by a bevy of technological wonders, like robots roaming the surface of Mars. At the same time, she is born into a strained environment, in which the seemingly vast stocks of freshwater, oil, and minerals necessary to sustain our advancement are diminishing at ever increasing rates.
As a teenager, our child may see major rivers reduced to streams. Meanwhile, new desalination and recycling technologies will be rapidly developed to respond to freshwater shortages. As glaciers melt and sea levels rise, she will see saltwater intrusion slowly render aquifers and large areas of farmland useless. Food prices will rise as governments and private companies respond by advancing the genetic modification of crops and enhancing fertilizers and pesticides.
Will these advancements be enough to offset the demands of a growing population of eight billion?
By the time our child turns 30, surging oil prices will have forced the widespread adoption of electric cars and solar power generation in most developed economies. However, the world may still await a form of energy that is cheap enough and versatile enough to replace fossil fuels. A systemic transition to alternative energy sources could require enormous financial resources due to the short supply and high costs of mining lithium, silicon, and rare earth minerals.
At age 30, will our child be able to afford an airplane ticket? Will her monthly utility bills rival her mortgage payments?
Before the age of 50, our child will have witnessed the invention of new and spectacular technologies we have no way of yet conceiving. She will have also witnessed the unintended consequences of resource depletion that are impossible to predict.
By 2100, the most significant of these uncertainties will have been resolved. The struggle of mankind’s technological ingenuity against the strains placed on our planet will be decided.
Who will be the victor? A child born today will be there to find out.
About the Author
Jim Bracken is a business intelligence and investigative consultant based in New York City.
Digg
Facebook
Google
LinkedIn
Twitter
Yahoo
Like us on Facebook
WorldFutureSoc on TwitterFree Email Newsletter
Sign up for Futurist Update, our free monthly email newsletter. Just type your email into the box below and click subscribe.
Blogs
THE FUTURIST Magazine Releases Its Top 10 Forecasts for 2013 and Beyond (With Video)
Each year since 1985, the editors of THE FUTURIST have selected the most thought-provoking ideas and forecasts appearing in the magazine to go into our annual Outlook report. The forecasts are meant as conversation starters, not absolute predictions about the future. We hope that this report--covering developments in business and economics, demography, energy, the environment, health and medicine, resources, society and values, and technology--inspires you to tackle the challenges, and seize the opportunities, of the coming decade. Here are our top ten.
Why the Future Will Almost Certainly Be Better than the Present
Five hundred years ago there was no telephone. No telegraph, for that matter. There was only a postal system that took weeks to deliver a letter. Communication was only possible in any fluent manner between people living in the same neighborhood. And neighborhoods were smaller, too. There were no cars allowing us to travel great distances in the blink of an eye. So the world was a bunch of disjointed groups of individuals who evolved pretty much oblivious to what happened around them.
Headlines at 21st Century Tech for January 11, 2013
Welcome to our second weekly headlines for 2013. This week's stories include:
- A Science Rendezvous to Inspire the Next Generation
- Next Steps for the Mars One Project
- Feeding the Planet Would Be Easier if We Didn't Waste Half of What We Produce
Where is the future?
Like the road you can see ahead of you as you drive on a journey, I suggest the future is embedded in emerging, continuous space-time. Although you’re not there yet, you can see the road in front of you. In the rear-view mirror stretches the landscape of the past, the world you have been through and still remember.
Transparency 2013: Good and bad news about banking, guns, freedom and all that
“Bank secrecy is essentially eroding before our eyes,” says a recent NPR article. ”I think the combination of the fear factor that has kicked in for not only Americans with money offshore, countries that don’t want to be on the wrong side of this issue and the legislative weight of FATCA means that within three to five years it will be exceptionally difficult for any American to hide money in any financial institution.”
The Internet of Things and Smartphones are Breaking the Internet
I have written several articles on network communications on this blog site as well as on other sites, describing its e
BiFi, Biology, Engineering and Artifical Life
BiFi is to biology as WiFi is to computers. It's a technology being pioneered by researchers at Stanford University and other institutions, looking at bioengineering techniques for creating complex biological communities working together to accomplish specific tasks. In a sense every organ and every system of coordinated activity within our bodies runs as a BiFi network.