Future Visions And Scenarios (Individual Work)

FUTURE ISSUES WHICH WILL SHAPE THE WORLD

Climate Change: Global Flooding

http://www.freakingnews.com/Underwater-City-Pics-4145.asp

By 2050, it is expected that population growth will add an additional 2.3 billion people onto the world’s current population, resulting in a dramatic increase of greenhouse gases. Climate change threatens the well-being of all humans, especially the poor, who contribute the least to this issue. As a result of further greenhouse gases within the Earth’s atmosphere, global warming will continue to rise the Earth’s temperatures. Therefore global warming will result in the melting of the world’s ice caps and cause a global flooding crisis within the near future.

Peak Oil

http://epianalysis.wordpress.com/2011/08/23/peakoil/

The world’s economic status, market and financial growth are significantly dependent upon the resource of crude oil. The world currently consumes 85 million barrels of oil per day, and the demand continues to exponentially grow. Without oil, modern transportational methods for the transport of resources and humans will cease to exist. Without investments into renewable fuels before this ever closing peak oil crisis of the next, a global economic collapse is guaranteed.

Energy Crisis

http://econogirl.wordpress.com/2011/09/26/making-big-polluters-pay/

Investments into alternative energy production from fossil fuels are rapidly accelerating to meet a projected forty percent increase in energy demand by 2035. Without a major breakthrough in renewable energy production and the global decision to move towards more sustainable methods of energy production, the majority of the world will still be dependent upon fossil fuels by 2050.

Economic Meltdown

http://www.habitants.org/news/debate_how_to_burst_the_real-estate_bubble/who_s_behind_the_financial_meltdown

Economies all around the globe have the current concern of significant amounts of financial debt. As a result of the majority of continents in current economic crisis, it is plausible that a great depression is foreseeable within the near future. To resolve this economic crisis, nations around the globe must work together by planning longer term economic goals, preventing greed of global corporations, and setting regulations of all buyers within the global market.

Population Growth: Lack of Resources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth

‘Today life expectancy at birth is 68 years, which is projected to grow to 81 by 2100; with advances in longevity research, this projection will increase.' (www.millennium-project.org/millennium/Global_Challenges) This statistic proves that our already scarce resources, such as food, clean water and oil, will continue to become scarcer as the non-providing population of the world continues to increase with the enhancement of medicine. Population growth is an issue which humans must negotiate for today.

Peace and Conflict

http://jafrianews.com/2011/01/24/anti-afghan-war-protests-held-in-different-cities-of-germany/

‘Predominantly young and increasingly educated populations are using the Internet to organize around common ideals, independent of conventional institutional controls and regardless of nationality or languages. These new forms of Internet-augmented democracy are beginning to wield unparalleled social power, often bypassing conventional news media.’(www.millennium-project.org/millennium/Global_Challenges) Peace and conflict for humans has been a relevant issue since the time of man, and with advances in global communication, this issue will not be resolved within the near future.

REFERENCE

Rosenberg, M. (2012). Effect of Global Warming and Future Outlook. Retrieved from http://geography.about.com/od/globalproblemsandissues/a/globalwarming_2.htm, 24th August, 2012.

FUTURE SCENARIO (as written by myself)

In 2042, Brisbane along with the rest of Australia and the world, are still recovering from the peak oil crisis of 2030. Early in the 2020s, it became apparent to the global market and investors that oil resources were extremely low and would only be able to accumulate for the world’s population for an additional few years. During the 2020’s, there was a significant boost in renewable energy and fuel research all around the globe. First world governments and investors came together in 2022, as what was known as the most fundamental Kyoto meeting ever, as organised by the UNFCCC. The Kyoto meeting of 2022 was set to establish a plan of action before peak oil and consequently an economic meltdown occurred. Resources were utilised effectively by the first world countries to establish new means of transport, and establish the mass production of renewable fuels, aswell as the engineering and technology to convert all petrol operated engines. By 2028, oil and fuel prices were at a price so high that the public and global corporations invested into renewable fuelled vehicles. On the day of 24^th March, 2030, all oil companies officially declared that the inevitable day of peak oil had struck. A significant amount of nations were not ready for this crisis, aswell as many global corporations who soon ceased to exist. Nonetheless, the majority of first world countries recovered quickly and to this day, technological advancements are still exponentially growing at a high rate.

It is now 2042, the communities of Brisbane, aswell as the world, are all sustainably aware of the impacts of our ever growing population. Global markets still exist, but communities have learnt to source essential resources locally, which in turn established closer and friendlier communities. All produced resources and technology must now meet sustainable regulations, most of the world’s energy is sourced from renewable means, and the world as one are learning to implement additional strategies for the ever increasing global warming. First world countries around the world, are beginning to see the peak oil crisis of the 2020’s as a sustainable opportunity for social change, instead of the economic disaster it once was.