Scanning the Future Perspectives in the Intervening Time Frames

Last Updated: 4 months by A.

WE HAVE ARRIVED IN the new century and the millennium which will hide in its “time capsule” much more than we and our generations to follow would be able to describe. We live in a macro world with micro technologies which are becoming more and more advanced day by day. We live in a world of telepower which will eventually help make our world a “global village.”

WE ARE HEADING TOWARDS a turbulent and chaotic time where geo-politics is going to be at the helm of affairs. If Nostradamas is going to be right we have to make him wrong. The world faces a staggering array of problems that defy easy solution. These dilemmas pose difficult policy choices that tests the ingenuity of the world’s leaders and the patience of their peoples. The number of intractable problems worldwide seem limitless at this point of time.

CATALOGING THE WORLD PROBLEMS is not so easy. International tension — fears of a nuclear holocaust, terrorism, armed conflicts; the fragile economy; growing air and water pollution, depletion of the ozone layer, the Greenhouse Effect, industrial solidwaste problems; the drug crisis; disappearing resources – energy and water shortages, vanishing species, declining cropland, spreading deserts, forest destruction; population explosion over 7 billion in mid 2023 AD; poverty, destitution, starvation, homelessness, unemployment; corruption, rampant lawlessness; distrust; medical dilemmas – Corona Virus that has affected 760 million till June 2023 and AIDS that has infected 39 million by the end of 2022, abortion, infanticide; the collapsing family – divorce, unmarried motherhood, single parents, child negligence, homosexuals, information overload ……. and many more, difficult to log here, continue to haunt us. In short, risks from artificial intelligence, catastrophic pandemics, nuclear war, great power conflict, and climate change are, but a few problems that should be addressed with a concerted effort at the international level. Countless maladies afflict human relationships and institutions.  Unless and until we have the solution to our myriad of present problems we are not going to have a sustainable future.

THE MAJOR PROBLEMS THAT threaten the physical well-being and survival of not only those alive today but also of the future generations are preserving rain forests, protecting the ozone layer, preventing the greenhouse effect, feeding the hungry, saving the lives of children in the developing countries, biodiversity loss, climate change, destructive artificial intelligence, environmental disasters, nuclear holocaust, pandemic, biotechnology risk, molecular nanotechnology, and societal collapse. Of all the major world problems, only the arms race and the threat of nuclear war have become part of the political dialogue in any serious way, and even then they are topics mainly for academics and “specialists.”

The Population Explosion

THE WORLD’S population of 7.6 billion in August 2023 is expected to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to a new United Nations Report. An estimated 4.3 billion people (59% of the world’s population) today live without sufficient food, clothing, and shelter to meet their basic needs. Though population growth rates are slakening spectacularly everywhere except Africa, the total population will increase by a billion people in the next seven years. Of the 7.6 billion people, 83% of the earth’s inhabitants live in the developing nations, and that proportion will be 86% by the year 2050. Currently, 55% of the world’s population live in urban areas and this proportion is expected to increase to 68% by 2050.  Overwhelming population growth is wreaking havoc on the developing and under developed countries’ cultures, economies, social systems, and natural-resource base(s).  

The Third World’s demographic future contains hard messages that are difficult to swallow. But, with rapid population growth still accelerating, none of the developing nations seems to stabilise and take the pressures off their social, ecological, and economic systems — or those in the first world. For even while 870 million people remain hungry, the world is increasingly faced with a double burden of malnutrition, with chronic undernourishment and micronutrient malnutrition co-existing with obesity, overweight and related non-communicable diseases (affecting more than 1.4 billion people worldwide). As the world population grows that number will rise.

The Fragile Environment

Environment has become one of the top priority issues of our time. We are globally becoming increasingly aware of air, land and water pollution but it will take some time when we will realise the need to solving out our problems, or at least lessen them so far as we possibly can. We are conscious of our surroundings now is a positive sign!

Ours is a “Planet in Jeopardy.” Despite increased attention to the environment, the health of the Earth is deteriorating at an unprecedented rate. Time itself is our scarcest resource as we struggle to create a sustainable society. The greatest problem our Planet faces is the “Greenhouse Effect.” Since 1880, average global temperatures have increased by about 1 degrees Celsius (1.7° degrees Fahrenheit). Global temperature is projected to warm by about 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7° degrees Fahrenheit) by 2050 and 2-4 degrees Celsius (3.6-7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by 2100. Going by the present trends, greenhouse gases will warm the earth further by about 0.3 degree Celsius in each decade of this century. This rise, as compared to that experienced in the last 10,000 years, could increase the Planet’s mean temperature by 3 degrees Celsius before the year 2100 making it warmer on an average than it has been for the last 100,000 years.

The excess amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is around 36.6 billion tons. Since the middle of the 20^th century, annual emissions from burning fossil fuels have increased every decade, from close to 11 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year in the 1960s to an estimated 36.6 billion tons in 2022 according to the Global Carbon Budget 2022. With the global carbon dioxide concentration having been 417.2 parts per million (ppm) in 2022, this suggests a concentration of 419.2 ppm in 2023.

Carbon-dioxide build-up — mainly combustion of fossil fuels such as oil, gas, and coal, and from clearing and burning of forests — is responsible for about half of this worldwide warming while CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons), Methane, ground-level ozone, and nitrous oxide emissions account for the rest. By 1985 the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere had increased 25 times since the preindustrial days. By 2050, the concentration will increase to 40% or 550 ppm over today’s levels if energy use continues to grow at its current pace. Burning fossil fuel spewed about 7 billion tons of carbon into the air each year by 2000, will spew 10-14 billion in 2030, and 13-23 billion in 2050.

Chlorine released by CFCs (Chlorofluorocarbons) and bromine by halons used in fire extinguishers deplete stratospheric ozone. The use of CFCs and halons thus escalates the risk of skin cancer, eye cataracts, snow blindness, and weakened immunity to a host of other illnesses by exposing humans to increased ultraviolet B radiation from the sun.  

The rate of wildlife extinction will be much greater during the sudden temperature rise of this century. In the next 25 years, the world will lose a quarter of the animal and plant species that existed in the mid 1980s. Approximately 55,000 to 73,000 species go extinct every year if the average amount of extinctions happens each day. It may be as low as 10,000 or as high as 100,000 extinctions. It’s estimated by some that between a hundredth of a percent and a tenth of a percent of animals go extinct every year. This means every day, 150 species may become extinct. There are approximately three disappearing per hour, resulting in 72 species to become extinct in a single day. The current species count exceeds 30 million. If there are 100 million species that exist today alongside humans, 10000-100000 between species become extinct. Scientists estimate that more than 1 million species will be lost by 2050. The results were described as “terrifying” by Chris Thomas, professor of conservation biology at Leeds University in 2004. We need to seriously consider a number of options which are today available and scientifically feasible to stop the “biological impoverishment” of our Planet Earth.

There is no plausible answer to seeking the causes and effects of the “greenhouse effect” should we do not want to bother about the health of the Earth and its inhabitants. The greenhouse effect could wreak havoc on human health, allowing tropical diseases to affect non-tropical population; causing heat-related stress and illness, and worsening air pollution. Now is the time to examine how this worldwide warm-up may affect our lives. The effective control of the greenhouse problem demands a concerted international effort. Fighting the greenhouse effect would require “no-cost” and “low-cost” options to enable greater third world participation.

Environmental problems do not respect national boundaries which give rise to the need of a united action. Many environmental problems are by-products of fossil fuel consumption, so we must speed up the development of alternative energy sources such as biomass, solar, wind, ocean, and thermal energies. Every education system in the world must foster learning about the earth and interdependence of all life. There indeed is a positive sign: we are now more conscious of the crises caused by acid rain, deforestation, desertification and carbon dioxide build-up than we were a few decade ago. Realisation of the problems is the first step to finding out a permanent solution.

Rising Energy Demand and Diminishing Resources

Despite the calls to develop alternative sources of energy, oil will continue to provide more of the world’s power in this century than in the previous one. According to IEA World Energy Outlook, 2022, current demand for fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) is 66% of total energy demand. However, rapidly depleting fossil fuel reserves coupled with the negative environmental impacts from its combustion has prompted significant interest in sustainable biofuels. Of the three fossil fuels natural gas has the brightest and cleanest future and we need to make full use of it. It is predicted that we will run out of fossil fuels in this century. Oil can last up to 50 years, natural gas up to 53 years, and coal up to 114 years. Yet, renewable energy is not popular enough, so emptying our reserves can speed up. Even if we were to assume a few more years for our reserves that is not enough to fulfil our energy demands for a sustainable future.

The lack of secure sources of oil supplies and the health and environmental concerns relating to using nuclear power and burning coal for generating electricity make these sources rather obsolete in the coming future. We are well aware of oil being used as a political weapon during the mid Cold War era and we have seen the Three Miles Island and Chernobyl disasters.  Despite assurances of safety to the human life for which billions of dollars are spent for making safety systems work and the pollution free energy source, there is still a potentially high risk involved in operating the nuclear reactors. Unarguably, we cannot ignore the race of the First World to gain control with oil, data, natural resources, and now onwards, the artificial intelligence that is evolving unregulated at an accelerated pace.

Whether it is fast breeder reactors or the “controlled” fission technology that will eventually emerge, we are not sure of the safety involved in operating such reactors. When a safer, pollution-free and a viable energy source is thought of, natural gas seems the versatile answer to today’s energy needs. And the natural gas, which will especially be in demand for the cogeneration plants that will simultaneously produce electricity and heat, could be a nonstop source of energy for decades.

With the exception of nuclear power, all the principal alternative energies (like hydroelectric power, photovoltaics and wind-powered turbines), to fossil fuels remain in the development stage. And even when an alternative does become economically competitive with traditional energy sources, it still takes decades before it can supply a significant percentage of the energy demand. We know that it takes 60 years for a new source of energy to gain a 50% market share in the United States. Imagine the time it would require worldwide, to attain that fifty percent share elsewhere in the developing nations with fragile and unstable economies.

Hydrogen could provide an inexhaustible source for the energy needed to power tomorrow’s world. Hydrogen could also help solve some of today’s pollution-related environmental problems. But the reality we all face is that fossil fuels will remain the major source of energy for the foreseeable future. There is still a cheaper and a viable alternative – natural gas which is pollution-free; burns cleanly, and there isn’t enough of it available to supply the world’s entire energy need for this century. The world has proven reserves equivalent to 52.3 times its annual consumption. This means we have about 52 years of gas left (at current consumption levels and excluding unproven reserves).

We have billions of tons of Uranium in our ocean beds. We have vast amounts of untapped energy that will be sufficient to last for the coming millennia. We have the resources and the technologies to begin exploration to tapping the potential of such sources. But its a matter of time when we will have the appropriate technologies for underwater deep drilling; make safer and optimal use of Uranium. It’s then when we will have realised our dreams of “no-global-energy-crises” come true.

While terrestrial uranium resources are seen to be limited, there are approximately 4 billion tonnes of uranium in seawater and although uranium only exists at concentrations of around 3.3 ppb, selective extraction has been achieved. PPB stands for parts per billion. One part per billion is one part of solute per one billion parts solvent. PPB is a commonly used unit of concentration for very small values.

The Root of all Crisis

The more we study the problems of our time, the more we realise that they cannot be understood in isolation. They are systemic problems — interconnected and interdependent. Ultimately, all these problems are facets of one single crisis which is a crisis of “perception.” The most critical issues of our time concern global, systemic problems that require a systemic approach to be understood and solved.

Countries and People in all parts of the world have increasingly been in intimate contact, and communication between them have more and more influenced one another. I imagine of ways in which our twenty-first-century world can overcome its problems and produce a world society that is equitable, peaceful, and efficiently managed. I have a vision of such a world with a “sustainable” society which would be possible by limiting population growth; improving food production; making more efficient use of resources; conserving our soils and forests, and fossil fuels; reducing wastes; spending less money on defense and other military efforts, and cooperating internationally.

The Challenges and Opportunities

The greatest challenge of the twenty-first century for humanity will be to keep up with the AI controlled machine-based evolution. The linking of optical and electronic technologies in new and different ways is the key to a new “colossal machine” which will help make “global village” a reality. In the 20 years since the moon landing we have made great strides in fibre-optic, application satellites and microprocessor technologies. We have achieved what we could not in the last 200 years. Therefore, we “must” expect a “fast-forward” scientific and technological progress in the coming 20 years starting 2020s.

The world changes so quickly it is hard to keep up. New inventions and innovations alter the way we live. By studying the future, we can better anticipate what lies ahead. More importantly we can actively decide how we will live in the future, by making choices today, and realising the consequences of our decisions. The future does not just happen. We create it through our action — or inaction — today. Future is not created in a short span of time. It is a continuous process which continuously goes on and on, and on and on …. for years … and years …. and perhaps decades.

The Need for a Greater Participation

We are the architects of our own future like we have been the participants in our past. Individually we might not share a common concern but globally we do, for our survival and annihilation are inter-related. The damaged ecosystem; the thundering population explosion; the destructive famine; the devastating disease epidemic are but a few examples of what we all equally share.

I think there is a need for a greater participation of the developing nations in building the common and “shared” future for our Planet because they constitute more than two-thirds of the world’s population. I want to make my point clear, that the futuristic visions of the advanced nations are far too distant to be accepted, perceived and implemented by the developing countries for what is a fact for the First World is a fiction for the Third World nations today.

The 21st Century Studies

There is a greater need to establishing the 21st Century Studies in the developing countries in order to help deal with, and cope up with the present colossal crises, for short-term and long-term planning. Forecasting for a long term sustainable future is easier to make than to planning out for a coexistence which forms the very fabric of our civilisation. 

The 21^st Century Studies are a very new concept, and a very exciting one for the developing countries. They are completely different from the short term, single-issue planning studies usually done by governments. Instead, they are integrated, multidisciplinary analyses of long term options for countries, and of strategies for achieving the desired options. Many of the complex issues of today can best be dealt with through an inter-disciplinary approach.

The 21^st Century Skills include: Critical Thinking, Communication Skills, Creativity, Problem Solving, Perseverance, Collaboration, Information Literacy, Technology Skills and Digital Literacy, Media Literacy, Global Awareness, Self-direction, Social Skills, Literacy Skills, Civic Literacy, Social Responsibility, Innovation Skills, Thinking Skills. There may be more skills but the most important one is Ethical Thinking which is now needed to keep the World Order in the New Normal. Since the last few decades we have been talking about the New World Order but it is not yet clear who wants what. Therefore, we need to critically examine the difference between the haves and have-nots, nuclear deterrence, diplomatic maneuvering employed to establishing geopolitical interests and strategic alliances, and the Divide that defines the First World interests.

Our Participation in the Research

The developing countries participation in the research of Futurology is a must for representing our common concerns. Interaction amongst the advancing and advanced nations in this field is a necessity to gather wealth of inter-related and inter-disciplinary information which would help create our plans for building a sustainable and a viable future. I feel it is the responsibility of the developing nations to contribute to the body of fundamental knowledge in this field of research and evolving science which would help solve many of their present problems, thereby paving way for the better future for our future generations.

All nations, irrespective of their social, technological, economic and political status should be helped to make their desire of representing their respective states’ perspectives at the international arena since their “viewpoints” will help add up to the fundamental body of knowledge in what we call as the “technology bunch,” which we aptly describe Futurology.

Futurology is systematic forecasting of the future, especially from present trends in society. It is the activity of trying to predict what is going to happen, on the basis of facts about what is happening now. Professor Ossip K. Flechtheim (1909–1998), a German jurist, political scientist, and futurist, first coined the term Futurology. In the 1940s, Flechtheim proposed it as a branch of knowledge. Futurology is an interdisciplinary field that draws from a variety of sources, including science, economics, philosophy, and technology. In recent years, Futurology has become a popular topic of debate, with some arguing that it is a pseudoscience and others defending its validity as a legitimate field of study. Moore’s law is an example of Futurology; it is a statistical collection of past and present trends with the goal of accurately extrapolating future trends. Futurology is an interdisciplinary field that aggregates and analyses trends, with both lay and professional methods, to compose possible futures. The purposes of futures studies are to discover or invent, examine and evaluate, and propose possible, probable, and preferable futures. Futurists seek to know what can or could be (the possible), what is likely to be (the probable), and what ought to be (the preferable).

The Importance of the Futures Studies

We need to establish the study of the futures more firmly as an important discipline for both — professionals and non-professionals. There is a need to increase public awareness of, and respect for the study of the future. In order to have a common, “shared”, peaceful and a progressive future, we need to have an extraordinary vision about mankind and the potential of our future.  

Future cannot be taught; it must be understood by analysing the trends which will alter the shape of the things to come. It’s we who will help shape a more desirable future by sharing our experience, knowledge, and ideas. And we need to focus our attention on personal, local, and global concerns that influence our decisions, plans and actions for our future. Today we need to carefully examine the ideas, trends, and policies that help create our future. We need to study how social and technological developments are shaping our future. When we can visualise a better future then we can begin to create it.

At last, the world is waking up to the importance of the study of the future and to the fundamental realisation that the future is a matter of choice — not chance. People are beginning to understand that by making conscious choices today they can create a better tomorrow for themselves and for their generations to come.

The future is nothing but a series of probabilities, made up of the decisions that we make right now that lead to certain events into the future. I think it is possible to see into the future. Every human being has virtually unlimited awareness and capability and consciousness. Some individuals just have it in greater numbers than others. Every human being has this capability and is conscious of his greater awareness. The irony is: only a few use their powers and prowess to explore the world around them.

Interpretation and Fascination for Futurology

Futurology is a science which produces the future perspective at the present time. It is excogitation and is a field of study of estimation and evaluation of the facts based on the logic and the reasoning. Studies in Futurology involves a close observation of the developments which should necessarily be independent, unbiased, authentic and authoritative. Trend analysis is an extensive search into the records, chronological data and relevant information, sometimes all combined together, which reveal some startling and scintillating facts about the predictions. With the rapid developments in the field resulting in the refining of methodologies that day is not too far off when Futurology might be recognised as a “full fledged” science.  

My fascination for the futuristic imaginations and ideas, the study of which is full of formidable clues that could possibly help in finding out and unravelling the farthest and foremost frontiers of scientific knowledge, innovations and, perhaps inventions dates back to 1990s when I began writing predictions. By continuously refining the methods of monitoring the trends on a day-to-day-basis I have worked on “Analytical Futurology” dealing with the political and other predictions accompanied by reasons logically justifying the validity of the predictions concerned.

While working independently I have found that authentic and authoritative information and statistics are critically important which serve as a great reference, especially when you want to point out something which has an impact on the mankind as a whole. We are in the process of evolving a science by making study of the sociological and technological developments, values, and trends, with a view to planning for the future.

An Era of People Power

In an era of responsibility, Corporations are increasingly being called upon to take a leadership role in restoring values in the society; caring for the environment; promoting health and education, and nurturing sustainable and equitable development. Organisations are giving people more responsibility, and ever more powerful technology is magnifying individual capabilities. Individual responsibility for the environment may be the key to the Planet’s sustainability. Futurists too share a responsibility of shaping tomorrow and, therefore, they work with the communities to create a desirable future, to translate ideas into actions and to serve people.

This is an age of People Power and the opportunity society. In an Age of Individualism, personal rights must be balanced by social responsibilities. The better society — the most civil, humane, democratic society — exists when individual (human) rights and the community needs are in careful balance.

We need to rethink on the International Governance in terms of the coalition politics in an unruly world for there is a great potential for dramatic change in the future as the line between domestic and international is becoming irretrievably blurred. While at the same time, the harsh reality is, our quest to conquer and control others also continues in the name of development. Our “nobody-in-charge” world system will now require a more consensual style of leadership, featuring less command and compliance and more consultation and compromise.  

We need new leaders who can show us how to change in our own – and society’s – best interests.  The futures-creative leaders not only imagine the preferred future but work to create it. Leaders can help people to believe in themselves and in the possibilities of their future.

We now need to create a bridge between the present and the future in order to make our lives more comfortable. We also need broad-based research and development programs to generate new improved models to study our future. We need fora that would serve as platforms for addressing long-term international and multidisciplinary issues. Conferences and seminars (both physical and virtual) provide a forum for sharing information and generating inspiration.

The world changes only when enough ordinary people go into action. We need leaders of vision, commitment, and understanding to lead us into this century, and the next, and the millennium. And the real test of leadership in the future will be how to mobilise people everywhere to become part of a long journey of environment reconstruction and prevalent social, economic and political problems.

The more developments in technology; the macro advances in our progress; the logistics of our lateral thinking will all lead us to a prosperous, peaceful and progressive world centered around a common bond of humanity which incorporate human values, equality and unity, and more participation for all humans on our Planet Earth.

The first two decades of the twenty-first century have paved the way for a promising time of heightened interest in the future, as we bid farewell, more than 20 years ago, to the turnoff of the last century engulfed in conflicts and chaos, and embraced the beginning of a new millennium with more expectation and eagerness for coexistence for all mankind. During the latter part of the 1990s, a number of critical issues did emerge. These issues have dominated our political agendas, taxed our abilities to create new solutions, and have had an enormous effect on our lives to be able to prepare us for the preferred future. We step upon the threshold of 2020s which leads us to the new century facing a still brighter dawn of civilization in this millennium.

Conclusion

In conclusion I want to reiterate that, the first two decades of the twenty-first century have been transformative, marked by a departure from the conflicts and chaos of the previous century. This era has seen a heightened interest in the future, characterized by greater expectations for global coexistence and progress for all of humanity. The late 1990s brought forth critical issues that have challenged our political agendas and stretched our problem-solving capabilities, profoundly impacting our lives. However, as we enter the 2020s, we stand at the threshold of a new century, embracing a brighter dawn of civilization in this millennium. The groundwork laid in these two decades has set the stage for a promising and hopeful time ahead, where we must continue to tackle challenges and work together to shape a better world for generations to come, and for all Humankind!