4 Plausible Futures: 2050 Senarios...

[NeoGreen]

https://www.arup.com/perspectives/publications/research/section/2050-scenarios-four-plausible-futures

2050 Scenarios: four plausible futures

What will the world look like in 2050? This report explores four plausible future scenarios based on the intersection between our planet’s health and societal conditions.

The four divergent futures – Humans Inc., Extinction Express, Greentocracy and Post Anthropocene – range from the collapse of our society and natural systems, to the two living in sustainable harmony.

It is our aim, through sharing this report, to inform decisions on the design and planning of the built environment, and show how progress towards achieving the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals can drive change for our planet and outlook for humanity.

Executive summary
The world today is marked by rapid change. Some trends point towards human progress, others indicate an increasingly perilous
outlook for the planet.

POST ANTHROPOCENE shows how societal conditions and planetary health might exist in a harmonious relationship, fortifying each other for mutual progress and benefit.

GREENTOCRACY describes an improvement in planetary health which has been enabled by severe restrictions on human society: restrictive living conditions, conflict and authoritarian regimes prevail.

EXTINCTION EXPRESS depicts both declining planetary health and societal conditions. It is questionable how much longer humanity can survive.

HUMANS INC. represents our current trajectory; a world in which societal conditions advance at the cost of planetary health.

[hunter]

1. Humans Inc. seems unlikely as the number of climate change refugees escalates.

Even within the borders of the U.S.A. this will be a problem.

Impoverished U.S. Americans displaced by global warming are unlikely to be welcomed elsewhere within the U.S.A., and especially not by other nations.

It seems we are going to allow the natural gas industry to destroy the world as we know it. People are quick to recognize coal as a danger, but it's a lie that gas power grids and transportation systems are a "green" alternative, even those that include supplemental wind and solar power.

If we banned fossil fuels in a timely manner there are two ways we might go.

The only way to support the familiar high energy industrial consumer economy is nuclear power.

A society powered exclusively by wind, solar, and other "renewable" energy sources would look nothing like the society many of us now enjoy. It might not even be possible to support the earth's current human population using entirely renewable energy sources.

It's clear the earth's human population needs to be stabilized and thus far it seems the only humane way to do that is by the empowerment of women, readily available birth control, and comfortable cosmopolitan habitats.

[NeoGreen]

2. The false hope and erroneous assumption is that we will...

...be able to maintain 1st world lifestyles.

They reality is that we will not and should not even try.

Air travel should be the first thing to go.
Mass produced meat, a close second.

Live Locally and Prosper.