Environmental Change and Biodiversity

Annotated Scenarios Bibliography excerpt from 2010 State of the Future report

A Path to Sustainable Energy by 2030.   Mark Z. Jacobson; Mark A. Delucchi, Scientific American Magazine (also noted in World Future Review. Dec-Jan 2010. Page 68. Michael Marien mini-abstracts). November 2009 issue/article/11pps.  A year ago, former vice president Al Gore challenged America to totally “retool and restructure its’ energy systems  to repower with 100 percent carbon-free electricity within 10 years!”  According to the authors, it is feasible to do so within 20 years!  The US can transform to renewable energy in the next two decades.  The answer depends on the technologies chosen, the availability of critical materials, and economic and political factors.  This article explores these normative factors.  Key drivers discussed in the article include: 1) Supplies of wind and solar energy on accessible land dwarf the energy consumed by people around the globe; 2) The authors’ plan calls for 3.8 million large wind turbines, 90,000 solar plants, and numerous geothermal, tidal and rooftop photovoltaic installations worldwide. 3) The cost of generating and transmitting power would be less than the projected cost per kilowatt-hour for fossil-fuel and nuclear power; and 4) Shortages of a few specialty materials, along with lack of political will, loom as the greatest obstacle.  The author’s analyses strongly suggest that the costs of WWS (wind, water and/or sunlight) will become competitive with traditional sources. In the interim, however, certain forms of WWS power will be significantly more costly than fossil power. Some combination of WWS subsidies and carbon taxes would thus be needed for a time. [The following is an excerpt from the article:]  Normative Scenario to 2030: The Plan – Power Plants Required.  According to the authors, there is clearly  enough renewable energy  that exists. How, then, would we transition to a new infrastructure to provide the world with 11.5 TW (terra watts)? “We have chosen a mix of technologies emphasizing wind and solar, with about 9 percent of demand met by mature water-related methods. (Other combinations of wind and solar could be as successful .) In this world, wind supplies 51 percent of the demand, provided by 3.8 million large wind turbines (each rated at five megawatts) worldwide. Although that quantity may sound enormous, it is interesting to note that the world manufactures 73 million cars and light trucks every year.Another 40 percent of the power comes from photovoltaic’s and concentrated solar plants, with about 30 percent of the photovoltaic output from rooftop panels on homes and commercial buildings. About 89,000 photovoltaic and concentrated solar power plants, averaging 300 megawatts a piece, would be needed. In this world, the mix would also includes 900 hydroelectric stations worldwide, 70 percent of which are already in place. Only about 0.8 percent of the wind base is installed today. The worldwide footprint of the 3.8 million turbines would be less than 50 square kilometers (smaller than Manhattan). When the needed spacing between them is figured, they would occupy about 1 percent of the earth’s land, but the empty space among turbines could be used for agriculture or ranching, or, as open land or ocean. The nonrooftop photovoltaics and concentrated solar plants would occupy about 0.33 percent of the planet’s land. In this world, the author’s forecast that building such an extensive infrastructure will certainly take time but can be accomplished in a matter of a few decades (and financed by energy profits from current oil companies and by financial firms that made millions by investing heavily in oil speculation, especially in 2008.)   The current power plant network was built over a relatively short time. “ And remember that if we stick with fossil fuels, demand by 2030 will rise to 16.9 TW, requiring about 13,000 large new coal plants, which themselves would occupy a lot more land, as would the mining to supply them.”

Scenarios for 2035: Long-Term Trends, Challenges and Uncertainties Facing NOAA.   Paul Doremus (and staff), Director of Strategic Planning at NOAA.  A Working Document for the  National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.  May2009/PDF/ 41pps/www.noaa.org  The NOAA scenario planning team identified 200 major external forces and trends that could significantly affect NOAA’s future through 2035. The degree of uncertainly and potential scope of impact was analyzed with three alternative “yet equally plausible” scenarios of the future.  Among the external forces, the team identified three clusters (or axis)  of uncertainty that were tightly linked into the scenario narratives:  1) The nature and mix of economic activity in the United States and around the world, including urbanization and migration trends; growth in energy demand in different segments of society; the availability of energy supply; and the drive by busi­nesses, consumers, and governments to be “green.” 2)  The governance and decision-making processes of governmental organizations at State, federal, and international levels, including  the extent of information sharing across government organizations, the trend toward privatization of government functions, and the nature of energy policy .  3)  The third axis of uncertainty involves the interaction between society and the physical environment. “The important forces in this cluster include climate change developments, the outcomes for U.S. and global ocean resources, water quality for U.S. coastal areas, the U.S. public’s attitudes and behavior on the environment, and food security in the world.”  Poten­tial axis outcomes range from a dysfunctional interaction between society and the environment to a harmonious one.”   – The team then identified a set of  predetermined elements (little to no doubt about their outcomes over the next 25 years) such as: 1)  continuing advances in computing and availability of new high-performance hardware and software (the report describes “petaflop” machines in detail);  2)  the ongoing occurrence of catastrophic events that will continue to be frequent, severe, and often surprising in their impacts; 3) water supply issues will worsen. According to the United Nations Secretary General, “Half the nations of the world will face freshwater stress or shortages by 2025.”   The scenarios present two ways of look­ing at the world of 2035. The first section provides narrative text/short stories of the forces, dynamics, and outcomes within each scenario. The second section shows a  table at the end of the document that compares the major forces and trends across each of the scenarios.  [The following is an excerpt from the report:] Scenario 1) Too Little, Too Late? Despite smart economic growth based on alternative energy and sustainable production, and despite collaboration on environmental policy at all levels of government, it may be too late to stop abrupt climate change and its social, economic, and environmental impacts.  Key drivers: Smart economic growth is implemented, and government institutions collaborate in policy making and implementation, but the global environment doesn’t appear to be responding.  Hallmarks:  Strong economic growth is fueled by alternative energy;  investments and global trade; a growing knowledge and information about environmental threats, and new observation and analysis capabilities; there is strong international cooperation on climate change; government creates new markets and facilitates the transition of society; demand for fossil fuels remains high and the environment appears too sick to respond;  turbulent and massive shifts in weather and the earth’s ecosystems are occurring; experts disagree over a policy shift from mitigation to adaptation.  Scenario 2) Green Chaos. Environmental policy at all levels of government is fragmented and disorganized, but a growing market for alternative energy and other sustainable products leads to smart economic growth and an increasingly harmonious relationship between humans and nature supported by the forces of supply and demand.  Key drivers: Smart growth policies are adopted and successfully implemented, the interaction between the environment and society becomes harmonious, and government institutions act according to self-interests in a fragmented fashion.  Hallmarks: markets deal effectively with environmental uncertainties; multinationals, venture capital firms, and state-owned enterprises in developing countries invest aggressively in green and sustainable development solutions; carbon taxes in the United States, and an uneven patchwork of regional and local government policies exist; government policy makers are overwhelmed by the environmental and economic uncertainties; and any of the feared economic consequences from externality pricing and heavily regulating resource usage were hype. Scenario 3) Carbon Junkies. Environmental policy at all levels of government is collaborative, particularly in developing advanced environmental science and technology, but business-as-usual practices in industry and the public’s focus on traditional metrics of economic success lead, ultimately, to extensive environmental degradation. Key Drivers: Governments develop innovative policies and collaborative mechanisms, but business-as-usual forces are powerful and continue to prevail. The environment starts to change significantly while the U.S. economy and the rest of the world appear unable to respond. Hallmarks: in developed and developing countries, the old economic systems continue to exploit cheap, fossil energy in stimulating economic growth; what many scientists (and Al Gore) long predicted has been confirmed: The world is running out of time in its use of carbon; in the United States, productive agricultural land shrinks significantly; Arctic ice in summer months disappears in the wake of the dramatically warming climate; Scientists agree that large-scale change in the climate system is taking place and the change cannot be reversed, even with major mitigation efforts worldwide, for decades.

Future Scenarios – How Communities Can Adapt To Peak Oil and Climate Change (mapping the cultural implications of peak oil and climate change).  David Holmgren, Chelsea Green Publishing. April, 2009/paperback/136pps/ Holmgren’s website: www.futurescenario.org. This book focuses on the inevitable “energy descent” that the world is facing and outlines four likely scenarios that include the cultural, political, agricultural, and economic implications of peak oil and climate change. David Holmgren is best known as the co-creator of “permaculture,”  the integrated, evolving system of perennial or self-perpetuating plant and animal species useful to man. The author begins with a discussion of four possible broad energy scenarios that are likely to occur over the next century. He puts an emphasis on casting energy descent in a positive light, in the sense that it will “free people from the strictures and dysfunctions of growth economics and consumer culture.”  There are many factors that will affect the future in addition to climate change and peak oil. These  include critical materials depletion, water depletion, food supply depletion, population pressures, financial instability, psychosocial limits to affluence, and species extinction. Holmgren notes that all of these issues combined need to be considered when predicting possible future scenarios. Holgren’s integrated approach toward understanding the potential interactions between Climate Change and Peak Oil uses the scenario planning model. In the process he introduces permaculture as a “design system” specifically evolved over the last 30 years to creatively respond to futures that involve progressively less and less available energy.  “Four broad energy scenarios provide a framework for considering the wide spectrum of culturally imagined, and ecologically likely, futures over the next century or more.”  [The folllowing is an excerpt from the book:] Scenario 1)Techno-Explosion.  This scenario depends on new, large and concentrated energy sources that will allow the continual growth in material wealth and human power over environmental constraints, as well as population growth. This scenario is generally associated with space travel to colonize other planets.  Scenario 2) Techno-Stability.  This scenario depends on a seamless conversion from material growth based on depleting energy, to a steady state in consumption of resources and population (if not economic activity), all based on novel use of renewable energies and technologies that can maintain if not improve the quality of services available from current systems. While this clearly involves massive change in almost all aspects of society, the implication is that once sustainable systems are set in place, a steady state sustainable society with much less change will prevail. Photovoltaic technology directly capturing solar energy is a suitable icon or symbol of this scenario.  Scenario 3) Energy Descent.  This scenario involves a reduction of economic activity, complexity and population in some way as fossil fuels are depleted. The increasing reliance on renewable resources of lower energy density will, over time, change the structure of society to reflect many of the basic design rules, if not details, of pre-industrial societies. This suggests a ruralisation of settlement and economy, with less consumption of energy and resources and a progressive decline in human populations. Biological resources and their sustainable management will become progressively more important as fossil fuels and technological power declines. In many regions, forests will regain their traditional status as symbols of wealth. Thus the tree is a suitable icon of this scenario. Energy Descent (like Techno-explosion) is a scenario dominated by change, but that change might not be continuous or gradual. Instead it could be characterized by a series of steady states punctuated by crises (or mini collapses) that destroy some aspects of Industrial culture.  Scenario 4) Collapse.   This scenario suggests a failure of the whole range of interlocked systems that maintain and support industrial society, as high quality fossil fuels are depleted and/or climate change radically damages the ecological support systems. This collapse would be fast and more or less continuous without the restabilisations possible in Energy Descent. It would inevitably involve a major “die-off” of human population and a loss of the knowledge and infrastructure necessary for industrial civilization, if not more severe scenarios including human extinction along with much of the planet's biodiversity.
Hacking the Earth: Understanding the Complexities of Geoengineering.  Jamais Cascio, Amazon Books, January, 2009.  Also featured on the Futurist website titled, “2020 Visionaries Series,” May-June 2010/www.wfs.org. In this book, Jamais Cascio suggests some radical ideas to mitigate the effects of climate change. “By the year 2030, environmental policy and political policy will be completely inseparable at the global level.” According to the author, climate change/political policy could show up in two very different ways:  as a catalyst for war or as a new model for handling complexity.  The author describes two very clear visions of the potential future, described appropriately as two potential scenarios: a downside scenario and a normative scenario. [The following is an excerpt (slightly edited) from the article about the book on the Futurist website:]    Scenario 1) The Downside – The Complexity of Environmental Challenges 2010 – 2020. The global delays in reducing carbon emissions will likely force the human race to embark upon a set of geoengineering-based responses, not as the complete solution, but simply as a disaster-avoidance measure.   Geoengineering, the deliberate manipulation of the earth’s natural systems, may include various forms of thermal management, such as stratospheric sulfate injections or high-altitude seawater sprays, and might also embrace some form of carbon capture via ocean fertilization, or even something not yet fully described. The mid-2010s is the probable starting period for these strategies, in my view. Geoengineering advocates may see the mid-2010s as already too late, while opponents would likely want more time to study their models. Once we start down the geoengineering path to 2020, unexpected feedbacks and unintended consequences will, in this scenario, quickly become manifest, and the reactions could be volatile. Planetary management could become a political flashpoint, leading to outbreaks of violence, especially if different regions have divergent results or demand incompatible outcomes. A good portion of international diplomacy would focus on just how to control climate engineering technologies and deal with their consequences.   This scenario of the world reveals a challenging world to navigate in the next couple of decades, and not just because of conflicts over who’s in charge or who’s to blame for which problems. We’ll be dealing with multiple complex global system breakdowns — from the ongoing financial system crisis, peak oil production, climate disruption, and the very real possibility of food system collapse. These crises demand greater information analysis, longer-term thinking, and more accountability than traditional forms of global politics have tended to offer. For centuries, nations have been ready to commit “hard power,” military force, when necessary to push their interests. In the twentieth century, nations recognized the value of “soft power,” cultural influence, as a way of gaining allies. But these multifaceted system problems don’t lend themselves to either the hard or soft power approach. They call out a need for a new model to meet the needs of the 21st century.   It’s hard to exaggerate the sheer complexity of the situation. If the great obstacle to our continued survival and prosperity as a species were “just” global warming, achieving success would be tricky but doable. The challenge we face is global warming plus resource collapse plus pandemic disease plus post-hegemonic disorder plus a myriad other issues.  Scenario 2) A More Optimistic View – Solutions to Complex Challenges 2010 - 2020.    We know what we need to do to mitigate climate change, and we have the necessary technology.  In 2010 we realize what we’re missing, that more than anything else, it is the political will.  In this world,  politics and society can change — we’ve seen it happen before. It might take a generational shift, it might take a disaster (or three), or it might just come from an expanding understanding of what we’re doing to the planet. It will take a lot of people working on fixes and solutions and ideas — not simply top-down mandates, but massively multi-participant quests, across thousands of communities and hundreds of countries, bringing in literally millions of minds. The very description reeks of innovation potential such as: 1)  Innovation in energy. A mix of nuclear, wind, solar, and a few others, such as ocean thermal energy conversion and hydrokinetic power, will overtake fossil fuels by the 2020s, even if China and India retain coal-fired power plants. If handled poorly, such recalcitrance may end up being a driver for significant global tension. If handled well, it could be an engine for new markets and development. 2)   Innovation in urbanization. More than half the planet lives in cities today, and that proportion is increasing quickly. Sensor dust, embedded computing, augmented reality, and a host of other emerging technologies hold the potential to “awaken” cities as smart environments. But “smart city” has to mean more than just lots of urbanites knowing their own carbon footprint; it must come to refer to a far better understanding of what can be done to improve things.  3) Innovation in materials and manufacturing. By the year 2030, molecular fabrication (“nanofactories”) will significantly boost the world’s productive capacities. Although nanofactories have the potential to pose another complex system problem, the kinds of political institutions and models we’ll be forced to develop in response to ongoing environmental crises can serve as platforms for handling issues such as this one. If we can handle the political and social complexities of global warming (and likely geoengineering) in the 2010s and 2020s, we’ll be well-positioned to handle potentially even more disruptive events as the century continues.  “Then the Singularity happens in 2048 and we’re all uploaded by force. ..I’m kidding about that last one… I think.” Jamais Cascio.
Natural Gas: A Bridge to a Low-Carbon Future?  Stephen P.A. Brown, Alan J. Krupnick, and Margaret A. Walls.  Resources for the Future and National Energy Policy Institute (NEPI).  Issue Brief. December 2009/PDF/www.NEPI.com. Over the next 20 years, the world is poised to seriously reduce carbon emissions.  Among the many technological solutions, more discussion has been focused on greater use of natural gas to reduce CO2 emissions.  Because natural gas use yields CO2 emissions that are about 45 percent lower per Btu than coal and 30 percent lower than oil, its apparent abundance raises the possibility that natural gas could serve as a bridge fuel to a future with reduced CO2 emissions.  To assess the role of natural gas as a bridge fuel to a low-carbon future, this report compares four scenarios that reflect different perspectives of natural gas and climate to the year 2030.  Two scenarios are business as usual cases and assume that the United States adopts no new policies to reduce CO2 emissions.  The third and fourth scenarios assume that the United States adopts a low-carbon policy with CO2 emission targets similar to those in the American Clean Energy and Security Act.  This report asserts that with a carbon cap-and-trade system in place, a more abundant natural gas supplly would contribute to achieving carbon-reduction goals. The report’s analysis also suggests that the most cost-effective means for reducing CO2 emissions depends greatly on projected resource availability and technology changes – both of which are highly uncertain.   It is important that in the future, there be a solid carbon policy in place or else the overuse of inexpensive natural gas will foster greater energy consumption which would result in higher Co2 emissions.  With a solid market-based policy such as cap-and-trade, it is plausible that abundant supplies of natural gas will make a contribution in the transition to a low carbon future.  The share of electric power generation from natural gas is greater in 2030 than 2010 and much.  [The following is an excerpt from the report:] Scenario 1) BAU – Low Gas. Represents business-as-usual with the low estimates of U.S. shale gas resources at 269.3 trillion cubic feet. This case is based on the AEO2009 as revised in April to include energy provisions in the stimulus package, but it pulls new Corporate Average fuel Economy standards forward from 2020 to 2016. U.S. natural gas consumption is projected to grow insignificantly from 2008 to 2030 under this scenario.  Moreover, the projection shows natural gas consumption falling through 2014, particularly in electricity generation, as renewable energy, coal, and nuclear power crowd out natural gas because of recent changes in regulatory actions. After 2014, the adjustment to regulatory change is mostly complete, and the electric power sector shows increasing use of natural gas.  Scenario 2) BAU – High Gas.  Represents business as usual with the higher estimates of U.S. shale resources.  It is based on Scenario 1 with PGC estimates of U.S. shale gas resources at 615.9 trillion cubic feet. This scenario offers a wide range of plausible estimates for shale gas resources and reflect the considerable uncertainty about the supply and production profiles from shale gas formations.  Scenario 3)  CO2 Policy – Low Gas.  Low carbon policy without abundant natural gas. This scenario represents implementation of a low carbon policy with the low estimates of U.S. shale gas resources. It is based on Scenario 1 with a cap-and-trade policy with CO2 emissions targets similar to those in the Waxman – Markey bill, and to those proposed by the Obama administration prior to the UN climate conference in Copenhagen.  This scenario results in reduced U.S. natural gas consumption compared with Scenario 1. Coal and oil use are also reduced, but substantial increases are found in nuclear and renewable power generation. Overall energy consumption is 5.4 percent lower in 2030, with electric power generation 8.2 percent lower. Energy consumption is lower in all sectors of the economy, and CO2 emissions in 2030 fall from 6.2 billion tons in Scenario 1 to 4.8 billion tons in Scenario 3. By 2030, the biggest reduction in natural gas use is in the electric power sector, where natural gas and coal are both displaced by conservation and gains in nuclear and renewable power generation. Scenario 4) CO2 Policy – High Gas.  Low-carbon policy with abundant natural gas. This scenario represents an implementation of a low carbon policy with the high estimates of U.S. shale gas resources. It is based on Scenario 3 with the higher estimates of U.S. shale gas resources.  With abundant natural gas supplies (Scenarios 2 and 4), the implementation of a cap‐and‐trade program yields a greater overall reduction in energy use than would occur without the abundant supplies (Scenarios 1 and 3). Because greater natural gas supplies foster higher overall energy consumption and higher CO2 emissions in the absence of policy intervention, bigger reductions in energy use are required to meet the CO2 emission targets (about 4.8 billion tons in 2030). Nonetheless, natural gas production and consumption are only slightly reduced by the introduction of a low‐carbon policy.

Fashion Futures - Scenarios Explore The Fashion World of 2025.  Levi Strauss & Co. in collaborations with Forum for The Future, a think tank focusing on action for a sustainable world.  February 2010/PDF/61pps/www.fftf.org “Fashion Futures to 2025” was launched during London Fashion Week at an event hosted by Levi Strauss & Co. and Forum for the Future at London's Southbank Centre.  The report explores the future of a trillion dollar sector and the role of fashion in a world where forces demand sustainable business practices. Some of the questions the report addressed were:  1) Will climate change refugees spread new fashion influences around the world?  2) Will a shortage of raw materials see us renting our clothes from libraries? 3) Will technological advances make it common to grow what we wear?  The scenarios take into account the key factors that are already affecting the industry and will bring profound change over the next 15 years. It is possible that, in terms of sustainability, the global fashion industry can set an example by having a huge positive impact on society and the environment.  The report describes how fashion’s future could be greener. Forum for the Future produced four scenarios in collaboration with fashion experts from around the world in manufacturing, design and retail, as well as universities, trade unions and NGOs. They explore every aspect of the industry, from production of raw materials, through manufacturing and sale, to use and end of life. The four Fashion Futures scenarios follow. [The following is an excerpt from the report:]   Scenario 1) Slow is Beautiful.   This scenario presents a world of political collaboration and global trade. "Slow fashion" is in vogue, and high street brands compete on sustainability credentials. Climate change refugees have introduced new fashion influences. People own fewer, but higher quality clothes. "Vintage" second-hand clothes are also popular, bought and sold online. People also wear "smart" clothes, which monitor their health and wellbeing. Japan specializes in remanufacturing the world’s used garments.  Scenario 2) Community Couture.  In this scenario, self-sufficient communities are thriving in a world struggling to cope with the impacts of climate change and resource shortages. Only the rich can afford new clothing, and factories that still make clothes from raw materials need protection from armed gangs. People rent garments from clothing libraries or make their own in community recycling centers. Second-hand clothing is a valuable resource and nothing is thrown away.  Scenario 3) Techno-Chic.  This is a prosperous world that has benefited from an early switch to a low-carbon economy and huge technological investment. 3-D body scanners allow people to "try on" clothes in virtual mirrors. Modular clothing, produced by machines in China, is customized in store to individual taste. The latest craze is "Chameleon" clothing, a military spin-off, offering a blank canvas which can change color and style, programmed to mimic the celeb of the moment. Clothes are designed to biodegrade or be reused. Scenario 4) Patchwork Planet.   In this scenario,  the world has fragmented into competing blocs with rapidly changing fashions inspired by religious and cultural ideals. Western clothes are banned in much of the Middle East. Resource shortages have driven innovation: garments can be "grown" from bacterial cellulose. Clothes are designed to be zipped, tucked and strapped to create many different looks, and post-purchase services allow owners to update them in line with the latest local trend.

The World in 2025: A Challenge to Reason. Thierry Gaudin for EC DG for Research, Innovation, and Science.  October 2008.  Presented to the World Futures Federation. Thierry Gaudin has his doctorate of science in information and communication from the University of Paris. He is founder of Prospective 2100, an NGO aimed at promoting foresignt in decision making.  and is an international expert on international diplomacy. This report was commissioned by the European Commission DG Research and BEPA, who initiated a foresight exercise aimed at analyzing the world situation from now to 2025. To complete this foresight, a working group was composed by the commission. Prospective 2100, an NGO, was involved with the EC and created scenarios for the  World in 2025.   These scenarios are based on a backdrop of this report’s comprehensive trends reporting that provided extensive coverage on the tensions between : climate and biodiversity, the internet and global communications ; the tension between demographics and natural resources, sustainable verses unsustainable technologies, education and health ; multiple individuals and networks ; global business behaviors ; and the influence of scientific and cultural communities. There is a huge disruption that the authors believe is a shift in civilization, from the industrial age, based on materials and energy, to the « cognitive civilization » driven by information technologies and a dramatic ecological desequilibrium. In this context, foresight appears as a vital necessity, aiming at the adaptation of the way of thinking to the new context.’ [The following is an excerpt from the report :]   Scenario 1) World Green Party Type.  The basic assumption of this  scenario is that green regulation to sustainability is enforced but the resistance of the vested interests and the worldwide diversity of the situations generates a conflicting world. The basic hypothesis are: More (global) regulation – Sustainable development – Conflicting world.  Developed countries and large NGO’s impose environmental and climate regulations to the others, therefore conflicts. Environment and climate improve, sober access to fossil fuels due to the increase in prices. Conflicts also appear over land use, due to agro fuels demand competing with food demand, and also water scarcity. Technically, this scenario assumes radical changes in the production and consumption systems. Environmental care is massively introduced in education. Better access to information through Internet facilitate the shift towards sustainable technologies and sustainable behaviour of the citizen. New missions are designed for the military forces: protect environment, stop deforestation, rescue to environment refugees. New earth observation system using satellites allow an increased control of urban circulation, sustainability behaviours, climate devastating events and nature protection. There is a significant increase in migrations. As a result, demographic heterogeneity is slowing down generating more convergence. The fertility rates diminish. The times are difficult for economy. It is hard to finance innovation, because of low economic growth. Global economic crises like the 1929 one is possible and collapse of mega cities too.  Scenario 2) Laissez-Faire.  This scenario is to be considered as the “business as usual” one. The regulations stay as they are, the economic development is no more sustainable as it is. The world solves its problems through negotiation rather than conflict. No further (global) regulation – Conventional growth – Consensus approach. In the presentation published by Shell in 2008, this scenario is named “scramble”. It says: “National governments, the principal actors in Scramble, focus their energy policies on supply levers because curbing the growth of energy demand – and hence economic growth – is simply too unpopular for politicians to undertake. A lack of international cooperation means that individual countries are unwilling to act unilaterally in a way that will damage their own economic growth. The result is a relatively uncoordinated range of national mandates and incentives for developing indigenous energy supplies where available, including coal, heavy oils, bio-fuels, and other renewables, which leads to a patchwork of local standards and technologies.” Climate change is speeding up and damages to ecosystem too. Migration increases and urbanization too. But sociology stays heterogeneous. Everyone goes back to his own corners of civilization. People adapt themselves to fluctuations in the oil prices. Market forces are dominant. Most public services are privatized or sub-contracted to the private sector. Large multinational companies dominate the world. Economic governance is implemented at the world level. The two countries that benefit most from globalization, USA and China are reinforced.  Scenario 3) Shell Blueprint Scenario.  The “blue print” name given by Shell to its second scenario presented in 2008 as a contrast with “laissez-faire” illustrates the idea that, if dominant forces are in the hands of conscious leaders, they will negotiate a reasonable and peaceful path to sustainability. More (global) regulation – Sustainable development – Consensus approach. This scenario looked as a stimulating challenge to the group of experts, more stimulating than the other 7 possibilities offered combining the 3 factors with 2 possibilities for each. The world, in this scenario, escapes recession implementing a Marshall plan for global environment, including huge public works and housing regeneration to improve the energy efficiency in the cities and the quality of life. Important education programs are launched, particularly in Africa in order to stimulate local development and limit emigration. Decentralized economic policies favor the development of networks of middle size cities at regional scale. Urban sprawl is under control. Following the objectives of the millennium, the proportion of poor people at world level is reduced by 30%. The world population is expected to stabilize around 8 billion by 2050. The Marshall plan has curbed the increase in temperature. A new techno-economic paradigm emerges. Research attracts talented young people. Solar energy and energy saving are the two new pillars. After several climate damages, hurricanes, floods and droughts, most countries accept to reduce by factor 2 their GHG emissions. The Marshall plan is funded by an international tax. It saves the recession through huge coherent investments.  There is a slight reduction in international trade, but increased employment in the energy sector, including energy saving technology. The present measurement of growth is abandoned. A new frame is set up to account the “real” GDP, including self-production and services rendered by nature. The analysis of saturations and compulsory expenses is also developed in order to offer a better evaluation of the citizen’s freedom. A new type of Internet is settled: open access for an open society. Role of WTO and IMF increases. The roles of the different institutions are enlarged and redefined. Europe becomes a major actor on the international scene.  Scenario 4) Transparency Without Regulation.  This describes a world of permanent move, competition and multiplied choices. E-commerce, e-administration, new forms of democracy, collaborative work, are developed. Processes of governance without government appear with participation to collective decisions. It leads to better environment control, but also  dissemination of false fears. It is a world of free access, but also of social control and suspicion. There may be a risk of fragmentation of society in micro, self selected communities leading to segregation. The dissemination of weapons may occur also. Finally power may move towards non-transparent organizations like mafias. This proves that maintaining transparency needs regulation. Scenario 5) Transparency With Regulation.  This scenario opened by the remark that a difficult choice is to be made between too much regulation and too little regulation. This choice has to be solved in “transforming regulation”. When looking at more precise topics, the working group rapidly focused on interesting proposals. On environment the idea of a WEO (World environmental organization) appeared by analogy with the WTO (World Trade Organization, which would need redefinition). The Intellectual property rights appears also as a topic for reregulation, particularly for drugs, software, culture and nuclear. Of course, calls for reform of financial regulations were not omitted. Regulatory bodies are drastically reformed. Finally, the situation appears by no means static. The interplay between regulation and transparency changes in time. Sometimes one factor is dominant, sometimes the other.

 

Energy Technology Perspectives 2010 – Scenarios & Strategies to 2050. TO BE RELEASED ON 1ST JULY, 2010.  The International Energy Agency (IEA) and its energy technology network. PDF/650pps/www.iea.org This innovative work, to be released in July, 2010, demonstrates how energy technologies can make a difference in an ambitious series of global scenarios to 2050. The study contains technology road maps for all key energy sectors, including electricity generation, buildings, industry and transport.  The forerunner, “Energy Technology Perspectives 2008” provides detailed technology and policy insights to help focus the discussion and debate in energy circles. To meet the challenges of energy security and climate change, this report asserts that a global energy technology revolution is essential. But is this fundamental transformation happening? What are the key technologies that can play a role? What are the costs and benefits? And what policies do we need?  The new ETP 2010 explores such questions and many others, drawing on the extensive expertise of the International Energy Agency (IEA) and its energy technology network.  ETP 2010 presents updated scenarios from the present to 2050 that show which new technologies will be most important in key sectors and in different regions of the world. It highlights the importance of finance to achieve change, examines the implications of the scenarios for energy security and looks at how to accelerate the deployment of low-carbon technologies in major developing countries. It presents roadmaps and transition pathways for spurring deployment of the most important clean technologies and for overcoming existing barriers.  Trends include: 1) increasing oil demand.  The projected substantial growth in the global economy between 2008 and 2050 implies an increase in energy needs. Unsustainable pressures on the environment and on natural resources are inevitable if energy demand remains closely coupled with economic growth and if fossil fuel demand is not reduced.  2)  Over the last two years, global carbon dioxide CO2 emissions and oil demand have continued to increase steadily. “Business-as-usual” projections foresee a 70% increase in oil demand and a 130% rise in CO2 emissions by 2050. Such an increase in CO2 emissions could raise global average temperatures by 6°C or more, resulting in significant impacts on all aspects of life and irreversible changes in the natural environment.  3)  A dramatic shift is needed in government energy policies, ensuring longer-term planning on which industries can rely. International cooperation among all major economies will also be crucial, bearing in mind that a large proportion of future CO2 emissions are likely to come from the developing world. [The following is an excerpt from the report:]  Overview of Scenario Set that will be developed further when the report is released in July, 2010: The ACT Scenarios and the BLUE Scenarios.  (1) Reducing CO2 emissions to 2005 levels is not enough to limit global warming to 2 - 2.4 °C. Two sets of scenarios assess the efforts needed to either stabilize CO2 emissions at the level they were in 2005, or reduce them to 50% of that level by 2050. The ACT scenarios aim to bring back CO2 emissions to 2005 levels by 2050. This difficult and costly goal implies the adoption of a wide range of existing clean technologies, plus the deployment of some newer technologies, such as CO2 capture and storage (CCS). Additional investments in the energy sector of roughly 0.4% of global gross domestic product each year between now and 2050 would be needed.  (2)  Reducing CO2 emissions to 2005 levels is not enough to limit global warming to 2 - 2.4 °C, a level that would prevent the most severe consequences. The BLUE scenarios aim to prevent global warming from exceeding this temperature range by bringing emission levels down, by 2050, to a level that is half what they were in 2005. This even more difficult and costly goal requires urgent implementation of unprecedented new energy policies, the widespread deployment of technologies still under development, and additional investments in the energy sector that could reach 1.1% of global GDP each year between now and 2050.  Reducing CO2 emissions to 2005 levels is not enough to limit global warming to 2 - 2.4 °C, a level that would prevent the most severe consequences. The BLUE scenarios aim to prevent global warming from exceeding this temperature range by bringing emission levels down, by 2050, to a level that is half what they were in 2005. This even more difficult and costly goal requires urgent implementation of unprecedented new energy policies, the widespread deployment of technologies still under development, and additional investments in the energy sector that could reach 1.1% of global GDP each year between now and 2050.  But returning emissions to 2005 levels may not be enough. The IPCC has concluded that emissions must be reduced by 50% to 85% by 2050 if global warming is to be confined to between 2°C and 2.4°C. G8 leaders agreed at the Heiligendamm Summit in 2007 to seriously consider a global 50% CO2 reduction target.  Reducing CO2 emissions by 50% (from current levels) by 2050 represents a tough challenge. This scenario implies a very rapid change of direction. Costs are not only substantially higher, but also much more uncertain, because the BLUE scenarios demand deployment of technologies still under development, whose progress and ultimate success are hard to predict. While the ACT scenarios are demanding, the BLUE scenarios require urgent implementation of unprecedented and far-reaching new policies in the energy sector.  Based on optimistic assumptions about the progress of key technologies, the BLUE Map scenario requires deployment of all technologies involving costs of up to USD 200 per tonne of CO2 saved when fully commercialized. If the progress of these technologies fails to reach expectations, costs may rise to as much as USD 500 per tonne. At the margin, therefore, the BLUE Map scenario requires technologies at least four times as costly as the most expensive technology options needed for ACT Map. However, the average cost of the technologies needed for BLUE Map is much lower than the marginal, in the range of USD 38 to USD 117 per tonne of CO2 saved. Figure ES.1 shows how the marginal costs of CO2 abatement in 2050 increase as the targeted CO2 savings increase beyond those in ACT Map to reach the higher levels needed for BLUE Map.  Emission reduction costs, 2050  IEA Additional investment needs in the BLUE Map scenario are USD 45 trillion over the period up to 2050. They cover additional R&D, larger deployment investment in technologies not yet market-competitive (even with CO2 reduction incentives), and commercial investment in low-carbon options (stimulated by CO2 reduction incentives). The total is about USD 1.1 trillion per year. This is roughly equivalent to the current GDP of Italy. It represents an average of some 1.1% of global GDP each year from now until 2050. This expenditure reflects a re-direction of economic activity and employment, and not necessarily a reduction of GDP. While there will be impacts on global GDP, these are hard to predict and beyond the scope of this analysis.
Dawn of a New Age: Global Energy Scenarios for Strategic Decision Making – The Energy Future to 2030.  Daniel Yergin, Cambridge Energy Research Associates.  2007/PDF/125pps/www.cera.org. Periods of great uncertainty produce winners and losers—and we have now entered such a period. Today’s world is characterized by profound and fundamental change, with headlines across the world reflecting heightened anxiety about the future of energy. The concern is not over just oil, but every aspect of the energy value chain.  The stakes are high for all participants in the global economy—but especially for senior executives and policymakers. To help our clients navigate this world of change and uncertainty, CERA has undertaken “the most comprehensive research project in our history”: a new multiclient study, “Dawn of a New Age: Global Energy Scenarios for Strategic Decision Making—The Energy Future to 2030.” This report draws on CERA’s unique strengths as a thought leader with deep industry knowledge and an extensive global network of contacts with companies, governments, and independent experts. In addition, over 50 participating client companies have been engaged in a series of interactive workshops to exchange ideas and perspectives on the fundamental issues, the strategic drivers, and the primary building blocks for the scenarios. These participants include significant players in the oil and gas, electric power, utilities, equipment supply, and transportation sectors, together with national oil companies and governments, all of whom have provided valuable input to the study. Finally, the CERA has developed three distinct global energy scenarios that provide unique views on how geopolitics; technological change; and economic, demographic, and environmental trends could evolve over the next 25 years. [The following is an excerpt from the report:]  Scenario 1) Significant Rise in Energy Demand and Prices.  A world that depicts a future with a significant rise in global energy demand and prices, propelled by strong economic growth and a supply environment driven by geopolitics, investment lags, market intervention, and periodic crises. This scenario portrays how markets and policymakers react to such an environment over time as well as the possible changes in consumer behavior, technology development, and the overall global energy mix.  How to meet the needs of a carbon future? The first is a renewed emphasis on energy efficiency, whether in the established infrastructures of the U.S. and Europe, or in the ones that are now being built in China and India. Energy conservation, efficiency, savings--whatever you want to call it is--is a very large resource in itself. It is, without doubt, the biggest near-term way to reduce CO2. The United States is twice as energy efficient as it was in the 1970s. Why not double that again? China has made energy efficiency one of its top priorities, but implementing it is not proving easy. Expect more to come on this front. Scenario 2) An Asia Pacific World.   A second scenario portrays a world where the center of economic and political gravity shifts more rapidly to the Asia Pacific region, resulting in a change in the global balance of power and challenging the relevance of status quo political frameworks and institutions. This scenario examines how such a fundamental transformation of the international order could affect global energy markets and overall international political and economic relations.  How to meet the needs of a carbon future? Perhaps the "great bubbling." This is the surge in research and development and innovation that is now taking place all along the energy spectrum--whether in conventional sources or for renewables and alternatives. These research dollars--whether from government, industry, research organizations or the new entrant, venture capital--are adding up. If this level of commitment is maintained, the impact could be considerable, even dramatic. But the timing is not easily predicted. One of the imperatives is to continue to develop not just renewables, but the commercialization of renewables, which ultimately need to demonstrate that they are competitive in the marketplace Scenario 3) The Limits of Global Economic Integration.  This world describes a future in which the political limits of global economic integration are reached, resulting in a widespread social and political backlash against free trade and market liberalization in both developed countries and emerging markets. This leads to systemic economic and trade protectionism, increased government intervention in markets, and a significant downturn in the growth of global economic activity and energy demand. How to meet the needs of a carbon future?  One idea is to push for the development of carbon capture and storage technologies. Though there is much hope for them, they are still at the early stages. Pilot efforts are underway. To have a major impact, these technologies will have to prove doable on a very large scale. A good deal of effort will also be required to figure out how to price and regulate such aspects as the sequestration of carbon underground This scenario examines the political and economic repercussions of such a backlash and how it could challenge conventional assumptions about future patterns of energy demand, investment, and supply.

Better Water Use Could Reduce Future Food Crisis. Stockholm Environmental Institute and Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Water Resources Research and Science Daily Journal, May, 2009.  This research analyses the capacity of different countries to meet current and future water requirements for food production by increasing their efficiency of use of both blue and green water.

In groundbreaking research, the Stockholm Institute announced that if the overall water resources in river basins were acknowledged and better managed, it may be possible to significantly reduce a future food crisis. “The challenge of meeting future water needs under the impacts of climate change and rapidly growing human demands for water may be less bleak than widely portrayed.”  An analysis by a team of Swedish and German scientists takes into account the potential of “green” water in addition to “blue” water.   Previous studies have only focused on blue water, which is river discharge and groundwater. However,  “green” water  - the water in the soil that stems directly from rainfall, has not nearly been accounted for.   Traditional forecasts indicate that  over three billion of the current world population are estimated to suffer from severe water scarcity. The new analysis which additionally accounts for green water estimates this to be under one billion.  This study concludes that it is possible to  lift billions out of water poverty.  Using the LPJmL dynamic global vegetation and water balance model that simulates the establishment, growth, productivity and water consumption of natural and agricultural vegetation, present (1996-2005) and future (2045-2055),  water availability around the globe were simulated and the simulation included the potential of green water.   Scenario) 2050 - Resilient Water Management.  “Multiple studies on water scarcity once focused on the absence of water rather than the opportunities linked to the presence of water. Through 2010 – 2020 a major paradigm shift took place as new technologies were able to account for green water in addition to blue water.   Future water availability for global food production increased as the potential of green water for increasing resilience to global change increased in kind. Conventional bleak estimations for future water scarcity were inaccurate. Green water estimates opened up a new area of investments for climate adaptation and a window to achieve a much needed new green revolution in poor countries. Many water-short countries are able to produce enough food for their populations through utilizing and managing green water.  The potential of green water for increasing resilience to global change was unleashed.  By 2050,  the latest global hydrological modeling  and climate scenarios were applied on a regular basis to analyze the local village scale to show how much water farmers actually can access. It was a very gloomy result when  only blue water resources for irrigation were considered.  Included in regular, more accurate estimates was rainfall that infiltrates in the soil, forming the basis for all food production in rainfed agricultural systems. An enormous untapped potential was tapped due to previous massive unproductive losses of green water.  In this world of 2050, a better use of green water forms the basis for a new “green revolution.”  It may also provide the basis for building resilience towards more frequent and intense floods, droughts and dry spells under human-induced climate change.  In this world, investments in technologies and improved green water use promotes more robust, climate-resilient farming systems which provide more stable food supplies.  Many countries that were once classified as chronically blue water-short, have enough blue-plus-green water to produce a standard diet for their populations. In Kenya, not even by 2050 and under climate change will the country become water-short since both blue and green water are managed well.  By 2050, 59 percent of the world population will face blue water shortage, and 36 percent will face green-plus-blue water shortage. This means that 36 percent of the world population will live in countries that will not have enough water to produce their own. Unfortunately, despite the new opportunities arising from the green-blue analysis,  humanity will continue to face major water challenges by 2050 in certain regions of the world.  In this world of better green water management, through methods to increase plant transpiration at the expense of unproductive soil evaporation, even under climate change, good options would exist to build water resilience in many countries even without expanding cropland.”

 

The Future of Arctic Marine Navigation in Mid-Century.  Arctic Council’s Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment (PAME), 2008. Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment in collaboration with Global Business Network.  The purpose of this project was to build a set of alternative futures on the assumption of key Arctic finding # 6 that was initially published by the Arctic Council and the International Arctic Science Committee in November 2004.  The assumption across all the scenarios is that continued global climate change will result in significantly less Arctic ice cover throughout the 2030s and 2040s.  Through a series of workshops, these scenarios were built through a series of systematic communications that mapped a mosaic of plausible narratives on the long-term social, technological, economic, environmental, and political impacts of the loss of Arctic ice.  [NOTE: The complete scenario narratives and quantitative analysis are available on the PAME website.]  Scenario 1) Arctic Race.  High demand and unstable governance set the stage for a “no holds barred” rush for Arctic wealth and resources. This is a world in which many international players anxiously move to outwit competitors and secure tomorrow’s resources today. Political tensions are high, and brinkmanship is the name of the game; there is global competition among many nations for future rights to resources, esp. oil and gas, intensified by rise of Asia. Driving forces include: acute demand for water worldwide, continuing Middle East tensions, climate warms faster; there is much activity, primarily military, and dominantly destinational for resource extraction.  There are a number of unilateral governance regimes which lead to inconsistent infrastructure with incompatible standards. A seasonal trans-Arctic passage is possible, but not permitted politically.   Scenario 2) Polar Lows.  Low demand and unstable governance bring a murky and underdeveloped future for the Arctic. This is a world in which domestic disturbances divert attention from global issues, and simmering frictions cause prolonged divisiveness that never becomes extreme enough to coalesce distinct blocs.  This is a world of global economic downturn and increasing national protectionism; increased domestic troubles worldwide, including regional outbreaks of newgeneration Avian flu; recession of Arctic ice slower than models projected; minimal Arctic marine traffic, consisting of government re-supply and research, with periodic disruptions. There is a market for “ice-class” ships cools, reducing R&D; and low attention to regulations, with unenforced and mismatched standards, and no new infrastructure.  Scenario 3) Polar Preserves.  Low demand and stable governance slow Arctic development while introducing an extensive eco-preserve with stringent “no-shipping zones.” This is a world where concern about the environment, coupled with geopolitical and economic interests elsewhere, drives a movement toward the systematic preservation of the Arctic.  Arctic oil and gas reserves are on disappointing levels; alternative energy emerges as viable source for global growth; public concern about climate change and conservation, especially; there are harmonized rules for Arctic ship design and pollution prevention; seasonal trans-Arctic shipping os possible but proves prohibitively expensive due to environmental restrictions, frequent patrols, and aggressive enforcement; there is a growth of Arctic marine tourism allowed through a limited number of “use permits”  Scenario 4) Arctic Saga.  High demand and stable governance lead to a healthy rate of development that includes concern for the preservation of Arctic ecosystems and cultures. This is a world largely driven by business pragmatism that balances global collaboration and compromise with successful development of the resources of the Arctic.  This is a world of expanded global economic prosperity, systematic development of
oil, gas, and hard mineral resources; shared economic and political interests of Arctic states; climate warms as expected;wide range and variety of marine activity; navigational infrastructure and aids expanded, making marine transport safer and more efficient; new technologies make seasonal trans-Arctic shipping safer and economically viable, e.g., satellite surveillance systems.

 

Energy Strategy for the Road Ahead – Scenario Thinking for Business Executives and Corporate Boards.  US Environmental Protection Agency and ENERGY STAR Program, 2008.  The report summarizes a year-long project sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR program. Senior executives from 20 major U.S. companies—including Merck, National Starch & Chemical, HSBC, and Toyota—along with energy experts from GBN and the EPA’s ENERGY STAR program examined the potential energy impacts that U.S. businesses may face over the next decade,
Energy was once managed as a cost. Today, companies are increasingly seeing it as a strategic risk. In this report, the Energy Star program describes how the transformation of energy and energy strategy may unfold in the next decade.  This report bases four scenarios of the world in 2020 on two critical issues (chosen by the EPA after various workshops): how might shifts occur in U.S. political and regulatory arrangements, especially as it relates to carbon dioxide emissions and climate change?  The other issue is how might changes occur in global economic patterns, markets, and rules that drive general energy demand, supply, and prices? Changes in global economic patterns could be a world where production and capital flows re-center toward the industrially developing nations or production and capital flows remain centered in historically industrial nations; thus, more volatile energy price swings. Or, it could be a world of less volatile energy price movements.  [NOTE: The complete scenario narratives and ENERGY STAR program analysis are available on the US EPA website.]  Scenario 1) The Same Road.  “Current economic and energy trends continue with no major regulatory shifts in climate policy. This is a world in which a combination of political inertia and global economic growth keeps the U.S. energy enviornment in familiar territory. Energy prices fluctuate in well established patterns, along an upward trend with a series of price spikes. Economic power steadily shifts toward developing nations, but not at a disruptive pace that threatens the historically industrialized nations. There is slow growth toward strategic energy management due to relatively low energy prices, few government incentives, and a lack of policy initiatives to address climate change.”   Scenario 2) The Long Road.  “Investment flows overseas make it difficult for most U.S. companies to adjust to an energy and carbon constrained world. This is a world in which a combination of rapidly shifting political conditions, along with booms and busts in global economic growth, push the U.S. through a long, hard transition similar to the 1970s. Energy prices fluctuate, with large and sudden spikes, and traditional energy supplies are subject to disruption and insufficient investment. Economic power shifts significantly toward developing nations in a way that is very disruptive to the historically industrial nations and ultimately unsustainable for the newly emergent. Movement toward strategic energy management is overly cautious and almost too late, only happening after energy prices rise, the locus of economic power shifts, consensus around climate change passes a tipping point, and companies have had to face long and dificult adaptive challenges.”  Scenario 3) The Broken Road.  “Severe weather events and international economic crises bankrupt many U.S. companies and institutions.  This is a world in which a combination of politicl indecision and uneven global economics set the stage for a sudden break with the past. Energy prices fluctuate in well-established patterns for several years, until severe weather and geopolitical tensions create a supply shock that kicks up prices and long-term concerns. Through the resulting gyrations in global trade currency, and energy markets, American political and business will crystallizes quickly to jump-start and accelerate national programs to move the U.S. to global leadership. Though late, this movement toward strategic energy management finally takes place at a torrid - and successful-pace.”  Scenario 4) The Fast Road.  “An innovative focus on clean and efficient technology fosters a new era of economic prosperity and self-reliance in a carbon-constrained global marketplace. This is a world in which, as a result of a combination of early political leadership and effective global economic and environmental decisions, the U.S. energy environment moves into a new territory of innovation. Energy prices rise steadily and are high enough to allow investments in alternative energy, efficiency, and urban redesign to pay off. A political consensus emerges early in the U.S> for tight but incentive-heavy regulations to control carbon dioxide emissions. A moderate shift in economic power toward developing nations does not threaten or disrupt the already industrialized nations, and the U.S. in particular benefits from the global expansion into the industrially developing world as it sells more high technology products and services.”

 

Future Scenarios for the Great Barrier Reef Catchment.  Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) National Research Flagships – Water for a Healthy Country. Pub. January, 2008.
The CSIRO Great Barrier Reef (GBR) Future Scenarios project team had worked for nine months with over 50 collaborators to develop four scenarios about the future of the GBR catchment.  To ensure the scenarios are plausible (aligned to the specific planning needs of policymakers), and able to effectively inform policy and investment decisions, the collaborators included experts in climate change, regional policy, global economy, and global trends. From these, four GBR 2050 scenarios were developed around two axes of uncertainty: first, the precise timing, location, and impact of climate change such as a major climate change event in the GBR region occurring soon, or a major climate change event that does not happen before 2050; and second,  regional leadership driven primarily by the global economy or regional leadership driven primarily by more localized environmental concerns and self determination.  These key uncertainties are explored across the four scenarios with primary driving forces including the impact of climate change and overall direction of regional leadership.  [NOTE: The complete scenario narratives and accompanying quantitative analysis are available on the CSIRO website.]   Scenario 1) No Limits to Growth.  “A major climate change event occurs soon in the GBR catchment, which acts as a catalyst for further growth in the region to overcome the crisis and to pay for the impacts of climate change.  In this world, similar impacts of climate change, as in the Saving the Reed scenario occur in 2010, but the response of the region is vastly different, marked by resistance to change. Most residents continue to live near the coast. Governments build seawalls to protect properties and residents, and sugarcane continues to be grown in coastal areas.  Economic growth is high on the political agenda to offset the impacts of climate change. Technical solutions are sought to adapt current agricultural industries to the changing climate, while many farms have amalgamated to gain economies-of-scale. Investments are also put towards the development of new agricultural industries to the changing climate, while many farms have amalgamated to gain economies-of-scale. Investments are also put towards the development of new agricultural industries and alternative energies to reduce Co2 emissions. The resource boo continues, with mining and associated industries and port facilities expanding. Coal and other minerals are exported to the emerging global superpowers. By 2050, land uses have intensified in the GBR catchment in response to increased economic growth. However, biodiversity in the Wet Tropics Rainforest and the GBR have been impacted by heat stress and habitat loss. Coastal erosion continues in places where coastlines are not actively managed and protected. In 2050, mining and farming are the backbones of the regional economy, while tourism is still a major contributor due to increased marketing efforts to attract visitors to the area.”  Scenario 2) Saving the Reef.  “A major climate change event occurs soon in the GBR catchment, which acts as a catalyst for change in the region and a desire to do everything possible to save the Reef.  In saving the reef, a major climate change event occurs in 2010 that has far-reaching effects across the GBR catchment and throughout Southeast Asia. The environmental impact of the major climate change event is dramatic, but also acts as a catalyst for change in the region. By 2050, land in the GBR catchment is being used and managed with the primary goal of improving the quality of water entering the GBR lagoon. The scarcity of water in the catchment has also led to careful resource management.  As fears of rising sea levels and cyclones become more real, people’s perceptions begin to shift about coastal living, and they gradually leave the flood-prone seashore and settle away from the coast in areas that are considered safe. High transportation costs and environmental consciousness lead to a high degree of regional self-sufficiency and a boost in organic farming. In areas that are prone to flooding, cropland is reduced considerably. Many farms in the region have become unviable over time and are now managed for environmental outcomes, i.e. ecosystem services. Others are focusing on growing regional products and organic food. In 2050, tourism remains the backbone of the regional economy, despite reductions in international air travel. Climate friendly and nature-based tourism, such as hiking, biking and canoeing, is promoted.”  Scenario 3) Booming Sea-Change.  “The risks of climate change are not taken seriously as no major climate change event occurs in the GBR catchment and 'business-as-usual' continues with major developments along the Queensland coast. In this world, the risks of climate change are not taken very seriously as no major climate events occur in the GBR catchment, and the issue is overshadowed by other social and political concerns. A "business as usual' trajectory continues with major developments along the Queensland coast leading to urban and suburban sprawl at the expense of agricultural land.  Early on, agricultural products along with heavily mined minerals are exported which provides short-term economic gains without adding value to products in the region. However, by 2050 base load power production is largely provided by nuclear facilities along the Queensland coast. This leads to the development of industrial centers, where ports, power plants and other heavy industries are located, and tourism/educational centers, where there is a focus on tourism, arts and higher education.  In 2050, a patchwork of highly intensive land uses interspersed with a network of protected areas cover the region. This is impacting terrestrial biodiversity, despite major conservation efforts at the global level. Concerns over the storage of nuclear waste that were initially outweighed by the ability of nuclear power to cut greenhouse gas emissions are slowly rising. Oil drilling is being reconsidered in the GBR area due to global oil shortages. Prosperity in the region remains largely resource-based despite attempts to move towards a knowledge-and-services economy.”   Scenario 4)  Revitalized Country Towns.  “Despite the absence of a major climate change event in the GBR catchment the risks of climate change are taken seriously triggering precautionary policy interventions.  In this world, the risks of climate change are taken seriously due to a growing global awareness of the issue, though no major climate change crisis has occurred yet in the GBR. This leads to major precautionary policy interventions.  Due to continuous droughts in the southern parts of Australia more and more farmers from the south are becoming interested in farming in the GBR catchment where water resources are perceived to be abundant. However, due to this pressure for agricultural intensification and conflicts over resources, policies are introduced to limit growth in all resource-based sectors including mining, agriculture, forestry and housing developments. It has become common practice for climate change predictions to be used be regional councils to inform decisions about land use along the coast, including areas for rehabilitation. Investment in new agricultural industries and water efficiency measures are also in place. The new policies introduced by the regional councils early in the century hit some industries hard, including mining and coastal housing development, due to water and development restrictions. In retrospect, what was considered a sacrifice by some groups and sectors at the time paved the way for diversification of the economic and social base of regional country towns in the GBR catchment. In 2050, land uses include agriculture, forestry, protected areas, mining, alternative energy, tourism, education, health and the arts. Farms are often community supported and act as social, cultural and educational places. Environmental impacts on water, biodiversity and landscape aesthetics are being mitigated through strict regulations supported by the community.”

 

Sustainable Communities and the Great Transition. James Goldstein. Tellus Institute. Copyright @ 2006. GTI (Global Transformation Initiative) is a global network that assesses normative transitions to a healthy planet through imagining social, political, technological, environmental, and economic transformations worldwide.  The workshop series known as the “GTI Paper Series” can be located on the Tellus Institute website. This is GTI Paper Series #12. James Goldstein is a Senior Fellow at the Tellus Institute. He has more than twenty years experience in environmental research.

This reports considers an idealized approach to the sustainability of cities within the context of a global initiative. Scenarios take into account land use, transportation, and food & agriculture, detailed in three archetypical regions to the year 2084. These regions are: Agoria, Ecodemia, and Arcadia. The unique characteristics of these regions have important implications for the identities of their inhabitants, their governance structures, and the relationships among communities and regions (described by Paul Raskins in 2006 report on Tellus Institute website). Signs of impending global consciousness is evident around the world. The success of cities to participate in global unity and a “new layer of identity” depend on factors that will be important to the success of sustainable transitions in the future. The United Nations projects that “sixty percent of the world population will be urban by 2030, and that most urban growth will occur in less developed countries.” The term “glocalism” describes the development of a global identity in parallel with a strengthened local identity - a goal of communities striving to be sustainable. By 2004, more than 2,250 local and regional authorities in forty-two countries had become signatories of various charters of sustainability. Accordingly, it is plausible to consider that by the second half of the 21st century, cities will likely engage responsibly in a global network. One of the global scenarios that examine transportation follows (among land use and food & agriculture). Excerpt of scenario to 2087. Global Scenario: Transportation in the Future. “In all regions the transportation system is remarkably different from that of the early twenty first century. After finally recognizing that global reserves of petroleum were diminishing and that continued widespread use of fossil fuels posed a dire threat to climate stability, the 2015 global commitment to a hydrogen economy fueled by renewables and biomass is about to be realized. It has been a long and difficult transition spanning most of the century, requiring massive infrastructure investments and technological advances. During this transition over the past few decades, hybrid-electric, dual-fuel gas/hydrogen, and biofuel vehicles played a key role, but the transportation sector is now largely fueled by hydrogen. Average vehicle weights have been reduced significantly with “light-weighting” through the use of composite materials, and hydrogen fuel prices are high to reflect the full cost of production and to discourage excessive use. While the shift to renewables-generated hydrogen has virtually eliminated concerns about greenhouse gases and other air pollutant emissions as a strong motivator to reduce vehicle miles traveled, a desire to minimize congestion and use resources efficiently are still important considerations. Widespread telecommuting is also prevalent. The deification of the car and the view that private vehicle ownership expands personal freedom, so prevalent in the early part of the century, has largely been replaced by the broader notion of mobility. Mobility comprises a range of approaches to moving about comfortably and efficiently (preserving a sense of independence into our elder years and despite any physical disabilities) rather than a narrow focus on cars as the primary means of travel. In recent decades considerable efforts have been made in terms of policy and infrastructure investment to enhance public transit and inter-city rail, delivering extremely rapid, frequent, and pleasurable service based on late twenty-first century technology. This was motivated not only by concerns about climate change and resource exhaustion, but also by a strong movement to enhance quality-of-life by minimizing congestion and travel times, and by the growing demand for convenient nonpolluting transport. Along with public transit, in response to the obesity crisis that afflicted growing numbers of people early in the century, an investment in the promotion of walking and biking led to the inclusion of bikeways and related facilities (e.g., for storage) in land-use regulations and transportation plans.” End of scenario excerpt. In the future, a new generation of sustainable cities on a global level will have several key characteristics: quality of life, human solidarity, and ecological sensibility. These shared attributes also include an integrated approach, broad participation, a “glocal” perspective, and a long-term view. The report demonstrates the methodology and usefulness of scenario planning in city planning with a set of scenarios on the future of the city of Boston, MA USA to the year 2050.   The report discusses an analysis of business as usual if current trends continue and alternative futures. The scenarios also include new indicators to track the region’s global impacts and responsibilities. Scenario 1.) Business as Usual. “The business-as-usual scenario assumes that current trends in the Boston region continue, with no major policy changes, surprises, or discontinuities. The dominant values and forces shaping the region-the primacy of markets, the growing pace of land conversions for development, heavy reliance on fossil fuels and automobiles-remain intact.” Scenario 2.) Policy Reform.   “In the policy-reform scenario, residents and policymakers recognize the negative consequences of trends and policies in resource use, the environment, economic activity, and social conditions. While most of the dominant values shaping the region remain unchallenged, the government focuses concerted effort on creating jobs, providing affordable housing, expanding access to health care, reducing sprawl and congestion, promoting greener technologies, and improving environmental conditions. Although social and environmental conditions improve, the overall trend toward sprawling development and depletion of natural resources persists.” Scenario 3.) Deep Change. “The deep-change scenario posits transformational change in the Boston region. Residents, government, and NGOs recognize their global connections, and this growing sense of global responsibility contributes to a fundamental shift in values and a shift of priorities away from economic growth and consumption toward enhanced quality of life and well-being. Residents embrace a vision of a sustainable region in a sustainable world with a strong sense of community and human solidarity. Citizens see that they could achieve far better quality of life by working and consuming less, living in more compact and integrated communities, and acting in ways that connect them to the world beyond.” This is an excellent report for those interested in urban planning and city development. Good overview of solid methodology for short-term and long-term futures.

 

The Energy Project: Independence by 2020. Tsvi Bisk. The Futurist  41.1 (Jan-Feb 2007): p25(7). The author is an independent Israeli futurist, social researcher, and strategy planning consultant. He is the director for the Center for Strategic Futurists.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's Annual Energy Outlook for 2006, U.S. gross oil imports are expected to increase to 20.2 million by 2025. Worldwide consumption of crude oil is projected to grow 40% by 2020.  The author asserts that worldwide terrorists threats are practically all financed by Persian Gulf petrodollars.  “For the sake of our shared environment and international stability, the time has come for the West to formulate a coherent energy policy dedicated to downgrading oil as the dominant international commodity. We will all live in a safer, freer world when oil becomes a commodity on par with coffee, sugar, and tea, rather than the lifeblood of Western economies.” Tsvi Bisk  What is needed is a global effort by rich nations to transition economies to next-generation fuels and vehicles.   Scenario: Report to the Congress of the United States on the Energy Project. January, 2020   The author writes a scenario from the vantage point of 2020.  “The goal of the Energy Project was to destroy the power of petroleum as an international commodity. This has for all intents and purposes been accomplished.   The successful completion of this objective has seriously undermined the financing of international Islamic terror, reducing it to a minor tactical annoyance rather than the major strategic threat it once was. The Energy Project also rendered impotent the petroleum-funded nuclear weapons programs of former rogue states such as Iran.  The end of oil dependence has also been beneficial for the world economy. The U.S. trade deficit has been reduced by 40%, and hundreds of thousands of well-paying domestic jobs have been created….The United States became completely energy independent in 2019 through a combination of conservation, alternative energy (solar, wind, and geothermal), gasification and liquefaction of coal, and various technologies that turn carbon-based waste (sewage, manure, garbage, plastic, rubber, agricultural, etc.) into usable diesel and gas. The United States had already become relatively energy independent by 2015--its sole oil imports then being from fellow NAFTA members Canada and Mexico. The industrial might of the United States was mobilized in a manner not seen since World War II.  By 2010, a new coal-liquefaction plant (a coal-fired power plant that uses a carbon-neutral process to convert coal into a liquid fuel) producing 30,000 barrels of fuel a day (at $40 a barrel) was being installed every month in the United States. This was adding 360,000 barrels of daily production every year. Thermal or catalytic depolymerization units that produced a thousand barrels of liquid fuel from sewage and garbage were installed daily. This was adding 365,000 barrels of daily production a year.  Plug-in hybrids, flex-fuel engines, household energy conservation, and increased use of wind, solar and geothermal energy were conserving an additional 300,000 barrels of daily consumption of oil every year. Ethanol production from agricultural waste and biodiesel from the food processing industry was adding the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of daily production of fuel annually. By 2010, more than 1.1 million barrels of oil (daily production) was being taken off the international market each year by the lower 48 states alone.  China, employing similar technologies and policies, has also become energy independent. Large supplies of oil were diverted from the United States and China to Japan, Korea, and Taiwan (which had also drastically reduced oil consumption by conservation and use of various biodiesel technologies). These countries now receive all their energy imports from Russia, Canada, and Mexico (not OPEC). The European Union's remaining oil and gas imports also come from non-OPEC countries such as Russia, Mexico, and Brazil, as well as western Africa…. Spreading of Democratic Values: These developments enabled the West to confront what many have long argued is the largest single obstacle to the spread of democracy and Western values. As early as 2009, the projected end of U.S. energy dependence began to enable greater geopolitical flexibility as well as greater adherence to democratic values on the part of the West. Also in 2009, after the formation of the Organization of Petroleum Consuming Countries (OPCC), industrialized nations began to lessen their oil purchases from Saudi Arabia, quickly dethroning it as the biggest oil exporter in the world. By 2012, Saudi Arabia trailed Canada, Russia, and Venezuela in total exports and was no longer the chief indirect financier of international Islamic terror. Today, the total volume of exports from the Persian Gulf (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq, and Kuwait) is less than 6 million barrels a day and declining… A Second Iranian Revolution - In 2009, with its economy in collapse and its impoverished population furious, Iran underwent a second revolution. The army, intellectuals, and business community embraced the Turkish model of modernization and governance. The catchphrase of this second revolution was "Where is the Iranian Ataturk?" Iran has since become a constitutional republic. The Mullahs were relegated to their pulpits and deprived of secular power. Iran was forced by economic necessity to establish close ties with the United States and the European Union. In order to integrate into the global economy, they were obliged to contribute to global political stability. In order to secure overseas direct investment for this historic switchover, Iran was obliged to adopt transparent business practices in line with international standards and to implement the democratic reforms necessary to join the World Trade Organization. This spurred growth in their manufacturing and service sectors, and Iran became a net exporter of products and services rather than oil. In 2010, Iran cut all ties with terrorist organizations, and in 2013 it reestablished relations with Israel.”

 

The Amazon in 2050: Implementing the Law Could Save a Million Square Kilometers of Rainforest.  Woods Hole Research Center senior scientist Daniel C. Nepstad.  March 23, 2006.  Nature Magazine March 23, 2006.

This paper shows that existing laws would spare the Amazon one million square kilometers of deforestation (one fifth of the entire forest area), avoiding 17 billion tons of carbon emissions to the atmosphere.  According to Britaldo Soares-Filho, the paper’s lead author, “For the first time, we can examine how individual policies ranging from the paving of highways to the requirement for forest reserves on private properties will influence the future of the world’s largest tropical forest. Our model shows that several unique forest ecosystems and entire watersheds will be badly degraded over the next 45 years if we don’t rapidly increase our capacity to govern this dynamic region.”  By developing the first model of Amazon deforestation, two extreme scenarios were developed, encompassing the likely range of future trajectories of deforestation through 2050.   Scenario 1) Business as Usual.   Scenario in which the forces of destruction continue unopposed. Specifically, this scenario (abbreviated as BAU) assumes that the network of parks and other protected areas remains at 31 percent of the region’s forests, that up to 40 percent of these protected areas are subject to deforestation, and that nearly 85 percent outside of protected areas are subject to deforestation. This translates to a loss of nearly 2 million km2, leaving only 56 percent of the original forest area. Scenario 2) Frontier Governance. “Society and government, together with the scientific and environmental communities, work to control frontier expansion and insure the ecological integrity of the basin. Within the governance scenario, protected areas (parks and reserves) are expanded to 41 percent of the region’s forests (as currently planned by the Brazilian government), protected areas are fully enforced, and only 50 percent of the forests outside of protected areas are subject to deforestation. Furthermore, the deforestation rate, although rising initially due to road paving, declines over time, simulating the effects of emerging markets for carbon retain in native forests. Under this scenario, 73 percent of the original forest would remain in 2050.The future expansion of deforestation will not affect all forests and watersheds equally. The dry forest formation of Mato Grosso will virtually disappear by the year 2050, and many watersheds (including the Xingú and Tocantíns Rivers) will lose most of the forest cover in their catchments, increasing flooding and sedimentation. The region of greatest loss of mammals will be in the eastern Amazon, where expanding agriculture will overrun many species with small ranges. Of the major highways planned for paving, the Manaus-Porto Velho highway will be the most damaging in terms of new deforestation.  The challenge of Amazon conservation is to find ways to redirect political and economic forces towards this second, more sustainable future scenario, conserving most of the forest for centuries to come.”

 

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment United Nations. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is a research program that focuses on ecosystem changes over the course of decades, and projecting those changes into the future.  It was launched in 2001 with support from the United Nations by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

In 2005 the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment sponsored by the United Nations released the results of a report on the continued absorption of the planets natural resources. The report warned that harmful consequences of degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.  “The bottom line is that human actions are depleting Earth’s natural capital, putting such strain on the environment that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted. Habitat loss on land will lead to a sharp decline in local diversity of native species and related services in all four scenarios by 2050.” MA Group  The habitat losses projected in the four scenarios will lead to global extinctions as populations adjust to the remaining habitat. The Scenarios Working Group considered the possible evolution of ecosystem services during the 21st century by developing four global scenarios exploring plausible future changes in drivers, ecosystems, ecosystem services, and human well-being.    The following are overviews of the scenarios.  The actual scenaros, graphis, and illustrations are contained in the report, Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.  Scenario 1) Global Orchestration.   This scenario depicts a globally-connected society that focuses on global trade and economic liberalization and takes a reactive approach to ecosystem problems. However, it also takes strong steps to reduce poverty and inequality and to invest in public goods such as infrastructure and education. Economic growth is the highest of the four scenarios while this scenario is assumed to have the lowest population in 2050. Scenario 2) Order from Strength.  This scenario represents a regionalized and fragmented world, concerned with security and protection, emphasizing primarily regional markets, paying little attention to public goods, and taking a reactive approach to ecosystem problems.  Economic growth rates are the lowest of the scenarios (particularly low in developing countries) and decrease with time, while population growth is the highest.  Scenario 3) Adapting Mosaic. In this scenario, regional watershed scale ecosystems are the focus of political and economic activity. Local institutions are strengthened and local ecosystem management strategies are common, and societies develop a strongly proactive approach to the management of ecosystems Economic growth rates are somewhat low initially but increase with time, and the population in 2050 is nearly as high as in Order from Strength.  Scenario 4) Technogarden. This scenario depicts a globally-connected world relying strongly on environmentally sound technology, using highly managed, often engineered, ecosystems to deliver ecosysten services and taking a proactive approach to the management of ecosystems in an effort to avoid problems. Economic growth is relatively high and accelerates, while population in 2050 is in the mid-range of the scenarios

 

Planning for Power: A Roadmap from EPRI Lights the way for Electricity in the 21st Century.Clark Gellings, Energy Journal, Spring 2006  p35(6).

The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) developed and published the Electricity Technology Roadmap, providing  guidance on technology planning for the electricity industry.  The Roadmap describes a global vision for electricity in the 21st century, a plan to set priorities, and an outline of the technologies needed to achieve the vision to 2050.  A long-term, coherent view to 2050 is essential to the survival of the industry. EPRI used scenario planning to identify the technologies that the electric utility industry would need to survive under various scenarios in 2050.  EPRI uses a roadmap to illustrate key trends and likely future events. The following presents the complete version of the scenarios as published in the article, Planning for Power: A Roadway from EPRI Lights the Way for Electricity in the 21st Century. : Scenario 1) Digging in Our Heels.   “Digging in Our Heels is a world in which we actively resist change. Society embarks on a "momentum strategy." This world may not be perfect, but the perceived cost of alternate strategies is deemed to be too high to receive attention. - In this world, natural gas and other primary fuel prices are rising, driven by growth in demand and supply constraints, and direct or imputed cost of C[O.sub.2] emissions is very low. The low cost of C[O.sub.2] derives from inconsistent political will and uncertainty regarding climate change, as well as the desire to avoid more significantly burdening the energy industry with the cost of mitigating its environmental externalities. This does not to imply that the environment is not an important concern of consumers--just that it is not a high priority. -  This world, which evolves slowly from current conditions, reflects moderate to fast global economic growth and geopolitical circumstances in which the U.S., Europe, China, and India are the leaders. The U.S. digs in against imposing high cost on its economy to address what are perceived as unclear links between human activity and climate change. Many other nations, but not all, follow the U.S. lead. - China and other developing economies, though using more modern and efficient technologies to fuel growth, make no extraordinary efforts to address climate change issues. They focus instead on wealth creation and poverty reduction. Global economic competition is driven by politics and concern for jobs more so than the level of energy and electricity prices. Energy price increases do not prevent long-term economic growth. U.S. labor productivity continues to grow, but wages are kept low because of competition from China and India, immigration, and reduced trade barriers in general. - Adequate energy supplies, though of some concern, are maintained because sufficient investment flows into resource development. Businesses and consumers accept increasing energy prices, even with a few shocks, since the value added in final energy consumption is high. The U.S. economy continues to shift toward a high-technology, service-oriented base with slow but steady increases in the adoption of energy-efficient technologies. Thus, U.S. consumers maintain a high and growing standard of living. - But the power industry does not keep pace with the rest of the economy. Concerns for full cost recovery and tepid customer interest dampen plans by power companies to offer substantially higher-quality services or invest in new and replacement infrastructure--let alone advanced technologies. Central-station technology dominates decisions regarding new generating capacity at the expense of distributed generation. Gas and coal are the fuels of choice in the near term (2005 to 2015). New nuclear generation becomes increasingly competitive for a significant portion of the generation mix in the post-2015 time period. Reliability does not significantly improve and investments in the delivery infrastructure are limited to the basic level required to meet load growth, which tracks just below economic growth rates as energy intensity declines.  - Areas of Technology Development. The world of Digging in our Heels is characterized by the continuation of current trends related to high fuel prices and manageable costs to meet environmental requirements in the energy sector. The focus is on short-term operations issues--fixing problems--rather than creation of fundamentally new technologies. Executives and managers recognize that strategic issues will have to be addressed, but they postpone the needed work. - Instead, they are forced to spend time on urgent crises that divert their attention from longer-term issues. Nevertheless, progress is evident in some areas. In the consumer sector, end-use efficiency improvements are effective in lowering costs and reducing the need for adding generation capacity. The consumer portal links information technology with the grid, leading to a requirement for ubiquitous computing. The IT revolution leads the way to a more reliable power delivery system. Important developments are evident in the supply side as well, as generating companies strive for a balanced portfolio of generation options.  - Some of the most important issues include the relative value of distributed versus central station generation and the role of non-emitting (renewable and nuclear) generation. Research is also needed to understand the role of coal--do we extend the life of the current fleet of coal-fired plants or develop new technology, such as integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC)? What are the relative costs of these options? One suggestion is to retire subcritical coal plants and upgrade with either IGCC or NGCC technology.”  Scenario 2) Supply to the Rescue. “This scenario is a world that relies on supply-side solutions to a broad range of energy issues. The abundant supply of low-cost natural gas in this world spurs economic growth and development, particularly in energy dependent businesses. - In this world, government and industry make large investments that lead to ample supplies and stable moderate prices for both natural gas and other primary fuels. Consumers and politicians believe that the current pace of moderate improvements in environmental quality is sufficient to meet societal goals and that technological innovation will continue to provide improvements on a timely basis. They prefer continued and stable economic growth over a difficult-to-prove connection between energy use and climate change. - North America (U.S., Canada, and Mexico), Western Europe, China, and India anchor global economic growth as world trade expands and international conflicts diminish. Technological innovation in computing, communications, bio-science, nano-technology, and other areas continues to move the U.S. toward a more knowledge-based economy with decreasing energy intensity. The shifts in global production and distribution of goods continue to impact the nature and level of job growth in the U.S., but overall economic growth continues at a moderate pace.  - Some natural gas reserves are located far from the likely point of end use in the U.S. and thus influence U.S. geopolitical and military planning. This scenario assumes that to address national security concerns, the U.S. moves ahead quickly with infrastructure development to enable the importation of more natural gas. This trend continues as more new gas and oil discoveries are brought on line. Developing and implementing LNG technology moves to a level of international cooperation that mirrors that in oil development and transportation. - Eventually gas prices fall relative to coal and gas is the most competitive choice for power generation. With low gas prices, many utilities and companies install relatively inexpensive distributed generation systems with easy access to existing and new gas supplies. Energy suppliers point out that displacing coal generation with natural gas for power generation reduces C[O.sub.2] emissions--a "no regrets" strategy.  - Areas of Technology Development. The world of Supply to the Rescue is characterized by an expansion in primary energy supply that moderates prices and a continuation of low and manageable costs to meet energy sector environmental requirements. The technical thrust of the Supply to the Rescue world is gas--global exploration and production, transport and handling, and the role of LNG. Gas development on the scale needed will require global cooperation among all stakeholders. This cooperation will mirror the experience (and exemplify the risk) of the global oil industry. Cost and technology developments in power infrastructure will influence the course of distributed generation. - A distributed generation future will require technology development to assure safe, reliable, cost-effective, and user-friendly operation of the generation system. User education will become an important theme of technology development. Grid reliability issues are also important in this world, due in part to the need to understand the processes of integrating distributed generation with the grid. Ultimately, nuclear energy expands significantly, and IGCC may gain traction in this world as a means of keeping gas prices low. The focus of technology development here may emphasize methanation, the production of pipeline quality gas from coal.”  Scenario 3) Double Whammy. “Double Whammy, as the name suggests, incorporates both high gas prices and high societal concerns about environmental costs. Taken together, these factors produce a more than proportionate share in their impact on the economy. Technology advances offer a collaborative basis for meeting the challenges of this world. - Double Whammy reflects a significant change in beliefs and values of the majority of Americans, industry, and government leaders toward the position that anthropogenic changes in global climate are occurring, that they are harmful, and that they must be addressed soon. There continue to be conflicting scientific opinions regarding man's activities and global climate change, but the political perceptions about harm make the debate moot.  - The U.S. joins an international consensus that is willing to accept sudden shifts and sustained high prices for traditional energy sources. The expectation is that the resulting technology upheaval and shift in investments by government and businesses will eventually moderate energy demand and costs while sustaining the environment. - As a result, businesses and consumers face increasing fuel prices due to policy or taxation and lingering demand, and these higher prices do not fall off immediately. The direct and imputed cost of C[O.sub.2] emissions grows rapidly at first, but over time increases more slowly. - This policy shift sets off a boom in investment and innovation. Business leaders see not only market potential, but are also anxious to invest in short-term and long-term technology innovations that can support global competitiveness. - Led by North America and Western Europe, a mutually supportive atmosphere evolves between business leaders, politicians, and consumers to combine voluntary actions and market incentives to shift energy use patterns toward a cleaner and more sustainable path. The initial focus is on conservation, improved end-use efficiencies, combined heating and power, renewables, and other "soft path" technologies. Over time, innovations occur that generate surprising impacts on efficiency, cost, and environmental quality while delivering enhanced features.  - In many cases, China and India find it easy to install the best available environmental technology because they have no sunk base of assets. Instead, their economic growth keeps fuel demand up.  - Interestingly, clean, coal-based generation and clean nuclear energy become important elements in a transition strategy to replace fossil generation with non-C[O.sub.2]-emitting generation. Gas is at a disadvantage because of its high cost, and the high cost of capturing C[O.sub.2] from the flue gas of a gas-fired generator. Over time, policy makers realize that renewables are incapable of addressing climate change on their own, so they commit to nuclear power and advanced clean coal as a major part of their generation portfolios.  - Areas of Technology Development. The world of Double Whammy is characterized by high prices for primary energy supplies and high and rising costs to meet energy sector environmental requirements. The high gas and C[O.sub.2] cost creates an atmosphere that favors technology development aimed at reducing costs as well as improving the environment. There are both demand side and supply side dimensions to the technology development requirements, met by market forces that support innovation and new product development.  - Large central station generation will enter a period of transition to meet more stringent environmental requirements, thus efficiency and low-cost mitigation will be important. Market responses lead to collaboration and sustained investment in research and development of new and alternative energy products and services to meet more stringent environmental requirements. This world has a great role for nuclear energy and renewable sources and energy efficiency. Distributed generation might play a key role in a system integrated with renewables.”  Scenario 4) Biting the Bullet. “Biting the Bullet refers to the need to take painful actions in the near term to forestall even more painful consequences in the future. The climate change issues of Biting the Bullet have such a large impact on society that precipitous actions are required as society attempts to deal with a series of crises. -  A sequence of world-scale, climate-related events and wide acceptance of scientific thinking change worldwide views about climate change. Based on changing voter perceptions that the U.S. must join with other large economies to address climate-change issues, U.S. policy makers take strong actions. They increasingly impose regulations and standards that dictate many industry choices and lead to adverse economic outcomes in the short term. But it was considered a cost worth paying for longer-term benefits. - The policy changes take some steam out of demand for primary fuels. With slower economic growth, fuel prices moderate and begin to decline. Industries with large sunk costs in assets that are forced out of use enter a period of restructuring, but government investment eases some of the burden.  - A shift to more sustainable lifestyles is forcibly pursued and politically supported, pushing some immature technologies into the market despite uncertainties regarding lifecycle costs and long-term benefits. Industry accepts the changes because voters demand them and government promises to buy-down the risk of these investments.”  The U.S. decides to accept lower economic growth and puts pressure on other developing nations, especially China, to do likewise. Along with Western Europe, the U.S. imposes trade sanctions on nations with poor environmental standards. This slows the overall rate of global economic growth, but also protects jobs and promotes new investment in domestic industries. - Consumers believe that short-term sacrifices and changes in behavior and lifestyle will pay off in the long term by reducing the likelihood of adverse climate changes and moderating primary fuel price increases. Technology innovations in digital applications, bio-science, and other fields are directed toward creating products and services that support sustainable lifestyles.  - The imposition of a high C[O.sub.2] tax slows economic growth and, without low-cost carbon capture and sequestration technologies, makes coal, oil, and gas very unattractive choices. Once alternatives supply technologies are in place, industry and consumers are prohibited from reverting to fossil fuels. Natural gas is allowed as a transition fuel but with quickly increasing constraints related to its greenhouse emissions.  - Areas of Technology Development. The world of Biting the Bullet in the energy sector is characterized by high and rising costs to meet environmental requirements that eventually drive shifts and structural changes that moderate primary fuel costs. This world is driven by a strong sense that technology-based solutions are needed to meet climate change and environmental quality issues. Government and industry programs focus on efficiency, nuclear energy, renewables, and other clean technologies. Central station generation faces strong pressures to shift to more clean and efficient technologies, but the electricity industry is also receives guidance and support from regulatory authorities interested in ensuring results. Large-scale solutions that work are supported, and thus nuclear power grows at an impressive rate in this world.

 

Our Biopolitical Future - Four Scenarios. Richard Hayes, Center for Genetics and Society.  March/April 2007 issue of World Watch Magazine. Originally published in World Watch – Vision for a Sustainable World. Volume 20, Number 2.

At one time we thought it impossible, the idea of manipulating our own genes – for gosh’ sake. Today and practically everyday, we discover yet another gene that influences a human trait. The four scenarios of the human biopolitical future presented below may help us think through these issues. They take place over the 15 year period from 2007 through 2021. “A central theme is the tension between libertarian and communitarian values. Humans evolved with tendencies both to compete and to cooperate, and societies have varied in the emphasis they give to one tendency or the other. Environmentalists are familiar with the libertarian/communitarian tension as the tragedy of the commons: an individual may benefit by polluting a river or the atmosphere, but if everyone seeks to benefit in this manner, everyone suffers.” Richard Hayes  An appreciation of this tension affords us a richer understanding of today’s political landscape.  The following provides a complete version of the scenarios published in World Watch - Our Biopolitical Future – Four Scenarios.  Scenario 1) Libertarian Transhumanism Triumphs. “The opening years of the 21st century were marked by controversy over cloning, stem cells, and human genetic modification. Despite concern about fraudulent cloning claims and unethical gene therapy experiments, genetic technology was increasingly seen as part of a progressive vision that rejected outworn, traditionalist values and embraced a bright future of technological innovation and economic growth. - During this same period libertarian sentiment grew rapidly among many Americans, encouraged by a well-funded network of think tanks, bloggers and entrepreneurial scientists. By 2009 their ideology of “free markets, free choice, free bodies,” was spreading at the expense of both religious conservativism and social democratic liberalism.  Democrats and Republicans alike argued in favor of free trade, school vouchers, deregulation, privatization, personal retirement accounts, pharmacological freedom, and repro-genetic autonomy. - With visions of trillion-dollar markets waiting to be served, global biotech conglomerates raced to develop technologies allowing parents to screen embryos for behavioral and cosmetic traits. For the other end of the life-cycle, these same forms established high-tech life-extension and cryonics facilities throughout the world, most lucratively in small countries proudly advertising their lack of regulatory oversight. -  Among the earliest adopters of genetic modification were athletes, and the public turned out in droves to see gene adopted competitors break one record after another. Despite hand-wringing from an older generation of sports professionals and a short-lived protest movement by concerned parents, by 2011 athletics was fast becoming a contest of competing genetic interventions rather than innate ability, coaching and practice. - A major threshold was crossed in 2013, when Swedish scientists announced the birth of the first true “designer baby, ”that is, a child able to pass its modified genes to its own children. Although ostensibly developed to prevent congenital disease, within four years the procedure was being offered commercially for a wide range of aesthetic, cognitive, and performance enhancements. The cost of a designer baby was high (about US$235,000), but affluent couples flocked to the new “better baby ”clinics to ensure that their children had the best genes money could buy. - Meanwhile the transhumanist movement, which had started as a fringe group of sci-fi cultists in Los Angeles in the early 1990s,was growing into a major social force. The transhumanists were obsessed with the prospect of reconfiguring the human species and the rest of the natural world through genetic modification, nanotechnology, and synthetic biology. The combination of libertarian politics and transhumanism resonated strongly with ambitious young technophiles throughout the world, and an increasing number of up-and-coming  figures in the sciences, commerce, the arts, and politics openly identified themselves as libertarian transhumanists. -  In 2015 Forbes magazine estimated that flemboyant bioindustrialist and committed transhumanist Dmitri Rastovich had become the world ’s first person with net assets in excess of US$1 trillion. When asked by reporters to comment on growing fears that biotechnology was giving rise to human genetic castes, Rastovich replied, “There is no alternative. Relax and enjoy it.” - One of the earliest casualties of the spread of libertarian transhumanism was the environmental movement. Attempts to channel biotechnology along environmentally friendly paths had succeeded in a handful of instances, such as the time in 2014 when genetically engineered microbes successfully biodegraded a major oil spill off the Southern California coast. But at the core of the transhumanist philosophy was a belief that nature, whether in the form of plants, animals, humans, or ecosystems, was an inferior product whose due-date had long since expired. After 2018 the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, and other longstanding environmental groups rapidly began losing membership.”  Scenario 2) One Family, One Future. “The opening years of the 21st Century were marked by controversy over cloning, stem cells, and human genetic modification. In 2008 the U.S. biotech industry organized a political action committee to promote an industry-friendly agenda of “Cures for All.” Initial success was tarnished, however, when covert human cloning labs were discovered the following year in Thailand. Embryos used for these illicit experiments were traced to fertility clinics associated with the World Stem Cell Consortium, established by scientists in Australia, Belize and Cyprus, to help themselves and others evade national regulations. - In 2010 a German human rights group documented the deaths of over 300 women worldwide from ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome, the result of aggressive efforts to obtain eggs for cloning research. Meanwhile wealthy individuals were increasingly outsourcing the entire process of reproduction. Women rated “Grade A ”were routinely being offered sums in excess of US$150,000 for their eggs, genetically “superior ”sperm could be purchased over the Internet, and young women from Ukraine and Romania were paid little better than minimum wage for the use of their wombs. In 2012 a Scottish gene therapy experiment gone awry left two dozen infants with an incurable form of bone cancer and life expectancies of less than 12 years. - Religious conservatives saw an opening, and began speaking out against the eugenic juggernaut and in support of equality, social justice, human rights, women ’s and children ’s health, the sanctity of the natural world, and the precautionary principle. The political tide began to shift. After winning filibuster-proof congressional majorities in the United States in 2014, conservatives quickly succeeded in banning reproductive and research cloning, sex-selection, research using human/animal chimeras, physician-assisted suicide, child-accessible Internet pornography, and gas-guzzling SUVs. Protests were heard from the biotech industry, civil libertarians and the automakers, but the great majority of people in the United States were relieved to find that someone was finally willing to draw some lines. - During these same years, growing repugnance over the dehumanizing impacts of the new genetic technologies, techno-capitalist globalization, and the pervasive tawdriness and superficiality of the post-modern world helped fuel neo-traditionalist movements in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The gifted German-Turkish writer Fredericka Muska, author of the influential book Humanity or Transhumanity?, drew on conservative Islamic, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, and Confucian social values to offer a universalist vision of a human future embracing peace, love, and harmony with nature. Her impassioned speaking and writing gave rise to the mass social movement known as “One Family, One Future ”(OFOF). It was a secular movement open to people of any (or no)religious faith, but it adopted codes of conduct similar to those found in many traditional religions. In the period after 2016 the practice of wearing a full-length woolen scarf displaying OFOF iconography spread throughout the world as a symbol of the rejection of post-modernity. - Although OFOF endorsed the use of the Supernet, the iWeb, and other new information technologies, it viewed high-tech medical practice with suspicion. By 2018 many countries had abandoned research on genetic modification. The use of naturopathy, aroma therapy, herbal preparatories, and a form of massage therapy accompanied by poetry and song had all but replaced conventional medical treatment among significant sectors of the world ’s population. - As early as 2017 the established religious denominations began losing members to OFOF. In some North American and European cities as much as 30 percent of the population would gather for OFOF ’s Saturday affirmation services. This proportion is certain to increase, because OFOF families shun birth control and now average seven children per couple. -  In 2019 OFOF-USA announced the formation of a political party, and in last year ’s (2020)elections OFOF candidates —all men, and all wearing the full, luxuriant beards that now designate OFOF clan leaders —won two dozen seats in the House and four in the Senate, taking votes from both Republicans and Democrats. Similar parliamentary gains have been made in about 20 other countries. Earlier this year, OFOF leaders told the tens of thousands gathered at their 2021 annual World Convocation that the human future never looked as promising as it does today.” Scenario 3) A Techno-Eugenic Arms Race–– “The opening years of the 21st century were marked by controversy over cloning, stem cells, and human genetic modification. In 2008 biotech enthusiasts in the United States organized a national campaign to “liberate ”stem cell research by loosening even the minimal existing state and federal oversight guidelines. Although many scientists worried that this would allow ethically questionable activities to be swept under the carpet, they were reluctant to break ranks and speak out for fear of giving aid and comfort to demands by the religious right that stem cell research be banned entirely. -  In 2010 North Korean scientists announced the birth of a child genetically modified to allow an increased respiratory capacity of 18 percent above the human norm.  The scientists involved made no pretense that this was done to address a medical need. Rather, they said, it was the first step towards creating “The New Man ”for the 21st century. -  Just eight months later, China —with an exploding GDP, growing nationalist fervor, and 60,000 freshly trained biotech engineers entering the workforce each year — announced a national initiative to improve the genetic quality of its people. All couples at risk of transmitting genes identified as deleterious were required to take steps to avoid doing so, with the government covering all costs. In addition, couples could volunteer to have their children “enhanced,” again with all costs covered. Leading Chinese rock stars were featured in a massive media campaign promoting the program. -   Alarms were raised by international human rights and social justice organizations, but to little effect. Other countries knew they had to follow China ’s lead or risk having their children left behind. A new techno-eugenic arms race rapidly escalated out of control.  -   In 2014 the CIA reported that Venezuelan scientists had created a virus that turned skin cells containing special concentrations of melanin carcinogenic. Other countries enacted laws requiring the medical termination of “lives not worth living.” Still others approved forms of human experimentation, using prisoners, the disabled, terminally ill patients, orphans and others, that had been anathema barely a decade earlier. -  Some early promoters of human genetic modification argued that its widespread use would result in such a diverse array of genetic types that the concept of “race ”would finally be consigned to the dustbin of history. In fact just the opposite has occurred.  With ethnocentrism and nationalism on the rise, right-wing governments have issued genetic profiles of “ideal ”racial and ethnic types, and individuals are implicitly or explicitly urged to modify themselves and their children to conform with these profiles. - By 2018 most genetic research was being conducted by secret government and corporate labs. In that year it was reported that scientists in Mumbai had developed a procedure to slow the rate of human cellular aging by as much as 60 percent. Leading Indian government officials and biotech executives, realizing the havoc this technology could cause if made widely available, moved quickly to limit its use to priority national security resources: themselves. -  Today, in 2021, the genetic scientists and their political and military commanders have lost any sense of identification with the larger human community. In their minds the well being of any existing human cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the historical transition to a post-human future. But they differ about who will supply the foundational human stock. -  And if it seems that things could not get any worse, just last week a doomsday cult announced that it has perfected and is about to release the “Elysium Virus,” a genetically engineered hyper-viroid that inactivates neural calcium ion channels. Its release would rapidly destroy all life on Earth above the level of a sponge. The cult has issued no demands; its members say they are driven by an altruistic desire to relieve “all sentient beings ”of the burden of existence. The world is holding its breath, teetering on the verge of panic.”  Scenario 4) For the Common Good.  “The opening years of the 21st century were marked by controversy over cloning, stem cells, and human genetic modification. Opinion surveys showed strong support for the development of genetic technology for medical purposes, but controversies involving blackmail attempts using stolen sperm donor records, the deaths of clonal primates at a lab in Oregon, and shady financial practices by leading bioethicists began to raise doubts. Although the new genetic technologies attracted many sincere, socially responsible researchers, by 2009 the field was increasingly dominated by dismissively arrogant scientists, unscrupulous fertility clinic operators, traffickers in clonal embryos, and out-and-out racist eugenicists. - Reaction from the general public and affected constituencies had been building for some time, and by 2010 reached a tipping point. Advocates for women ’s health, consumer rights, and economic justice raised concerns about risky technologies that put corporate profits above safe, affordable health care. Civil rights leaders warned of a new free-market eugenics that could stoke the fires of racial and ethnic hatred. Disability rights leaders charged that a society obsessed with genetic perfection could come to regard the disabled as mistakes that should have been prevented. Civil libertarians were appalled to learn of plans by global biotech consortia to establish a universal DNA registry. Lesbians and gays were disturbed by reports that prenatal tests for sexual orientation were about to be made commercially available. Environmentalists argued that genetic modification of living organisms, including humans, was a powerfully disruptive technology being deployed before long-range consequences had been considered.  -   In 2011 liberal and conservative religious denominations put aside their doctrinal differences and convened an international summit that declared the genetic modification of the human species to be a threat to human dignity and the human community. Later that year the Citizens Health Assembly, representing hundreds of international health, development, and indigenous rights organizations, began a major campaign opposing the global biotechnology industry ’s drive to have human genomics declared the lead technology for addressing public health problems in poor countries. - The first credible reports of covert attempts to create clonal and genetically modified children appeared in early 2012. The efforts were taking place on a fleet of converted naval hospital ships sailing the South Pacific and guarded by gunboats. The identities of the scientists involved were unclear. Responsible political and scientific leaders realized that a strong response was in order. In late 2012 a group of internationally recognized scientists and health policy experts declared that the new human biotechnologies “carry with them both great promise and great risk,” and that scientists must be willing to work within socially determined limits. The declaration received extensive press coverage and commentary. - In 2013 a bipartisan group of U.S. senators began meeting to broker a broadly acceptable, comprehensive package of human biotech regulations. All involved agreed to take the issues of abortion and the moral status of human embryos off the table, and to focus on policies on which it appeared that consensus might be reached. As it turned out, this was easier than had been anticipated. Embryonic stem cell research was allowed but “designer baby ”applications and human cloning were banned, and a new federal commission was established to oversee human biotech research. In 2015 the final bill was signed into law. - The following year, international civil society leaders prevailed upon the United Nations to convene the Extraordinary Summit on Bioscience and the Human Future. Delegates included noted scientists, political leaders, and scholars, and representatives of the full spectrum of social and religious constituencies. Negotiations were contentious and frequently threatened to break down. But the delegates realized that this might be the last chance humanity would have to agree upon a common framework for regulating these powerful technologies, and by 2018 success was in sight. In 2019 the UN General Assembly approved the Universal Convention on Biomedicine and Human Rights by a nearly unanimous vote. In 2020 the Convention went into force after having been approved by the parliaments of 110 countries.  All involved recognized that they had participated in an undertaking of world-historical import. Just last month, the 2021 Nobel Prizes for Medicine and Peace were jointly awarded to the lead institutions that had made this all possible: The United Nations, the World Assembly of Science, the Global Council of Religions, and the NGO Network for a Human Future.”

 

The Cataclysm.  David Morrison, chairman of the International Astronomical Unions Working Group on Near-Earth Objects.

In Tolkian’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, “a blackness permeates the firmament and darkens the sky as far as the eye can see.”  Paul Chodas, the principal engineer in the Near-Earth Object Program office at NASA’s Jet Propultion Laboratory (JPL), estimates a one-in-500 chance that a newly discovered asteroid measuring 30 to 70 meters,  would collide with Earth on September 21, 2030. Discover Magazine published a list of 20 likely end of the world scenarios with an asteroid impact event listed as the number one most likely to occur.  This is an alternative future in which an asteroid with a diameter over 30 km crashes into the Earth, before the year 2030.  This scenario predicts the state of our world after the cataclysm. It is a work of fiction; to make it more enticing and believable, characters, organisations and locations are given proper names.  Scenario:  The Cataclysm - Asteroid hits the Earth. “This is earth after an immense shockwave rips through the surface of the planet.  It is the Year 1 A.C. The Aftermath - Most humans had been wiped out. No city or village had been spared. Society, economy, and politics would never be the same - ever.  But in the week after the Cataclysm, few people considered how it had changed their lives. They would first need to survive, find their friends and their loved ones, and gain wealth and prominence in this new world. Crime -  Humanity entered a Week of Wandering, in which the quest for survival eclipsed all other needs. Society had fallen apart, but it would soon emerge again. The old nations were gone - new states began to rise in their place. Vigilante justice replaced law and order. Cities and communities were nearly all destroyed; billions of lives were lost; is it no wonder that crime became rampant.  The initial crime wave did not last long. People soon realized that with so many people eradicated from the face of the earth, that there would not be any significant reason to steal, or to commit many other crimes. There was a sheerly overwhelming amount of unused wealth and material in the families in which no one survived, and therefore it was apparently as if everyone in the world suddenly received a sudden gift from all those who had died. It was as if their relatives and friends had all perished, and they had left them an inheritance.  Once people realized this, they did not so eagerly steal covertly, and began to steal overtly. After all, there was no law to bring the contents of the deceased's wills to fulfillment. Anything that was not used would be lost and wasted. Everyone had more than enough to content themselves, despite the fact that the majority of everything ever made by humanity had been lost.  The New Society - In each city or region, some humans managed to survive, however. They found others who like them had managed to survive, and formed temporary settlements where they met. In this way the scattered survivors managed to reestablish a competent society, as each realized that the survival of the others was crucial to his/her own survival. Crime had fallen to an all-time low, with people simply taking what was needed and no fight over what existed.   In each of these New Societies, a democracy arose, as no particular group or person held much power over any others. With the rise of these New Societies came leadership and organization, and over the next few days these became more elaborate and larger as communities wandered around for help and merged with others. This development was aided by the contribution of Ham Radio operators who sent distress calls to their vicinity.  Food was everywhere, and so was everything else for that matter, except for people. As the leadership organizations of each of the New Societies strengthened, they thirsted for more people. They began quests to other places, homing in on the ham radio distress calls, accruing people of various subject areas of training along the way. Before long, some of these New Societies had become rather competent.  Formation of States - The rise of New States began in the void of political order. Some of the associations were quite obvious, such as the survivors of the former United States banding together to form the new United States. Elsewhere, such as in the Balkans, such patriotism was not evident; attachment to other groups with people of similar ethicity became more prominent. Warfare broke out in these regions, and in border regions, as radicals found that for the first time their goals of Pan-slavism or whatever could finally become a reality.  In order to protect their peoples from such dangers, the leadership of the New Societies banded together more closely. Communities became ever larger, in some places approaching thousands. Before long, military vehicles and instruments were being used in these minor skirmishes. It was a sad consequence of human nature that after suffering and losing so much in the Cataclysm's initial effects, their first thought would be crime; and their second, war.  Outbreak - Meanwhile, the corpses of the dead, unburied, putrified, and with the coming of the molds and flies came plagues of all kinds. Before long, the ruins of the world's cities had become an infestation of such plagues, and because the survivors had to return to them for survival wares, they became infected. Before long, many people had become sick, and many others had died. The untreated horrors of the twentieth century--hemorrhagic fevers, plague, influenza, typhus, cholera, and more--were all unleashed amonst the survivors.  The cure for this difficulty was, unanimously, the moving away from the cities and dependence on villages and the countryside, where such diseases could not develop. But the consequence was the loss of the goods that they needed. And even so, many of the New Societies were wiped out. Those that survived were also decimated. Unification - Some of the more ambitious and calculating leaders of the New Societies began shipping medications. Others launched battles. More used their rhetoric to urge world unity. Battles did break out, but their scale was minor. In most cases a community surrendered after suffering single-digit casualties, such was the degree that they found survivors important after the Cataclysm. Many others wanted to join with their fellow survivors to form a united world. Still others were pleased by obtaining cures for their suffering brethren.  Before long, one man had established superiority, after vanquishing a socialist New State and a democratic New State, both of which were unable to quickly respond to the threat that an organized leadership could muster. This one man was called the Hegemon (meaning Ruler of the World) and his possessions the Hegemony. He was an amiable ruler who knew when to be ruthless and had a strong grip on reality and practicality.  And the platform that he ran on when he attempted to gain the favor of the survivors, was that he would ensure that such a Cataclysm would never, never happen again.  And he could do that. Even before he had fully established his control over the world, he had laid down the foundations for a rapid advancement of society, similar to the Stalinist era's Five Year Plans, that would sacrifice consumer goods for capital goods and bring the crushed world industry back to life. For he himself was paranoid, afraid that he would die should another asteroid hit the Earth.”

 

The European Dream: Building Sustainable Development in a Globally Connected World. Jeremy Rifkin, Wall Street Journal.  16.2 (March-April 2005): p34(6).

Why is Europe so environmentally advanced?  Could Europe be the most sustainably developed in the world today?  Unlike America, European policymakers tend to focus more on creating a political, social, and economic environment that creates a high quality of life for all of its people. “The European Dream focuses on inclusivity, diversity, sustainable development, social rights and universal human rights. And it works. While Americans are 28 percent wealthier per capita than Europeans, in many ways, Europeans experience a higher quality of life, clear evidence that, in the long run, cooperation rather than competition is sometimes a surer path to happiness.”  Jeremy Rifkin   Europe and the U.S. have nearly opposite approaches to the question of environmental stewardship. At the heart of the difference, according to Rifkin, is the way Americans and Europeans perceive risk. Americans have a heritage of risk taking. Historically, American immigrants risked their lives to for a better life; Americans are inventive and bold. With it’s longer history, Europeans tend to take a more cautious approach by looking at all the angles. Europeans tend to be more mindful of the negative environmental results of industrialization, science, and technology. In this article, Rifkin illustrates a future mid-century of Europe that leads the world in sustainable development practices.
The European Dream - Europe Leads the World in Sustainable Development. By championing a host of global environmental treaties and accords taking the precautionary approach to regulation, the EU shows a strong willingness to act on its commitment to sustainable development and global environmental stewardship.  The EU accelerates to the very top of the list of of the hydrogen economy and tackles environmental priorities to more fully integrate renewable-based hydrogen by 2050.  The EU leads the world in championing the Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change, ensuring compliance to produce 22 percent of its electricity and 12 percent of all of its energy using renewable sources by 2010. Although a number of member states are lagging behind on meeting their renewable energy targets, the very fact that the EU has set benchmarks puts it far ahead of the U.S. by 2015.  By 2050, the EU makes the shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources through a highly detailed governing step-by-step shift process. It becomes, by 2050, a fully integrated hydrogen economy, based on renewable energy sources.  Creating this economy becomes in fact, the next critical step in integrating Europe after the introduction of the Euro was successfully implemented.  The European hydrogen game plan  had a sense of history in mind. “Great Britain became the world's leading power in the 19th century because it was the first country to harness its vast coal reserves with steam power. The U.S., in turn, became the world's preeminent power in the 20th century because it was the first country to harness its vast oil reserves with the internal-combustion engine. The multiplier effects of both energy revolutions were extraordinary. The EU  by 2050,  leads the world into the third great energy revolution of the modern era.”  Jeremy Rifkin

 

Visions of the Future of a Sustainable Europe – PRELUDE – Five Scenarios for 2030.  Jacqueline McGlade, European Environment Agency. Speech at Friends of Europe, Brussels, November 29, 2006.

According to Jacqueline McGlade, the European Environmental Agency plays a leading role in building an integrated assessment of Europe, include the PRELUDE project, which stands for Prospective Environmental analysis of Land Use Development in Europe.  This agency used the scenario planning technique to complete a case study on land use development in Europe for the purposes of surveying sustainable practices.  The agency came up with a sustainable development strategy through the use of tools to map discontinuities against a set of alternative futures, including shocks and surprises, and integrate different political perspectives.  The exploratory scenarios of PRELUDE contribute to a meaningful framework for strategic policy-making, broad enough in time and space. The European Environmental Agency drew-up five scenarios of Europe to 2030.  The following is a brief overview of the five scenarios. Complete scenarios are available through the European Environmental Agency.   In the first scenario, Scenario 1) A Europe of Contrast. This scenario is characterized by increased competition pressure, passive government and decreasing social solidarity. Rich gated communities in the countryside evolve in sharp contrast to urban ghettos. Agricultural markets are liberalized, and only large farms with intensive management survive.  This is a “Great Escape” scenario in which the international markets rule.  Government intervention is low. Relatively poor immigrants move to the urban city centers.  Societal tension builds up.  The contrast between rich gated communities in the countryside and urban ghettos becomes extreme.  Key drivers of this scenario include international trade (globalization), decreasing solidarity, and reduced policy intervention.  Scenario 2 ) Europe of Innovation. This a bottom-up scenario. The essential drivers in this scenario are growing environmental awareness, technological breakthrough innovation and political decentralization.  Agriculture is revolutionized, facilitated by an open source mentality and propagation of knowledge. Production becomes small-scale and less intensive. This is a “Lettuce Surprise U” scenario where technological innovation is triggered by a food security crisis. People lose trust in central government. The political system decentralises and the demand for environmentally friendly food production increases. New crop varieties are developed that enable higher yields with lower inputs.   Scenario 3) Europe of Cohesion. In this scenario a series of environmental disasters highlights Europe’s vulnerability. There is widespread concern and public support for a strong policy intervention. A new set of coherent policies for sustainable and regionally balanced development is set up at the European level. In “Big Crisis” environmental disasters change the political climate in favor of centralized government. New policies focus on sustainable and regionally balanced development. Public transport is strongly promoted. Key drivers include growing environmental awareness, growing solidarity, and policy intervention (centralisation).   Scenario 4)  Europe of Harmony. This is an evolved society scenario. In “Evolved Society” climate change and energy scarcity trigger environmental awareness and strong policy interventions. Revival of the countryside is high on the agenda and supported by financial incentives. People move away from the most densely populated (lawland) areas and settle in more rural and safe areas. Key drivers in this scenario include energy scarcity (shift to renewables), growing environmental awareness, and policy intervention (rural development).  Scenario 5) Europe of Structure.  In “Clustered Networks”, society adapts to the growing demands of an ageing population. Agriculture marginalises. Spatial planning encourages migration away from polluted urban areas. New cities, with a service economy, are created, benefiting from efficient traffic solutions, a relatively cheap labour force, and investment premiums.”

 

Planes, Trains, Trees, and Water.  BBC Book of the Future. www.bbc.co.uk

The British Broadcasting Company asked readers, citizens, and experts their opinion on a plausible future of the world in the year 2020.  As a result, one thousand submissions were received and many were published in the BBC Book of the Future.  Users were asked to vote on those articles that were most innovative. The scenario “Planes, Trains, Trees, and Water” discusses the future of urban transportation and sustainable development.  As metropolitan areas become increasingly congested, transit systems are becoming more integral to urban planning. City planners are recognizing the importance of transit as the lifeblood to the metropolitan community and are therefore contracting more joint development initiatives that involve the negotiation of commercial relationships between transit system planners and developers. “Transit Supportive Development” (TSD) – is a trend that will see the development industry create more uses that are consistent with the markets served by transit.   Scenario: Planes, Trains, Trees, and Water.  “Since the huge success of the Severn Airport, built in the Bristol Channel in 2010, and after many years of haggling, it has finally been agreed to replace all major inland airports with offshore facilities. This is to start with the building of a huge airport in the Thames estuary to replace Heathrow and Gatwick….Aircraft will not fly over populated areas, so reducing noise pollution. There would be less chance of a September 11 type attack in Britain, as aircraft flying inland would be immediately regarded with suspicion…It is to be serviced by high speed maglev electric train link to London. This was invented by Eric Laithwaite of Lancashire many years ago, but scorned by the scientific fraternity and the U.K government until it was adopted by Germany, Japan and China. In these places, though costly to build, it was found to be extremely fast and efficient…It is 2020 and the majority of freight is now transported by rail in specially designed containers, these are diverted to their various routes at container yards by computer controlled container handling machinery. All railway lines have now been electrified so the power can be supplied from re-newable energy. There are now many wind farms off shore, after much argument people finally allowed these to proceed, as the alternatives were much worse…In 2020 the countryside has seen some major changes over the last 20 years. Many forests are now full of our native deciduous trees instead of the dark monotonous rows of fir trees. This has made a huge contribution to the return of wildlife, as has the leaving of strips of land uncultivated by farmers, an idea fostered by environmentalists and taken on board by the government…Many different crops are being grown, such as beautiful blue field of linseed and the gorgeous yellow fields of oilseed rape. These crops are both used for alternative fuels. In the south, vineyards have replaced many of the older small farms and the wine can compete with some of the finest imported varieties…Perhaps one of the largest changes has been the expansion of the water industry. No longer are billions of gallons of water allowed to flow uselessly into the sea. Water is allowed to reach rivers in sufficient quantities to sustain the fish and other wildlife, surpluses to this are collected and fed into the national water grid. The river water is also collected when it finally reaches the barrage. This is sold on, mainly for irrigation purposes, and transported by tankers…The costs of these schemes have been largely offset by the savings in costs of flood damage. Pipelines through the channel tunnel link our grid to the Euro grid so that metered water can be sold on to other countries that may need it. There are plans to install an undersea pipeline across the Straights of Gibraltar to North Africa.”

 

DNA Memory.  BBC Book of the Future. www.bbc.co.uk  

The British Broadcasting Company asked readers, citizens, and experts for their opinion on a plausible future of the world in the year 2020.  As a result, one thousand submissions were received and the best were published in the BBC Book of the Future.  Users were asked to vote on those articles that were most innovative.  The scenario DNA Memory was written by Researcher DaBeast and placed on the BBC site on January, 2003.   This scenario is a flippant view of the miniaturization trend.  It was inconceivable a decade ago that DNA could be used for microprocessing.  DNA molecules might one day be integrated into a computer chip to create a biochip to move computers even faster. In the future, DNA computers will be capable of storing billions of units of data more than a regular computer today.   Scenario: 2020 DNA Memory.  “Scientists at THINKtank, Inc. today declared a break through in data storage technology. They claim that they have managed to encode the complete works of Shakespeare in to the DNA structure of the common cold. Using a virus to store data has been a dream since the technology was first discovered back in 2003, but this is the first time that a harmful virus has been used.  THINKtank claim that this will lead to a revolution in education, saying that according to their projections the entire population of England will have the cold, and the encoded knowledge, by the end of the year. If the experiment is a success, THINKtank will start a whole program of viral encoding, and have been approached by several leading advertising agencies about the possibilities of encoding advertisements.  THINKtank have also announced today the launch of a new range of cold cures, which contain the DNA software to enable the user to absorb the new viral knowledge they receive from the cold. They are available in lemon, cherry and tea flavour.”

 

Electric Power Industry ScenariosEPRI’s Interim Report.  Gerald Harris, Carl Weinberg.  Global Business Network.  February 2006. 

For more than 30 years, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) has been a leading independent, nonprofit center for public interest energy and environmental research, seeking collaborative solutions to the challenges of electric power. EPRI's members represent over 90 percent of the electricity generated in the United States. The Electric Power Industry Technology Scenarios project, conducted with GBN, involves two areas: 1) principal planning effort on the time horizon of 10–20 years, instead of the 50-year horizon of the current Electricity Technology Roadmap planning effort; and 2) uses scenario planning as a tool.  The project began by identifying a key "focus" question about the future that the scenarios would address: How will demand for U.S. energy services and the potential externalities that may result shape electricity technologies over the next 20 years? The four scenarios presented in this report are built upon two key uncertain drivers of change: the evolution of primary fuel markets, in particular natural gas that fuels the power sector, and changes in societal values on energy industry externalities, particularly carbon dioxide (CO2). The results of this scenario analysis will be an input into the analysis supporting the next EPRI Technology Roadmap.  Scenario 1) Digging in Our Heels.  “A world in which we actively resist change. Society embarks on a "momentum strategy". Natural gas and other primary fuel prices are rising, driven by growth in demand and supply constraints, and direct or imputed cost of CO2 emissions is very low. This world may not be perfect, but the perceived cost of alternate strategies is deemed to be too high to receive attention. “ Scenario 2) Supply to the Rescue.  “A world that relies on supply-side solutions to a broad range of energy issues. The abundant supply of low-cost natural gas in this world spurs economic growth and development, particularly in energy dependent businesses.”  Scenario 3) Double Whammy.  “A world that incorporates both high gas prices and high societal concerns about environmental costs. Taken together, these factors produce a more than proportionate share in their impact on the economy. Technology advances offer a collaborative basis for meeting the challenges of this world.”  Biting the Bullet. “A world in which painful actions need to be taken in the near term to forestall even more painful consequences in the future. The climate change issues of Biting the Bullet have such a large impact on society that precipitous actions are required as society attempts to deal with a series of crises.”

 

The Corporation and the Environment.  Global Innovation Outlook 2.0 – IBM.  Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman and CEO, IBM Corporation. 

The Global Innovation Outlook provides a platform for candid and open conversations about important issues of our day among many contributors of innovative thinking. Contributors include IBM’s top researchers, consultants, and business leaders.  The Global Innovation Outlook also included a 180 outside experts.  Scenario: Environmental Consciousness in 2020. In 2020 companies will be much more environmentally conscious.  Profitability and environmental responsibility will go hand in hand.  Those companies that invested in new technologies in 2006 will have a competitive advantage by 2020 when  resources become scarcer and governments tighten regulations.  2020 companies “take the lead in pursuing environmentally sound practices, attracting consumers and an influential movement of socially conscious investors. It is common practice for companies to plan for the end-to-end lifecycle of products.  They are therefore free from the wasteful pressure of constant new product releases. Rather than curtailing revenues, this shift creates new and more consistent revenue streams. Electronics manufacturers maintain and increase revenue by releasing “soft updates” of plug-ins or other components that enhance the experience of older products. In turn, this stimulates a move from a product-driven business model to a services-driven one that strengthen bonds between manufacturers and their customers by providing more touchpoints between the two and, if the experience is consistently satisfying, more brand loyalty. Companies see massive waste reduction through new collaborative relationships within and across ecosystems.  In this day, reverse supply networks are common.  New efficiencies and revenue streams open up businesses networked  for their reverse supply chains, sending used components and manufacturing by-products back and forth to one another. By starting to think of waste as valuable, companies design products and processes in a way that preserves the strength and integrity of the ingredients, so that more of them can be reused more often. In essence, they see the lifecycle as not so much end-to-end but unending.”

 

EPRI Futuristic Report Offers Insights to Technology Paths for Today's R&D Investor. Palo Alto, October, 2001. Report prepared by EORI and sponsored by the Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society. 

Report was funded by EPRI's Strategic Science and Technology program. This EPRI report speculates about daily life in the year 2020 in order to anticipate technologies that will be needed by the people who inhabit the industrialized world twenty years from now. Four different scenarios are used to predict potentially attractive and useful paths for investment in technology development today. Lessons learned from the scenario exercise include the following: • No scenario can meaningfully be described as "anti-technology," although the scenarios differ in the success and the enthusiasm with which inhabitants approach technology and the extent to which they turn to innovation for solutions. • Energy efficiency plays an increasingly important role in people's lives, although the drivers behind this trend differ from scenario to scenario. • The development of standards and protocols is essential for technological advances of the sort contemplated here. Each of scenario has different implications for the built environment, for energy use, and for energy providers. According to the author, the two most critical variables embedded in these scenarios are the rate of technology change and the degree to which society embraces individualism.   Scenario 1 – Overview) Contractor Nation.This is a high-tech world characterized by flexible, pragmatic work relationships and prickly individualism, in which rapid innovation allows inhabitants to deepen their commitment to individual choice. Scenario 2 – Overview) Rave New World:This scenario features communal connectivity in an atmosphere of radical technological change, with an affinity for group solutions and a youthful optimism in the fertility of experimentation. Scenario 3 – Overview) Gridlock: Incremental technological advances, combined with a desire to "get away" from other people, and a failure to resolve common standards and solutions, makes this scenario a stressful place, characterized by both competition and frustration. Scenario 4 – Overview) Take Our Medicine: This world thinks of itself as mature and inhabitants are willing to make difficult decisions to advance the greater good, even if that requires the sacrifice of some individual rights; restraint and community-level planning characterize the scenario.

 

China’s Sustainable Energy Future: Scenarios of Energy and Carbon Emission.   Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.  Shell Foundation. October, 2004.

In the China’s Sustainable Energy Future: Scenarios of Energy and Carbon Emissions, the Energy Research Institute (ERI), an independent analytic organization under China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), sought to explore in detail how China could achieve the goals of the Tenth version of the Five-Year Plan. These goals include economic development, technological improvement, and access to energy resources.  China’s ability to forge a sustainable energy path has global consequences. The country’s annual emissions of greenhouse gases comprise nearly half of those from developing countries, and 12% of total global emissions. The scenarios in this study estimate realistic targets for energy efficiency and energy supply development that are in line with a sustainable development strategy. The scenarios also help to analyze and explore ways in which China might slow growth in greenhouse gas emissions.  Scenario 1) Ordinary Effort.  “This scenario depicts a situation in which sustainabledevelopment and environmental policies receivemuch less emphasis than economic policies.Ordinary Effort represents a trajectory for China thatcould result if the Government fails to assign a highpriority to reducing growth in energy use. It assumesthat China’s current high economic growth trajectorywill continue at the rates projected in government plans, and that no significant new environmental or energy efficiency policies will be adopted. Population growth is at the high end of current forecasts, reaching 1.485 billion in 2020. Urban and rural housing grows rapidly, and urbanization rises, but less so than in the other scenarios. Although penetration of household appliances rises quickly, the rate of energy efficiency improvements is slow, leading to rapid growth in residential energy use. In the transportation sector, Ordinary Effort assumes only minimal upgrading and replacement of rural motor vehicles and a large increase in the total number of motorcycles and automobiles. Small and medium cities continue to lack effective planning mechanisms for public transport, causing heavy reliance on private vehicles, and a resultant increase in traffic congestion. These trends are accompanied by slow improvement in fuel economy. The Government plays a minimal role in directing manufacturers to produce or consumers to choose efficient technologies and make environmentally conscious decisions. Vehicle stocks are the same as in other scenarios, but vehicles are used more in this scenario than in the others. Industrial reorganization is relatively unsuccessful in changing energy intensity. China experiences difficulty adapting to global economic changes, damaging competitiveness in international markets. Domestically, the closure, merger and reorganization of small enterprises is not implemented successfully, leading to major economic inefficiencies. Progress in energy-sector reform lags behind other sectors, and monopolies continue to exist in some areas. In the electric power sector, desulfurization devices are gradually applied to coal-fired power plants. However, by 2020, power plants without desulfurization still comprise a large proportion of capacity. The development of hydropower, nuclear power, IGCC and wind power is relatively steady, but no direct policy emphasis is placed on renewable technology development. Energy efficiency policy is minimal in this scenario. The Energy Conservation Law is implemented, but policy measures fall short of creating effective market incentives. Technological development is hindered and the operating efficiency of equipment does not reach advanced international levels.”  Scenario 2: Promoting Sustainability  “Promoting Sustainability illustrates the implementation of government targets as promulgated in the 10th Five-Year Plan and related policy documents. It represents China’s energy growth trajectory through 2020 if current government targets are met. Compared to Ordinary Effort, policies to promote sustainable developmentare implemented earlier and more vigorously. Promoting Sustainability portrays a future in whichcurrent government policies and programs are carriedout as expected. Population growth trends reflecteffective implementation of State policies.Development of small cities is emphasized, withconsideration given to sustainable urbandevelopment practices. The consumption of housingand automobiles increases significantly. Householdenergy used in large cities is mainly electricity and gas, while households in small cities use mainly electricity, coal and LPG. Demand for household appliances spurs a large increase in sales. Natural gas is used in large amounts in eastern China.  For this study, 1 bcm of natural gas = 37.3 PJ (low heat) = 35.3 billion cubic feet. Throughout China, the scale and structure of enterprises are successfully reformed to increase economic efficiency. Energy firms are restructured and monopolies broken. The technical efficiency of industrial processes continues to improve at rates similar to those in recent years. Public transport and motorcycles are a key development focus. Between 2005 and 2010, Euro-II vehicle emissions standards are implemented in all big cities and some smaller coastal cities. These standards are also implemented in medium-sized and small cities between 2010 and 2020. From 2005 to 2010, LPG use in urban public transportation and taxis rises. In the electric power sector, all newly built coal-fired power stations are equipped with desulfurization equipment by 2020. Advanced clean-coal power generation technologies are used starting in 2010. Hydropower, nuclear power, IGCC and wind power all expand rapidly. Implementing measures to the Energy Conservation Law are adopted and improved upon, and the energy efficiency of technologies in all sectors and industries, including process equipment and cross-cutting technologies like motor systems, is on the way to reaching levels currently prevailing in advanced industrialized countries by 2030. Domestic oil supply shortages are met through oil imports. The development of domestic natural gas resources and related infrastructure construction is successful, creating a strong market for natural gas. In 2020, domestic output of natural gas is assumed to be 120 bcm and imported gas to be 50 bcm. China’s overall energy security strategy is to diversify energy imports and utilize high quality foreign energy resources. In this scenario, existing environmental standards continue, and new regulations are added. Air pollution control measures in Acid Rain Control Regions and key cities are implemented by 2005, with SO2 emission standards met by 2010, and all standards met by 2020, meeting the Government’s targets for controlling acid precipitation. New air pollution policies are implemented to target PM10 and PM2.5. Air quality in large cities is also improved by increasing the supply of gas fuels. Public awareness of energy conservation and environmental protection is moderate.”  Scenario 3: Green Growth “Green Growth assumes that sustainable development will be a policy priority for the Government and that extensive environmental and energy policies will be implemented to achieve this goal. This scenario illustrates the energy consumption trajectory that would result from aggressive policies to promote energy efficiency, development of renewable energy, and other policies to promote sustainable development across all sectors. State birth-rate control policies are strictly implemented such that China’s national birth rate declines annually. Urbanization goals promote the development of western China with many new small and medium-sized cities, and the continued growth of large cities. Global economic integration and continued enterprise reforms promote efficiency improvements across sectors. Consumer purchasing power continues to increase, resulting in an increase in demand for energy services, which are met in a more sustainable manner compared to the other scenarios. Programs to promote environmental awareness result in consumers preferring environmentally sustainable means of transportation. Residents in large and medium cities rely primarily on public transportation. Intelligent Transportation Systems, which use information and communications systems to manage urban transport systems, are established in major cities. There is considerable technological advancement in the automobile industry. Clean fuel substitution technologies are widely applied to both public transportation and private cars. Euro-III vehicle emissions standards are implemented in key cities. Domestic energy consumption moves towards highquality energy resources, including gas fuels and electric power. There is a large increase in the consumption of natural gas in cities. The replacement of older household appliances with more efficient models is accelerated in urban households. In rural areas, the proportion of electricity and LPG use in the total fuel mix increases. Renewable energy technologies are commercialized to a greater extent than in the other two scenarios. In the electric power sector, desulfurization devices are extensively applied to coal-fired power plants. Clean energy technologies such as supercritical generating units and IGCC are applied in some areas. Hydropower continues to be developed at the current rate, nuclear power and IGCC growth rates are higher compared to the other scenarios, and wind power increases rapidly. In energy efficiency policy, there is comprehensive implementation of new financial incentives and an energy-pricing system to promote energy conservation. Implementing measures to the Energy Conservation Law are successfully adopted and improved upon. As in Promoting Sustainability, energy efficiencies of technologies across the board are on the way to reaching today’s advanced levels in industrialized countries by 2030.  As in the other scenarios, the gap between domestic oil supply and oil demand is met through oil imports, but efficiency improvements relative to the other scenarios allow oil imports to be smaller. In addition, the natural gas pricing system is improved and demand for gas grows quickly, resulting in an increase in imported natural gas. In 2020, domestic output of natural gas will be 120 bcm and imported gas will be 80 bcm. China’s overall energy security strategy is to diversify energy imports and utilize high quality foreign energy resources. Current environmental regulations are implemented and new, more stringent policies are added, particularly in large cities. Stricter NOx emission standards are implemented. Substitution for coal occurs in big cities as well as some wealthier medium cities. A more stringent legal system to enforce environmental regulations is established. Stricter SO2 emission standards for power plants are implemented to reinforce the adoption of desulfurization technology in power plants. Public awareness of energy conservation and environmental protection is higher than in the other scenarios.”

 

Fusing Energy.  BBC Book of the Future. www.bbc.co.uk

 The BBC asked readers and citizens what would the world look like in the year 2020?  As a result, the BBC received over one thousand submissions for the BBC Book of the Future.  Users were able to vote on these articles and the most popular, interesting, and profound were published.  Here is a scenario by Researcher “Red Yarn”, published on the BBC site January 2003.   Scenario: Fusing Energy.  “The discovery on July 26, 2016, of getting energy by using fusion truly revolutionised the world like no other. Producing fusion energy is vastly different from other forms of producing power in that it is cheap, plentiful and clean. Plentiful because it basically fuses water atoms to get the energy, and there's plenty of that about. Cheap because only a small amount of water is needed to get a vast quantity of energy. And clean because the waste products are non-radioactive and harmless.All oil, coal, and gas burning plants could be shut down; they were costly and polluting, and the raw materials were running out anyway. Renewable energy plants like windmills were just not needed. All fission energy plants could also be shut down immediately, the risk from these was just unacceptable.The new fusion plants meant that electricity could be produced at an incredibly cheap price. It suddenly made perfect sense for cars to run on electricity, petrol now just seemed unfeasibly expensive. Eventually, new engineering techniques meant that the fusion reactors could be reduced in size, so that fusion power stations were not needed anymore. Energy could instead be produced 'on the fly', when and where it was needed, by using portable reactors. Anything that needed a power source could be powered by a fusion 'battery' that just needed water topped up from time to time to run. At first these were huge things, and could only be used in submarines or as emergency generators in hospitals. However, they became smaller and smaller until they resembled the batteries from the end of the 20th century, and could power personal music stations and game boys. At this point scientists decided that no more research into energy production would be made, as it was just not needed!”

 

Energy Technology Perspectives -- Scenarios & Strategies to 2050  International Energy Agency (IEA) Published 2006. ISBN 92-64-10982.  

At their 2005 summit in Gleneagles, G-8 leaders confronted the global energy question. They called upon the International Energy Agency to provide advice on scenarios and strategies for a clean and secure energy future. Energy Technology Perspectives is a response to the G8 request.  This report assesses how energy technologies can work with emerging technologies to contain an overrun on emissions in CO2.  These global energy scenarios go out to the year 2020. (See report for detailed scenarios.) The scenarios include major strategic elements such as energy efficiency, CO2 capture and storage, renewables and nuclear power.  According to the Executive Director of the International Energy Agency , “A sustainable energy future is possible, but only if we act urgently and decisively to promote, develop and deploy a full mix of energy technologies – including improved energy efficiency, CO2 capture and storage (CCS), renewables and -- where acceptable -- nuclear energy. We have the means, now we need the will.”  Key challenge discussed in this book is the need for a “portfolio of technologies” to spread risk and costs. “A sustainable, secure energy future will hinge on dynamic financial and policy efforts, within both public and private sectors, to streamline and deploy existing or emerging energy technologies and to boost energy efficiency in transport, industry and buildings. Urgent action is needed now to prevent current investment decisions from locking inefficient, high-carbon energy infrastructure into the world's economies.”  Key trends in energy technologies are discussed in detail.  Power generation, buildings, industry and transport are analysed to the year 2050.  Assumptions based on forecasts analyse five accelerated technology scenarios about the epeed of energy efficiency gains and technology market penetration.  Both demand side and supply side technologies are discussed.  On the demand side, technologies are clustered under transport, buildings, and industry. ON the supply side, the technologies are clustered under carbon capture and storage, nuclear, and hydrogen.
The global scenarios provided analysis to illustrate how technologies can make a difference to 2050. Technology strategies discuss barriers and possibilities over the short term and over the next two to three decadess. The most important technologies and practices the study found were: Improved energy efficiency; Clean coal with CCS; Renewables, including biofuels; Nuclear, Hydrogen and fuel cells. In the study, the Baseline Scenario builds on the WEO Reference Scenario followed by two Accelerated Technology Scenarios (ACT).  These pose as a family of scenarios to demonstrate how technologies that are already commercial or under development can help towards a sustainable energy future  All scenarios analyse the impact from measures to accelerated R&D, demontration and deployment efforts as well as measures aimed at giving incentives for low-carbon technologies.  The scenarios differ in terms of assumptions for nuclear, CCS, renewables, advanced biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells and energy efficiency progress.

 

Urban Ecology of the Future.  Morton Elle. The author, Morten Elle holds a PhD in Civil Engineering. He has worked for many years on self-government, residents' schemes and urban ecology. He is a member of the local IVTB group at Danmarks Tekniske Højskole, where he holds a senior scholarship. 

This publication describes four possible scenarios for the urban ecology of the future. The analysis includes solving the problems of energy, water, waste water, and waste and recycling in residential areas in the future.   Each scenario is illustrated by examples of a futuristic Denmark. The author examines in detail a number of important aspects of social development, developments in housing areas and solutions to the problems of energy, water, waste water, and waste and recycling.  There are a wide range of solutions to the environmental challenges of the future. The four scenarios described in this publication in detail are: Scenario 1) “A scenario in which information technology in particular plays a major role in solving environmental problems. This is primarily an individual solution on a voluntary basis, and little time is spent on solving environmental problems.”  Scenario 2) “A scenario where each individual is responsible for solving environmental problems. Technology (or high technology) plays a negligible role. The individual solution is found on a voluntary basis, and this involves a considerable amount of time.”  Scenario 3)  “In this scenario, technological solutions at local-authority level play the dominant role. Technology is crucial, but this is applied outsidethe dwelling and the residential area. There is a relatively strong element of local authority control. Little time is spent in the dwelling or residential area on solving environmental problems.”  Scenario 4)  “A scenario in which those living in the residential areas are actively involved in solving many of the environmental problems. Technology plays a key role, but the most important element is cooperation between the local residents. There is a certain amount of local control. Those residents actively involved spend some time on solving the problems.”

 

Sustainable Consumption of Food: A Framework for Analyzing Scenarios about Changes in Diets  Faye Duchin Department of Economics Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Journal of Industrial Ecology 99, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Yale University, Volume 9, Number 1.2

This article describes the advantages of a global Mediterranian diet to counter the effects of ill-health and obesity among the developed nations. It reviews findings by industrial ecologists about the energy and land required for the production and consumption of alternative foods and diets in several European countries.Analysis of the environmental and economic implications of alternative scenarios describing healthy diets can help stimulate more intensive dialogue, debate, and action among the interested parties; such analysis can both benefit from and contribute to initiatives such as the World Health Organization's  global strategy on diet and health, which intends to enlist the support of governments, corporations, and civil society.  Faye Duchin

Global Framework for Scenario Analysis:A scenario serves as a hypothesis to be tested with a model. The implicit hypothesis lying behind the scenarios discussed in this article is the following: Scenario 1) If the meat-based diets favored by today's affluent populations were replaced by a palatable, nutritious, plant-based diet, and if the latter rather than the former were emulated in the developing countries, it would be possible to feed a growing global population without substantial increases in either the cost of food or pressures on the environment. One example of these hypothetical dietary assumptions is the Mediterranean-type diet, and the simplest scenario would have all diets converging to a common one. This could be a good choice for an initial analysis at a relatively aggregated level of representation of crops and foods. One could also define distinct regional versions of plant-based diets that make the most intensive use of customary, locally available items and further disaggregate to distinguish the current and possible future diets of different categories of households in each region.
By contrast, Scenario 2) a business-as-usual scenario would assume that regional average diets will remain basically unchanged from current patterns. It is unclear whether this scenario is feasible because the world population is growing and changes in the climate system increasingly affect the mixes and yields of crops in different regions.  An analysis would have to be studied on a model framework used to describe the impact of climate change on agriculture and its ability to satisfy the demand for food. Another plausible scenario, Scenario 3) is that diets of growing segments of the populations of developing countries will shift toward the current diets of the affluent: more calories per capita and a larger share of calories from animal products and added fats and sweeteners. The physical feasibility of such scenarios for the future and their environmental and economic consequences have barely begun to be explored. Conclusion: It is conceivable that the American diet could be emulated in all parts of the world. Relative to that baseline, a global shift toward a Mediterranean-type or other plant-based diet could be expected to have a more favorable impact on the environment and on health. The upgrading of nutritionally deficient diets, though, especially in developing countries, could more than offset the environmentally beneficial impacts of adopting a plant-based diet in the rich countries. The outcomes will depend not only on dietary choices but also on changes in the current practices of the food production, processing, handling, and service sectors. Better understanding of the implications of these changes will facilitate the identification of specific agricultural, trade, or other policies that could promote effective dietary innovation and indicate the extent of changes that will be required.

 

Blogging a Pandemic- a Bird Flu Scenario  Plausibly Real - Scenarios and Anticipations. Nature Magazine Issue 558, May 26, 2005.

The May, 2005 issue of Nature focused on avian flu and the possibility of a pandemic. This issue illustrates how a flu pandemic might play out with a future scenario that provides a nice exercise in bringing to life the information that is often buried as inputs or outputs to simulation models such as EpiSims.  This article concludes with a look back at how unprepared society is in mid-2005.  These short-term scenaric glimpses of possible futures sheds light on the present, revealing early warning signs and looming decisions that may turn us away from or towards the imagined events.

Scenario: "2 February 2008. The Virus Spreads" :Today, I was at a press conference at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. A guy from the CDC pointed to a giant screen, a map of the world dotted with red pixels. He said that they'd reckoned the virus might hit in two or more waves up to eight months apart, as in past epidemics. They'd hoped the first pandemic strain of H5N1 might be poorly contagious, and come back again with a vengeance after it had picked up more infectivity. By that time we might have had a vaccine. That was just a hunch, though. And it was wrong.  The mild pandemic in 1968 took almost a year to cross the globe. This one probably started around October. So we're now almost four months in. Look at that map! With the huge increase in passengers travelling by air, it's already lodged in 38 cities around the globe. The outline of Asia is barely visible beneath the swarm of red pixels.  Now the virus is in coastal cities on both sides of South America. It hit Europe two weeks ago, ripping through Paris in just 11 days. In the French capital alone, there were 2.5 million cases and 50,000 dead. That's par for the course's infection rate 25% and mortality 2%, similar to the 1918 pandemic. Extrapolate these numbers, and we're going to have over 30 million dead worldwide. In poor and densely populated countries like India, it could be worse.  Where's next, I asked. Based on passenger data which had to be prised from the airlines, one epidemiologist was willing to make a guess. "Within two weeks, there." He traced his finger from San Diego to Los Angeles, up to San Francisco. Within another three to four weeks, it'll be the turn of the conurbations along the eastern seaboard.

 

A Playful but Sensible Approach to Possible BioFutures   Plausibly Surreal. Jamis Cacio.  Coverage on Elio Cavccavale's Utility Pets. March, 2005.  Hybrids: towards a new typology of beings and animal products will be shown at the Science Learning Centre, Institute of Education, in London, till 02 June 2005. Elio Caccavale had also talked at the Subtle Technologies symposium , May 26-29, Toronto, Canada

Elio Caccavale's Utility Pets is a project that explores the idea of building animal farms to supply human spare parts.  Elio devised a series of educational dolls exploring the emergence of biological hybrids in biotechnologies, and our moral, social, cultural and personal responses to the strange and different in human biology and also "transhuman" creatures.  Learning from companies and organisations that produce educational dolls, the designer, with the help of bioethicist Richard Ashcroft, made twelve myBio dolls that could symbolise possible biofutures. The use of narrative and myBio dolls can help children understand how to deal with applications of biotechnology, and with the social development of biotechnological knowledge. Tomorrow’s children will need to know the key methods used in biotechnology so they can learn to understand the many possibilities of biotechnology. Elio Caccavale

Scenario: "2030: A Playful but Sensible Approach to Possible Biofutures"  In this world of 2030,  John, an avid smoker and organ recipient, takes home a pig and gives it a good quality of life until the day of the organ replacement comes.  Psychologiests by 2030 have innovated a  series of studies & objects to investigate the emotional exchange between John and the genetically modified pig that has been bred with elements of the owner's genetic makeup.  In this world, John is supplied with a Smoke Eater,  a device that allows the user to smoke at home without creating passive smoke that would damage the health of the pig, or, utility pet. John doesn't have to worry about damaging his own health since the pet has spare organs ready to be used if needed.  In 2030, the general consesnsus is one of reluctant acceptance, as this biotechnique tends to encourage bad habits since there is no longer a fear of death as a result of smoking.   Meantime, patients routinely are examined using GFP from jellyfish, which is a flourescent indicator used for monitoring gene expression.  Cows produce proteins in their milk for pharmaceutical drugs (this is symbolised by the "milk thread" attached to the cow’s udders); myBio goat has a spider web attached to the udders demonstrating one animal making the natural product of another.

 

21st Century Policy Project  California Integrated Waste Management Board Issues Summit, January, 1999. www. ciwmb.org

Under the leadership of the California Integrated Waste Management Board, the state is nearly two-thirds of the way toward achieving ambitious waste diversion goals set forth by the Legislature.  As California entered the new millennium, many issues remained and new issues and waste streams are on the horizon. The 21st Century Policy Project brought interested parties together to form a new consensus for the future of solid waste management in California. Under the Board's leadership, this process provided the most current information from within the nation and around the world, stimulated fresh thinking, and built on the successes of the last decade to conserve resources while protecting the health, safety, environment, and economic well being of future generations. In its leadership role, the Board hosted several events to elicit participation from external and internal stakeholders.  These events included an "issues summit", and a  "trends and issues" convention, which ultimately led to the following scenario of the future of waste management. Before we get to the scenario, the following are the primary trends discerned by the stakeholders:  Increasing home waste production; -.increasing inventory of recycled material in warehouses; - decrease in the need for new landfill space over last five years; increasing consumption of convenience foods and other highly packaged products;  increasing population in California; - aging of the population; political mood shift--less trust in government institutions, call for more "accountability."  Trend Analysis: The distillation of a global trend to a specific waste management-related trend. Also, determining which trends are most likely to have the greatest impact on CIWMB. 

Scenario: Vision for the 21st Century: "In 2010, materials are managed as part of a “sustainable” system that resulted from a shift in our thinking and in our framework of incentives and disincentives.  We have shifted from a “take make waste” linear approach to using natural resources and making products to a “systems” approach that incorporates the long-term costs and benefits of natural resource extraction and cross-media environmental impacts.  This system minimizes the use of virgin materials, considers social equity issues, minimizes pollution and discards, and safely manages unavoidable discards as a resource.   Business, government and community organizations are equal partners in a relationship to create a balanced economic, environmental and societal bottom line that moves us in this direction.  This is accomplished through:   Open access to information in each area; Balanced use of economic incentives and regulatory authority; and A planned and open process for participation in decision making by all parties.  The Board is an advocate for sustainable materials management practices and their associated benefits to the public/communities, businesses, and to government.  The Board does this through a strong legislative effort, education, practical assistance, up-to-date and comprehensive information on materials management topics, and progressive research and development programs."

 

Electric Power Horizens- For the First Time in History, U.S. Electric Power Infrastructure Could Create Dependence on Foreign Fuel Supply.  Ron McMahan, Chairman and CEO of Global Energy Decisions. Global Energy Decisions released a study in September, 2004  oion looking ahead to America's energy security, utilizing a new scenario-based analysis of the energy future to 2020. Gary L. Hunt, President, Global Energy Advisors who can be reached at 916-609-7750

For the first time in history, U.S. electric power infrastructure could create dependence on foreign fuel supply.  High oil prices, geopolitical instability, tightening constraints on U.S. natural gas production and toughening environmental regulations foreshadow tough choices ahead for America's energy security, according to a new scenario-based analysis of the energy future to 2020 released by Global Energy Decisions (Global Energy). "The electric power industry is the central nervous system of the U.S. economy. The relationship between GDP growth and electricity demand is well-understood.  For the first time in history we are headed down a path of dependence on foreign supply to fuel our electric power infrastructure. The energy security debate today tends to focus too much on the price of a barrel of oil and not broadly enough on the critical question of the security of electric power supply," said Ron McMahan, Chairman and CEO of Global Energy.  Using detailed scenario analysis combined with a fundamental market view to help companies examine the risks and opportunities of future energy alternatives to their business strategies,  Global Energy's "Electric Power Horizons" study found:  1) An expanded deregulated power market increasingly served by the new fleet of gas-fired electric power plants combined with a steadily growing economy could see the U.S. consumption of natural gas almost double by the year 2020. This significantly increases the risk of relying on imported liquefied natural  gas (LNG) under the RTOs Work scenario up to 15 TCF per year in LNG imports would be needed by 2020, a daunting infrastructure task. 2) The United Nations Kyoto Accord calls for greenhouse gas emissions limitations that may put nearly one-half of the nation's coal plants at risk of closing or serious limitations on their operation by 2018. The U.S. may be the Saudi Arabia of coal, but Kyoto compliance may negate coal as a viable fuel source. 3) Electricity load growth is the key factor to power market recovery, but a terrorist attack that threatens our economic recovery or a serious environmental risk from global warming could have economic impacts that take more than 10 years to overcome thus threatening the viability of the electric power industry.  4) Since the Three Mile Island accident and nuclear construction cost over-runs sank America's nuclear power plant building no new nuclear  plants have been built. But new nuclear plants may be a critical stepping-stone both for energy independence as well as to meeting Kyoto green house gas emissions reduction targets and our growing energy demand. Today the current fleet of operating nuclear plants is performing spectacularly in providing reliable, economic base load energy for a growing economy.  5) Renewable and alternative energy offering strategic "sweet spots," such as geothermal, wind and solar energy resources exist across all possible energy futures. Will renewable energy fulfill its potential or remain a heavily subsidized niche play?  Aligning our political and economic objectives with our energy reality is a key to making renewable energy sustainable.   "'Electric Power Horizons' takes scenario planning to the  next level with actionable insights leading to better strategic assessment by quantifying impacts and risks of our energy policies across alternative future business environments," said  Gary L. Hunt, President, Global Energy Advisors, a Global Energy division. Global Energy, with input from utility, natural gas, coal, academic, financial and rating agency clients,  developed three powerful and equally plausible scenarios captured in "Electric Power Horizons": Scenario 1) Terrorism & Turmoil:  Terrorists' disruptions create economic slowdown, concerns about energy security and uncertainty, and the need for strategic action to restore America's self confidence and resolve. Scenario 2)  RTO Works-Markets Reign-- FERC  and states actually find ways to work together to expand regional transmission organizations nationwide in a non-gas-constrained world where America's genius for competition and innovation are unleashed to help secure our energy independence.  Scenario 3) Green World:  Evidence of global warming leads to a carbon tax and a shift to a carbon-constrained world.  This crisis scenario is just as profound as a terrorist attack in undermining our energy security.  Do we have an action plan to address this potential risk?

 

Climate Change and Insurance study commissioned by the Chartered Institute of Insurers.  'Expert-judgement' based probabilistic scenarios UK, 2005. 

These scenarios are statistical, but they  present interesting "expert judgements" for four climate futures for the British Isles. These expert-judgement based scenarios have been constructed based upon available evidence from the current climate science and climate change scenarios that have been presented in recent reports (e.g. Hulme and Jenkins, 1998 and Agnew and Viner, 2000). These climate scenarios are descriptive examples of how the climate of the British Isles may is likely to evolve in the future. These four possible realisations of the climate system shown are based upon different levels of probability from Scenario-1 High, what is likely to happen to Scenario 4-High-reaction, a plausible scenario but low probability of occurrence based upon the high values of climate sensitivity and rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions. To the reader, these scenarios are not stories of the future, but rather, statistical versions of likely futures. These scenarios utilize changes in mean temperature, precipitation, windstorms, and sea-level rise; all easily understandable for the imagination of the layman.

The expert judgement based scenarios presented here should be used as guides for assessing possible future impacts and thresholds that may exist within the insurance and other exposure sectors and where applicable, other exposed sectors (e.g. transport, agriculture, water resources and tourism). A given exposure unit if deemed vulnerable to impacts as described by Scenario 1 High Probability:  is going to be very sensitive to climate change in the near future, whilst one only sensitive to Scenario 4 is a robust sector which will show few impacts above those already experienced within current natural variability. Scenarios 1 and 2) have been constructed to capture the ranges of change for a number of variables as described by the IPCC. For example the 4-10cm rise of sea-level per decade and the temperatures changes prescribed by a climate sensitivity of 1.5 to 4.5oC. The scenarios are time dependent but where possible show rates of change rather than changes by a given period. One problem that exists in presenting climate change scenarios for given periods in the future (e.g. the 2050s) is that many stakeholders see this as a distant time horizon which is beyond their envelope of experience. Thus there can be a tendency to view climate change as a phenomena which is problematic for the next generation rather than the current. We have seen, however that it is the rates of climate change and how we move from the current state to an evolved climate that is problematic and that the impacts of human-induced climate change are impacting now. Scenario 1) High Probability: Mean temperature 0.2 to 0.3°C rise in mean temperature per decade 2020s: 1.3°C Warmer; 2050s 2.0°C Warmer,  Higher night time temperatures. Occasional cold winters 0.2 to 0.3°C rise in mean temperature per decade. 2020s 1.3°C Warmer  2050s 2.0°C Warmer  Higher night time temperature 0.2 to 0.3°C rise in mean temperature per decade 2020s 1.3°C Warmer  2050s 2.0°C Warmer  Higher night time temperatures Occasional cold winters 0.2 to 0.3°C rise in mean temperature per decade 2020s 1.3°C Warmer  2050s 2.0°C Warmer  Higher night time temperatures 0.2 to 0.3°C rise in mean temperature per decade 2020s 1.3°C Warmer  2050s 2.0°C Warmer  Higher night time temperatures Occasional cold winters Precipitation  2020s Winters 7% Wetter Summers 2% drier 2050s Winters 11% Wetter Summers 15% drier Higher number of intense winter rainfall events Years with summer rainfall below 50% of 1961-90 average is approximately 1 in 5 Windstorms No change in variability/frequency of extreme high impact (e.g. windstorms) events Sea-level Rise 4-10cm increase per decade 2020s - South East (e.g. Harwich) 20cm North West 14cm  2050s - South East (e.g. Harwich) 41cm North West 28cm Localised coastal flooding due to higher tides - within design of sea-defences  Scenario 2) Mean temperature  0.2 to 0.3°C rise in mean temperature per decade through 2020s :1.3°C Warmer  2050s: 2.0°C Warmer, no repetition of early 1980 winters Higher summer temperatures, higher night time warming. Precipitation:  2020s Winters 10% Wetter Summers 4% drier 2050s Winters 15% Wetter Summers 17% drier Higher number of intense winter rainfall events Increase in winter fluvial flood events Increase in summer droughts to 2 years in 3 Windstorms No change in variability/frequency of extreme high impact (e.g. windstorms) events Sea-level Rise 6-10cm increase per decade 2020s - South East (e.g. Harwich) 25cm North West 20cm  2050s - South East (e.g. Harwich) 55cm North West 40cm Severe localised coastal flooding, localised sea defence failures.  Scenario 3)  Mean temperature: 0.3 to 0.4°C rise in mean temperature per decade through the 2020s.  1.4°C Warmer through the 2050s.  2.4°C Warmer. No repetition of early 1980 winters. Higher summer temperatures, higher night time warming. Higher number of extremely hot (+40°C) days. Precipitation through 2020s: Winters 12%, Wetter Summers 10% drier, 2050s: Winters 20% Wetter Summers 20% drier higher number of intense winter rainfall events.  Large Increase in winter fluvial flood events Summer drought increase to 8 in 10 years Windstorms 7% increase in severe winter and summer wind storms per decade. Increase in strong convective activity, and associated features e.g. tornados.  Scenario 4) Mean temperature  0.4 to 0.5°C rise in mean temperature per decade through 2020s. 1.8°C Warmer through  2050s.  3.0°C warmer, Increasing number of very hot days. No cold winters Precipitation 2020s: Winters 15% Wetter Summers 15% drier 2050s Winters 20% Wetter Summers 20% drier Higher number of intense winter rainfall events. Regular number of winter fluvial flood events Summer drought increase to 9 in 10 years.Windstorms 15% increase in severe winter and summer wind storms per decade. Common strong convective activity, and associated features e.g. tornados Sea-level Rise 10 - 30cm increase per decade (WAIS Collapse) 2020s - South East (e.g. Harwich) 37cm North West 35cm  2050s - South East (e.g. Harwich) 100cm North West 70cm

 

Assessing Future Ecosystem Services: a Case Study of the Northern Highlands Lake District, Wisconsin   Peterson, G.D., T.D. Beard Jr. Assessing future ecosystem services: a case study of the Northern Highlands Lake District, Wisconsin. Conservation Ecology 7 (3): 1.

The Northern Highlands Lake District of Wisconsin is in transition from a sparsely settled region to a more densely populated one. Expected changes offer benefits to northern Wisconsin residents but also threaten to degrade the ecological services they rely on. Because the future of this region is uncertain, it is difficult to make decisions that will avoid potential risks and take advantage of potential opportunities. This research group adopts a scenario planning approach to cope with this problem of prediction. They used an ecological assessment framework developed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment to determine key social and ecological driving forces in the Northern Highlands Lake District. From these, they describe three alternative scenarios to the year 2025 in which the projected use of ecological services is substantially different.

Scenario 1) Walleye Commons:  " In the 2000s, national and global economic growth accelerated due to reforms in energy policy, expanding globalization, and peaceful international relations. As wealth spread worldwide, many regional conflicts were resolved. Terrorist threats declined, and international travel increased sharply. The expansion of high-speed wireless networks increased the ability of people to telecommute and greatly increased the flexibility of the traditional work week. People had more disposable income than previous generations and more time for leisure activities. Global travel became easy, cheap, and common.    Life in Wisconsin's northern highlands, however, has taken a turn for the worse. Climate change brought longer summers and milder weather. As expected, warming reduced opportunities for snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and other winter sports. At the same time, quite unexpectedly, climate warming also contributed to the spread of disease. A deadly walleye pathogen, which was amplified in hatcheries, quickly spread and forced the closure of several valuable walleye fisheries in the NHLD. Even worse, a water-borne protozoan introduced from South America created a new human health hazard in the region. The protozoan easily moved from lake water through open cuts to infect the human nervous system. Over a period of years, victims of protozoan infection suffered gradual and debilitating nervous system disorders. Although the disease was usually not lethal, the quality of life of those infected was severely reduced during the multiyear recovery period. The coincidence of easy global travel, substantial disposable income, limited fishing opportunities, and fear of disease had a substantial impact on life in the NHLD. People from urban centers who had once flocked to the region due to its accessibility, charming beauty, and relaxed atmosphere now chose to vacation or retire to other, safer locations. The decline in tourism and the sale of many second homes, along with the fear of living with a mysterious and dangerous disease, led many local business owners to follow their former customers to other regions. These initial emigrations set in motion a downward spiral. Declining property values, bankrupt businesses, and school closures led more people to leave the area and accelerated the decline. Small towns lost almost all of their businesses. Larger towns, such as Minocqua and Eagle River, became small, poor, and dilapidated. When they couldn't be sold, many summer homes and cabins were seldom visited or simply boarded up and abandoned.    During this emigration, however, few people left Lac du Flambeau. Despite unemployment and declines in casino revenue, people began to take advantage of low land prices to purchase land. Due to the construction of new casinos in southern Wisconsin, the Lac du Flambeau Tribe in cooperation with a consortium of other Native American groups was able to purchase land in northern Wisconsin. The State of Wisconsin and The Nature Conservancy also took advantage of cheap land to expand existing nature reserves. The net result was an increase in the size of protected areas and tribal lands and a decrease in the amount of land held in small private plots. Ecologically, this series of events had both predictable and surprising consequences. Wetlands greatly expanded as riparian vegetation reclaimed once-manicured lawns. Wildlife proliferated due to reduced exploitation and increased available habitat. The reduction in fishing and boating slowed the spread of invasive species, especially into small isolated lakes. Reduced human activity increased overall water quality and improved fish populations in the region. However, erosion from poorly maintained roads and lawns increased turbity in a number of lakes. Size and age distributions of fish populations shifted toward older, bigger fish, i.e., those typically targeted by anglers. In lakes affected by the hatchery-borne walleye disease, walleyes did not recover, but other fishes such as smallmouth bass and muskellunge established robust stocks. A few larger lakes became eutrophic as the septic systems of abandoned lakefront homes failed and leaked. However, there was less pollution in the area in general, and the increase in wetland area provided more filtering and buffering capacity for the pollutants that remained. Surprisingly, mercury pollution in lakes became an increasingly severe problem. Coal burning upwind of the NHLD continued to deposit mercury across the region, and the increased wetland area exacerbated the bioaccumulation of mercury. The increase in wetlands caused an increase in anoxia and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) in lakes. Increased anoxia increased the generation of methylmercury, and increased DOC reduced the ability of light to degrade methylmercury. The presence of large, old fish, which bioaccumulate more mercury than do the smaller fish lower on the food chain, in combination with the increased amounts of methlymercury led to high levels of mercury in many fish. For Native Americans heavily dependent on spearfishing walleye, which selects for larger, more mercury-laden fish, this presented a health risk, but an innovative system that combined lake rotation with pulsed harvesting was invented to reduce mercury exposure.     In 2025, there were roughly 12,000 people living in the NHLD district, which represented a fourfold population decline from 2000 to near 1900 levels. However, the Native American population had grown from less than 10% of the population to roughly 40%. People living in the area were not much better off than they were in 2000 and relatively much worse off than in Wisconsin as a whole. With the exception of walleye, fish populations were healthy. The lakes looked good, but the water was dangerous. However, the people of the NHLD now say that the wealth they receive from nature more than compensates for their low incomes. Those who disagree left long ago. Scenario 2) Northwoods.com: In the 2000s, concerned that the robust growth of the U.S. economy would leave Wisconsin behind, the state government, business leaders, academics, and community groups created state-wide economic and community development plans that would allow Wisconsin to thrive in the 21st century. A program that combined venture capital with university and community partnerships lead to the establishment of a new University of Wisconsin campus and business park in Rhinelander. The goal of this university was to retain young people in Wisconsin. The university emphasized local community and business development. With the establishment of the university campus and the influx of faculty, staff, and students, the regional economy gradually diversified away from tourism toward an economy that included a number of branch or back offices for a wide variety of businesses. Some initial local successes combined with the high quality of life led to the rapid expansion of these branch offices. Young people were drawn to the area by the low cost of living and the high quality of life in the North Woods. Companies found the area attractive because they could recruit talented people for relatively low wages. Some companies even argued that the residents of the NHLD received two paychecks: one from their jobs and the other from life in a region that offered remarkable opportunities for outdoor recreation. As young people remained in the region, the Rhinelander and Minocqua areas began to urbanize. The young residents tended to cluster near the social life of the university. As the area developed and property values rose, this area gradually expanded along the Wisconsin River from Rhinelander to Merrill. The fresh waters in the Wisconsin River corridor from Eagle River to Merrill became highly urbanized and heavily used. The lakes closest to this corridor sustained major ecological impacts from urban development and heavy human recreation. Most nearby wetlands were drained for lakeshore development, more pollutants entered these lakes from the watershed, blue lakes turned green from increased nutrient runoff, increased fishing pressure caused fish stocks to decline, boat traffic accelerated the dispersal of invading species, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons increased 100-fold in the lakes.   A series of fish kills in the Wisconsin River caused widespread concern about the costs of development. Economic growth around Rhinelander had increased the tax base of cities and towns, which increased the relative political power of urban residents. These fish kills mobilized the urban residents to protect the aquatic resources of the surrounding areas. City governments and then county governments and businesses all supported new land use policies to appeal to their new constituents. However, businesspeople in the NHLD preferred market-based policies to strict regulation, and, in cooperation with the University of Wisconsin faculty, they created an innovative and profitable market for quality riparian habitats and a variety of ecosystem services provided by pristine lakes. Acquiring conservation lands became a major goal of the local government. Zoning ordinances and conservation easement plans, funded by a steep horsepower tax on boat motors and riparian development, were enacted to preserve the lakes in the surrounding region.   Although many landowners profited from these policies, other residents grew angry as development costs for lakefront property soared, as did the cost of utilities, wells, and fishing. Some rural constituents took advantage of the cost-sharing programs and capitalized on the increased value of their property for tourism, whereas some urban residents still wanted to use large motorboats on pristine lakes. However, regardless of this opposition, the majority agreed that, if the inhabitants wanted to degrade ecosystem services, they would have to pay to replace them.   Although the Lac du Flambeau casino did not do as well as hoped, the influx of new job and training opportunities into the NHLD greatly improved job, educational, and cultural opportunities for Native Americans. In two decades, they went from having a per capita income less than half that of other northern residents to one as high as the state mean. Despite some conflicts with the new town-oriented environmental regulations, these regulations increased the value of much of the Lac du Flambeau land. The tribe, controversially, limited access to a number of reservation lakes to produce highly profitable, high-quality fishing lakes.    In 2025, the population of the region had grown to nearly 65,000 people, a 50% increase over the population in 2000. Most of the population growth occurred near the Wisconsin River. Household income in the region was now about equal to that of Wisconsin as a whole. Rather than being older than the rest of Wisconsin, the population of the region was slightly younger. In general, the conservation policies caused most of the lakes in the region, specifically those further away from the urban corridor, to improve in quality. Overall, the region was providing more ecosystem services than in the past. More riparian habitat improved fish recruitment and growth, and more trophy fish were caught. Lakes that previously had experienced a lot of motorboat activity and associated pollution improved in water quality. Wetland area increased, adding to the improvement of the water quality in many lakes. Increased wetland area also increased DOC inputs to some lakes, and, through methylation-light penetration feedback, mercury problems were exacerbated in some areas. However, because few people depended on fish for food, mercury was not considered a serious health problem. Scenario 3) Lake Mosaic: Economic growth in the late 20th and early 21st centuries created many wealthy baby boomers. Despite a generally robust economy, international tensions, terrorism, and warfare greatly reduced international travel. Their ready cash and reluctance to travel led many families to consider either buying a vacation home in, or retiring to, the NHDP. Furthermore, the milder climate resulting from global warming made northern Wisconsin a more desirable location to live in year-round. These changes, combined with the expansion of high-speed wireless networking, increased the number of people who could alternate their lives between two homes. All these factors increased the number of households that decided to move, full- or part-time, to the NHLD. Most of these new residents wanted lakeshore property and homes in the woods away from the hustle and bustle of city life.    Lakeshore development proceeded rapidly. The residents, most of whom moved to the area because of a love of the outdoors, spent lots of time on lakes or in the nearby wooded areas. Consequently, they chose locations that were not highly developed. As the number of cabins on an individual lake began to climb, that lake became less attractive to new arrivals, and new developments began on other, less developed lakes. As a result, almost all lakes in the region became moderately developed.     Most residents were very attached to their lakes. Often people were attracted to a particular lake because of its features and the attitudes of the other people living around it. These people frequently organized themselves into lake associations. Many existing lake associations became quite powerful organizations and implemented a wide variety of activities intended to improve life around their lakes. However, the scope and ultimate goals of these activities varied greatly. Some people improved their lakes by removing all hazards to boat navigation and importing sand for beaches, whereas others tried to improve fishing; still others added woody debris to their lakes in an effort to return them to a past wild state.     The great variability among lakes and the diverse interests of the people settling around them led to considerable variety in lakeshore development patterns. Some lake associations advocated the rights of residents to build "dockominiums," modify habitat, and intensify boating activity. Other lake associations worked to ban personal watercraft, severely restrict loss of habitat, limit access, and improve fishing.    With the increased population of the region, fishing quality generally declined despite ever-stricter regulation by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. This led several groups of people, including some fishing clubs, to purchase the entire perimeter of a lake to allow them high-quality fishing. On these lakes and a few lakes in government-maintained wilderness areas with "trophy-only" regulations, fishing quality was excellent. Some private landowners were able to profit handsomely by selling extraordinary fishing opportunities at premium prices. However, in most lakes accessible to the public, fishing quality continued to decline because of increased fishing pressure and the continual removal of the larger individual fish. Whenever one lake had a particularly good year, mobile anglers would quickly descend on it and reduce the quality of its fishing to the level of the other lakes in the region.     The decline in public fishing opportunities combined with the improvement in private fishing was only one of many initially subtle, but increasingly open conflicts among people living on different lakes. Tourist operators complained about how the new residents, through overfishing, limited their ability to attract tourists. Lake residents were often unfriendly to outsiders, and conflicts over noisy boats, roads, land use, and the deterioration in water quality sometimes led to nasty and long-running feuds. Ecological management decisions were frequently court-mandated. There were many irate letters to the editors of local papers, more intense influence peddling, more acrimonious County Board meetings, and increasingly frequent acts of vandalism.     This gradual spread of low-density residential development across the landscape had variable and lake-specific ecological effects. These depended on the preferences of the lakeshore owners and the characteristics of the individual lakes. For example, a "swimming lake" might have less coarse woody debris, better or at least stabilized water quality, and decreased motorboat traffic. In other lakes, especially small lakes or lakes with only a few property owners, habitat, water quality, and fishing quality remained high.    In 2025, the population of the NHLD was 55,000 people, a population increase of 25% from 2000. The region's inhabitants were generally older and richer than in Wisconsin as a whole. However, there was a lot of inequality. Whereas a number of rich people owned huge homes that they occupied for only a few weeks a year, many local residents earned minimum wages for cleaning and security companies. Everyone could agree, however, that the North Woods had become more like the suburban environments found commonly throughout the United States. There were many suburban features, ranging from extensive lawns to strip malls. Local politics were more contentious and divisive. Although many people were unhappy with the ways that the NHLD had changed, there were conflicts that prevented effective organization to improve the situation. There was a sense of quiet resignation that the North Woods would inevitably follow the path of suburbanized counties "down south." Some long-term residents even sold their homes to relocate to quiet, wild, undeveloped lakes in Canada.

 

CERA: Three Scenarios for Transmission Evolution   Hart Energy Publishing, LP, publishers of Hart’s Energy Markets magazine. October 16, 2000.

North America’s interstate power transmission system is gridlocked and plagued by a tangle of problems and regulatory uncertainty, according to High Tension: The Future of Power Transmission in North America, a study recently released by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA).  With the gridlock comes rising concern about the quality and reliability of the nation’s power network. CERA found there is too little incentive to invest in building up the transmission system, and strategy and planning are lacking with no clear consensus on how to open the electricity logjam. “Electric transmission and its future has become a central focus and strategic uncertainty for the North American electric power industry, said Larry Makovich, CERA senior director for North American power.   CERA outlined three scenarios for the future of the North American grid. They are:  Scenario 1) Incentivized Grids: “Scenario suggests the transmission sector could evolve into a viable stand-alone business. For-profit regional transmission organizations (RTOs) would combine ownership and control of the grid and become the predominant form of transmission operator. Scenario 2) Off-Road Solutions:   “Scenario envisions the continuation of gridlock in the transmission sector with more consumers and industry players pursuing generation solutions, such as distributed generation, to alleviate bottlenecks.” Scenario 3) Commanding Heights:   “CERA’s name for a scenario in which the federal government takes a direct role in restructuring the transmission sector, maintaining and controlling the existing grid, and planning new transmission capacity additions. The federal government would implement and enforce common reliability standards, dispatch policy, and interregional coordination of the transmission system.” According to CERA, signs to watch that would indicate the industry is moving toward one of the above scenarios are: experimentation with performance-based rates for transmission service;   implementation of price caps;  investment in merchant transmission projects;  expansion and consolidation of RTOs;  resolution of jurisdictional disputes;  congressional action on restructuring and reliability legislation;  response to FERC Order 2000 RTO filing requirements;  incidence of grid sabotage; and  political constraints on market integration and power reliability.

 

Three Scenarios of a Deregulated Energy Marketplace   Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). March, 2004.

Will the deregulated energy landscape resemble a checkerboard or Silicon Nation? Or are we headed for a "service plus" approach to retail competition?  These three scenarios are sketched by Cambridge Energy Research Associates in a report, "Customer Choice in the Information Age: North American Retail Energy Scenarios to 2015," cosponsored by Arthur Andersen and EDS.
"The struggle in the coming years will be over whether retail competition continues to evolve in a patchwork quilt fashion or whether financial forces, new technologies, e-business and other forces cause the industry to move even more rapidly to competitive markets," says Claire Behrens, CERA director of retail energy. She adds, "The question becomes whether the majority of customers are served under a regulatory framework that only supports the principles of competition or one that fosters practical competition."
The CERA report describes the three scenarios as follows: Scenario 1) Checkerboard: A long and uncertain transition to retail competition leads to massive utility industry consolidation into super-regional distribution companies. The regulatory rules governing the transition to competitive retail energy markets effectively inhibit "practical" energy competition from emerging for almost a decade. Most mass-market customers continue to be served under regulated utility company sales rates or default service rates for the majority of the period, with all customers getting choice only at the end of the period.  Scenario 2) Service Plus: Low stock market prices relative to earnings pressure utility holding companies to exit the regulated merchant function. Their exit creates new growth opportunities in both unregulated retail energy sales and services for retail energy markets and new entrants that favor established, high-profile brands. These players bundle energy with other product and service offerings. All customers get choice by the middle of the scenario period, and by the end of the period, one-third of power customers and half of natural gas customers have switched providers.  Scenario3) Silicon Nation: The development of e-commerce auction exchanges and portals, robust wholesale markets, and national standards for retail natural gas and electricity transactions pressures utilities to exit the regulated merchant function and provides customers with an opportunity to gain direct access quickly to wholesale markets through Internet portals and auctions. As a result, most customers have access to choice before 2010. Switching rates are high, with two-thirds of natural gas customers having switched by the end of the period and almost half of power customers exercising choice.

 

I am Your Local Power Plant.  Larry Armstrong, Senior Writer for Business Week, August, 1999.

This scenario examines trends in self-sufficient enery, technology, and home ownership.

Scenario of the 21st Century: I am Your Local Power Plant.  “By 2009, most everybody's got a personal turbine.  They can run on palm oil or manure gas, keep things purring in the house, and if there's excess juice, homeowners can sell it back to the grid   It is 2009 and  I have two electric meters: ``in'' and ``out.''  The ``in'' meter runs most of the time. But once in a while, when power is scarce and expensive, a little generator in my cellar comes on. It keeps everything in the house humming; excess electricity gets sold to the grid.  I love watching that ``out'' meter whirl.  Personal power plants have come a long way from the 20th century, when they mostly made a racket on camping trips. Now, they're everywhere in 2009, purring like kittens. Sure, there are still big central generating plants, just as there are big mainframe computers. But the hot trend is ``distributed generation''--putting generation close to consumption. That way, the utilities can dismantle their nuclear- and coal-fired plants, and there's no need to tear up the streets to replace power distribution cables.   My personal power plant takes over automatically whenever there's a power failure or a big price spike. I signed up for so-called marginal cost power, which is supercheap most of the time but gets astronomical during peak periods--like hot summer days. Remember when you could get a discount if you let the utility remotely turn off your air conditioning for a couple hours? Now, it can remotely switch on my generator when it needs an extra punch.”  Wow. 21st Century stuff. Pretty cool.

 

What if the Forests Were Silent?  Alan Rabinowitz of the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and John Carey, senior writer, Business Week, August, 1999.

Conservationists believed they had succeeded in safeguarding the forests. But although trees and land have been secured, the animals are disappearing. More than a quarter of all extinctions, where blame can be attributed, have been caused by human hunters.

Rabinowitz describes a scenario of the 21st Century: What if the Forests Were Silent?  “It is 2020. Dawn breaks on a tropical forest. Conservationists had succeeded in protecting the trees from the bite of the chain saw, and under the dense canopy, all seems primordial and pristine. But something is missing. Dawn normally brings a symphony of sound. But here there is only silence. No raucous cries of monkeys. No trilling avian melodies. No rustling in the underbrush. The animals are largely gone.”  By 2020, this silent dawn is occurring almost everywhere in the world. Indeed, such ``empty'' forests have appeared in countries from Laos to Zaire. The cause is simple: Humans continue to kill the animals. Whether by snare or spear, trap or gun, people have been taking a staggering toll on anything that can be eaten or sold for food or medicine. Wildlife biologists are only starting to tally the cost, but estimates range from up to 24 million animals killed each year in the Brazilian Amazon to 600,000 pounds of wild meat taken annually from Korup National Park in West Africa alone.  “Through the early 21st century to 2020, conservationists struggled to protect a natural world already reeling from such threats as population growth, deforestation, and pollution; the rising slaughter adds a formidable challenge in 2020.   The underlying causes include the growing numbers and Westernization of forest-dwelling tribes. To that add three other factors: the influx of ranchers and settlers, the building of logging roads that make remote areas accessible, and the enormous value of the natural-medicine trade. By 2020, conservationists succeeded in holding onto the forest, but the world was losing the animals that made the forest function.”

 

The Pentagons Weather Nightmare: The Climate Could Change Radically and Fast.  That Would be the Mother of all National Security Issues.  David Stipp, Fortune Magazine, February 9, 2004.  This article is about a recent study on global warming commissioned by the Pentagon with consultant Monitor Group’s Global Business Network.

There is growing evidence suggesting the ocean-atmosphere system that controls the world's climate can lurch from one state to another in less than a decade—“like a canoe that's gradually tilted until suddenly it flips over.”  Scientists don't know how close the system is to a critical threshold. But abrupt climate change may well occur in the not-too-distant future. If it does, the need to rapidly adapt may overwhelm many societies--thereby upsetting the geopolitical balance of power.”  How will this world look in 2020? Or perhaps, 2010?  
Scenario of the 21st Century: A National Security Nightmare.   “A TOTAL SHUTDOWN of the ocean conveyor might lead to a big chill like the Younger Dryas, when icebergs appeared as far south as the coast of Portugal. Or the conveyor might only temporarily slow down, potentially causing an era like the "Little Ice Age," a time of hard winters, violent storms, and droughts between 1300 and 1850. That period's weather extremes caused horrific famines, but it was mild compared with the Younger Dryas.   For planning purposes, it makes sense to focus on a midrange case of abrupt change. A century of cold, dry, windy weather across the Northern Hemisphere that suddenly came on 8,200 years ago fits the bill--its severity fell between that of the Younger Dryas and the Little Ice Age. The event is thought to have been triggered by a conveyor collapse after a time of rising temperatures not unlike today's global warming. Suppose it recurred, beginning in 2010. Here are some of the things that might happen by 2020:
At first the changes are easily mistaken for normal weather variation--allowing skeptics to dismiss them as a "blip" of little importance and leaving policymakers and the public paralyzed with uncertainty. But by 2020 there is little doubt that something drastic is happening. The average temperature has fallen by up to five degrees Fahrenheit in some regions of North America and Asia and up to six degrees in parts of Europe. (By comparison, the average temperature over the North Atlantic during the last ice age was ten to 15 degrees lower than it is today.) Massive droughts have begun in key agricultural regions. The average annual rainfall has dropped by nearly 30% in northern Europe, and its climate has become more like Siberia's.  Violent storms are increasingly common as the conveyor becomes wobbly on its way to collapse. A particularly severe storm causes the ocean to break through levees in the Netherlands, making coastal cities such as the Hague unlivable. In California the delta island levees in the Sacramento River area are breached, disrupting the aqueduct system transporting water from north to south. Megadroughts afflict the U.S., especially in the southern states, along with winds that are 15% stronger on average than they are now, causing widespread dust storms and soil loss. The U.S. is better positioned to cope than most nations, however, thanks to its diverse growing climates, wealth, technology, and abundant resources. That has a downside, though: It magnifies the haves-vs.-have-nots gap and fosters bellicose finger-pointing at America.  Turning inward, the U.S. effectively seeks to build a fortress around itself to preserve resources. Borders are strengthened to hold back starving immigrants from Mexico, South America, and the Caribbean islands--waves of boat people pose especially grim problems. Tension between the U.S. and Mexico rises as the U.S. reneges on a 1944 treaty that guarantees water flow from the Colorado River into Mexico. America is forced to meet its rising energy demand with options that are costly both economically and politically, including nuclear power and onerous Middle Eastern contracts. Yet it survives without catastrophic losses.   Europe, hardest hit by its temperature drop, struggles to deal with immigrants from Scandinavia seeking warmer climes to the south. Southern Europe is beleaguered by refugees from hard-hit countries in Africa and elsewhere. But Western Europe's wealth helps buffer it from catastrophe.   Australia's size and resources help it cope, as does its location--the conveyor shutdown mainly affects the Northern Hemisphere. Japan has fewer resources but is able to draw on its social cohesion to cope--its government is able to induce population-wide behavior changes to conserve resources. China's huge population and food demand make it particularly vulnerable. It is hit by increasingly unpredictable monsoon rains, which cause devastating floods in drought-denuded areas. Other parts of Asia and East Africa are similarly stressed. Much of Bangladesh becomes nearly uninhabitable because of a rising sea level, which contaminates inland water supplies. Countries whose diversity already produces conflict, such as India and Indonesia, are hard-pressed to maintain internal order while coping with the unfolding changes.  As the decade progresses, pressures to act become irresistible --history shows that whenever humans have faced a choice between starving or raiding, they raid. Imagine Eastern European countries, struggling to feed their populations, invading Russia--which is weakened by a population that is already in decline--for access to its minerals and energy supplies. Or picture Japan eyeing nearby Russian oil and gas reserves to power desalination plants and energy-intensive farming. Envision nuclear-armed Pakistan, India, and China skirmishing at their borders over refugees, access to shared rivers, and arable land. Or Spain and Portugal fighting over fishing rights--fisheries are disrupted around the world as water temperatures change, causing fish to migrate to new habitats.  Growing tensions engender novel alliances. Canada joins fortress America in a North American bloc. (Alternatively, Canada may seek to keep its abundant hydropower for itself, straining its ties with the energy-hungry U.S.) North and South Korea align to create a technically savvy, nuclear-armed entity. Europe forms a truly unified bloc to curb its immigration problems and protect against aggressors. Russia, threatened by impoverished neighbors in dire straits, may join the European bloc.  Nuclear arms proliferation is inevitable. Oil supplies are stretched thin as climate cooling drives up demand. Many countries seek to shore up their energy supplies with nuclear energy, accelerating nuclear proliferation. Japan, South Korea, and Germany develop nuclear-weapons capabilities, as do Iran, Egypt, and North Korea. Israel, China, India, and Pakistan also are poised to use the bomb.  The changes relentlessly hammer the world's "carrying capacity"--the natural resources, social organizations, and economic networks that support the population. Technological progress and market forces, which have long helped boost Earth's carrying capacity, can do little to offset the crisis--it is too widespread and unfolds too fast.  As the planet's carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern reemerges: the eruption of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies. As Harvard archeologist Steven LeBlanc has noted, wars over resources were the norm until about three centuries ago. When such conflicts broke out, 25% of a population's adult males usually died. As abrupt climate change hits home, warfare may again come to define human life.”

 

Striving to Have it all in Sustainable Rural Development   Institute for Alternative Futures. Newsletter.  June, 2004.

It is possible to develop rural areas in a way that brings economic prosperity, maintains social cohesion, and promotes environmental sustainability - all at the same time.  But the social science research required to help reconcile these objectives must be interdisciplinary and must go beyond the boundaries of conventional rural studies.  Topics that need to be dealt with range from environmental impacts of new technologies, migration, and changing land use patterns to impacts of ageing and growing diversity in the UK's population, to developments in global trade policy, food security, and "joined up" government.  The research agenda for fostering sustainable rural development is large, but so are the potential benefits.

This insight emerges from a project on Rural Futures: Scoping SOcial Science Research Needs carried out by the Institute for Alternative Futures (IAF) and the Institute of Innovative Research (IiIR) at the University of Manchester.  The project was commissioned by the UK's Economic and Social research Council (ESCR) to develop recommendations on priorities for long-term econojmic and social research.

Scenarios were used to stimulate creative thinking about research proorities.  IAFs President, Clem Bezold, says "This approach enabled project participants to look at a wider "possibility space" of plausible futures conditions than they would have simply working from current conditions, outlooks and assumptions.  The scenarios, adapted from the Countryside Agency's previous scenario study, State of the Countryside 2020, explored thee challenges presumed to be inherent in rural development: Scenario 1) Growing On:  High economic growth at the expense of social cohesion and environmental sustainability. Scenario 2) Growing Together: Rapid growth done in a way that maintains social cohesion, but at the expense of environmental sustainability; Scenario 3) Green in Pieces: The countryside becomes more environmentally sustainable, but also more economically divided and socially fragmented. Scenario 4) Green Together: Economic growth, social cohesion, and enviornmental sustainability come together and prove mutually reinforcing.

 

Human Population and the Future of Biodiversity. An information update produced by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS): Population-Environment Linkages Series, No. 4.  August, 2000.

The population of our species—which recently reached six billion—is ecologically unprecedented. “Based upon mathematical relationships comparing animal body size to habitat area, human population is estimated to have reached over 30 times what would have been expected had agriculture not been adopted (Cincotta and Engelman 2000).” We have entered an era where the extent of human numbers, per capita consumption, and technological prowess are altering global biophysical and atmospheric processes. A USC scenario in the 21st Century: Demographic Hope for BioDiversity.  “According to the most recent long-range population projections, by 2100 today’s human population of six billion could reach as high as 16 billion. Alternatively, it could peak at less than 7.5 billion around 2040 and return again to below 5.5 billion by the century’s end. Between these two extreme projections lies a vast array of possible futures, including everything from continued exponential growth to early stabilization and even eventual decline. The outcome of this range of possible population trajectories, now uncertain, could make a critical difference to the prospects for conserving the remainder of our biological diversity in the coming century and beyond. The past 30 years have seen enormous progress toward providing universal access to family planning services, as called for in the Cairo Programme of Action. There is still a long distance to go. “More than 100 million married women would like to space and limit childbirth but lack access to the means to accomplish these goals.” (Alan Guttmacher Institute 1999.) Fertility rates are not descending “on their own,” in apparently spontaneous response to economic change. The investment and hard work of governments—those of developing countries as well as industrialized donor nations—and non-governmental organizations have made a difference. Studies of Southeast Asian nations suggest that today’s declining population growth rates resulted in large part from policies and programs supported decades earlier. Voluntary family planning programs were key. But so were other policies that increased the demand for these programs—especially policies that put more girls into classrooms, and opened employment opportunities for women. The future could see a continuation of today’s impressive decline in fertility—“if citizens and the governments that represent them support and fund the policies and programs that make such change possible. Decisions made today will have an enormous influence on the future size of world population. No one can accurately predict how much of a difference a stabilized or even temporarily declining world population will make to the survival of the other species that accompany us on this living planet. But the difference could hardly be small. And we humans ourselves—simultaneously the threat to, and the caretaker of, earthly life—will be among the greatest beneficiaries.”

 

Biomass Energy. Natural Resources Defense Council, last revised January 10, 2003

http://www.nrdc.org/air/energy/fbiom.asp.

(Note: The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is US based environmental action group dedicated to protecting the planet's wildlife and wild places and ensuring a safe and healthy environment for all living things. It has over one million members.)

In this scenario, the NRDC discusses the future use of biomass as a source of energy (such as electricity or liquid fuels) and its benefits.
“In the future, modern technology for using biomass and farms cultivating high yield energy crops, including many varieties of trees and grasses, will significantly expand the available supply of sustainable biomass energy.
“New technologies will eventually allow us to use whole plants such as fast growing willow trees and switch grass to produce ethanol, a more promising option from both an economic and an environmental perspective. Biomass energy crops, if grown in bulk, could be a profitable alternative for farmers, complementing existing crops and providing an additional source of income. A substantial amount of agricultural land exists that is marginal for conventional crop production but could be brought into productive use by growing energy crops. Perennial herbaceous and woody energy crops can be selected that also provide advantages such as erosion protection, drought tolerance, and improved animal habitat.
“The development of more productive agricultural processes that generate food, fuel, chemicals and fiber products in an integrated system will create more revenue for farmers and more rural jobs. In addition, expanded biomass power deployment can create high-skill, high-value job opportunities for utility and power equipment vendors, power plant owners and operators, and agricultural equipment vendors.
“The future widespread adoption of biomass energy in the United States depends in great part on the adoption of policies that address the global warming problem seriously by requiring reductions in fossil fuel use. Today, the success or failure of biomass as a promising, environmentally and economically sound energy source depends greatly on political factors. Tomorrow, perhaps, adoption of more biomass energy will be more of a necessity than a luxury as our fossil fuel-based resources continue to dwindle.”

 

The Human Genone Project: What Does Decoding DNA Mean for Us?

Author: Kevin Alexander Boon, 2002, Enslow Publishers Inc.  (No notes on the author; book was written for young adults) Biology Scenario Taken from Chapter 8, A Look to the Future, page 103

Author Kevin Boon lays out a future of the 21st century in which he sees probable cures for cancer, Alzheimer’s, and other genetic disorders. In the near term future, he believes cloning will become “as commonplace as surgery” but the activity of cloning will predominately be used to perpetuate a desirable genetic code among animals or to grow organs for human transplants. It is unlikely, Boon states, there will be much human cloning in the near future. But he does see parental efforts to genetically design children coming on strong. Although he believes public opinion and legislation will limit how much parents can actually engineer, he also believes parents will eventually see genetic engineering of their children as a right.
By 2100, Boon predicts life expectancy will be 150 to 200 years.

 

The Future of Life, Edward O. Wilson, 2002, Random House.

(Note on author: Edward Wilson is author of two Pulitzer Prize winning books on science and conservation. Currently he is the Pellegrino University Research Professor and Honorary Curator in Entomology of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard. He lives in Lexington, MA)

The Future of Life: A Scenario: In The Future of Life, author Edward Wilson presents a scenario describing the ecological state of the world in 2100, if current trends continue. Wilson envisions a world supporting a global population of nine to ten billion that occupies all remaining habitable areas on the plant. The “techno-scientific” civilization of the wealthy and elite countries has resulted in populations that better fed and more educated than during the previous century. But the majority of the world population remains living in developing countries and remains poor. Although war is rare, tensions and conflicts exist between the elite countries and “resentful poor countries.”
Generally, humanity is living longer; post-centarians are commonplace. Birthrates, however, have plummeted, particularly in the richest countries. Young people are recruited to these countries from the poor. The genetic homogenization of the world population has accelerated and individual biological races grow fainter as each generation passes.
By 2100, the natural world is considerably degraded. “Frontier forests are typically gone” as are most of the world’s biodiversity “hotspots” and half of the plant and animals species. There is no Amazon, no Congo, no New Guinea wilderness; “coral reefs, rivers and other aquatic habitats are badly deteriorated.” The few remaining wild habitats are closely guarded.
“The fragmentary biodiversity that survived to 2100 has also become much more geographically simplified” thanks to easy migration of organisms. “To travel around the world along any chosen latitude is to encounter mostly the same small set of introduced birds, mammals, insects, and microbes.” The human population understands, too late, “that Earth is a much poorer place than it was back in 2000, and will stay that way forever.”
“Such is likely to be the world of 2100—if present trends continue.”

 

Tomorrow Now, Envisioning the Next Fifty Years
Bruce Sterling, 2002, Random House. 

In his recent book, Bruce Sterling describes a biotech future in which “inside of you is where it’s at” and bacteria is your friend. People are “DNA literate,” according to Sterling, “even a five year old child can tell you not just that you have an influenza virus but what kind you have and where it came from.” Bacteria are viewed as “little chemical factories that can put DNA to work. They turn raw, cheap chemical feedstocks into almost anything that DNA can make: proteins, hormones, drugs, antibodies – and structural materials: skin, horn, bone, coral, bamboo, plastics even.” People drive hydrogen powered vehicles that cause no pollution and will, upon command, become compost. Showers are in fact, body imaging systems that scan daily for health status while toilets measure and report a body’s metabolic information. There are no human conditions such as tooth decay or dandruff, and glasses are no longer needed. “Pills don’t contain drugs but rather organisms that make drugs inside of you.” Homes are made
entirely of organic substances; lawns are biodiverse centers. And although the world is genetically altered, there are no mutants or monsters.

 

Sustainable Food and Farming in the Connecticut River Valley: A Vision.
Author: Small Systems Company, 1995. http://www.smsys.com/pub/cisa/part4.htm

Note: Small Systems Company provides design, consulting, and production services in four general areas: 1) technology and enterprise, 2) environmental restoration and planning, 3) architecture and construction, and 4) community and business development). Small Systems Company created a series of scenarios on the topics of farming and sustainability. The scenarios are set in the year 2020.

FUTURE SCENARIO 1: The Farm and Food Council is holding its regular monthly meeting. The Youth Farm Service Corps director reports that urban youth have enrolled for mandatory two year programs and one teen in the group indicates they are now “compost-certified.” The Valley Farmland Trust reports it is purchasing 1400 developed acreage that will be returned to farmland and discusses the possibility of installing “bubbles” over land creating greenhouse so the growing season can be extended to year-round. The Grow Local campaign is reported a success. 

FUTURE SCENARIO 2: Sixty Minutes is doing a segment on the successs of the farming effort in the valley. Mike Wallace reports that food production in the area has doubled over the last 25 years thanks to two programs: the Grow Local campaign and teen education and training in farming. He also reports that this community has no jails; lawbreakers are put to work on local farms instead of in jails.

FUTURE SCENARIO 3: The setting is an auction of the last premium space for farming and recreation in the area. The closing bid: 150 million dollars (US).

FUTURE SCENARIO 4: Town Meeting is scheduled for tonight. On the agenda: a proposal to increase subsidies to farm workers. The proposal is expected to pass without any problems.

FUTURE SCENARIO 5: Malls no longer exist in the valley; they have been replaced by farms. Residents now predominately buy foods that are locally grown. Kids belong to very active 4-H clubs. The bike path gets lots of use; waking is a favorite mode of transportation. People are now more environmentally conscious. 

FUTURE SCENARIO 6:  Grandparents describe the 20th century to their grandson. It was a time when people ate something called a hamburger, at a place called McDonald's, but  McDonald’s no longer exists; and when Styrofoam was heavily used and is still cluttering the landfills. Grandfather describes his involvement in setting up the clustered housing they now live in and Uncle Terry’s work to rid the river of jet skis and other mechanized vehicles. The youth asks about taxes. Grandfather explains that there are no longer taxes.

FUTURE SCENARIO 7: At a gathering at a local restaurant, where, of course only locally grown food is served, participants are electronically communicating with farmers from all over the world.  They are reporting that the area is importing substantially less food than it did 25 years ago and that most of the food in stores here is now locally grown. The farmers, sporting an average age of 35 years, are solvent, crops are stable and provide them with a good return. Organic farming has replaced chemical-intensive farming. Agriculture is taught in the schools; even the youngest understand the food and waste systems. Ninety-five percent of waste is composed.

SCENARIO THEMES: In the year 2020 -  Composting and recycling are practiced diligently; resources are renewed; the "grow local/buy local" campaign has paid off; wisdom and expertise are routinely imparted via the Internet - advances in communications technology allow the exchange of ideas, advice and knowledge on an international level with "sister cities; financial support is provided through bank loans, barter, collectives, development corporations; first-time farmers receive the aid that was not available a quarter-century earlier; farmland is passed on through families, and continues to be used for agricultural purposes; farming no longer relies solely on petroleum and pesticides; advances in biotechnology have improved the quality quantity and shelf life of crops; genetic engineering has created disease- and pest-resistant livestock and crops; the growing season is extended, and we can grow fruits and vegetables that once flourished only in tropical climates; children are an integral part of the farming community; agriculture is incorporated in the curriculum in all grades; a career in farming has prestige; housing is clustered; there is a shift toward more human, family, community values; the extended family is once again a visible component of the community; the community is more self-sufficient.

 

Our Posthuman Future, Consequences of the Biotechnology Revolution.
Author: Francis Fukuyama, 2002, Farrar, Straus, and Giroux Pub.

In his most recent book, Francis Fukuyama takes the position that “biotech will have profound and potentially terrible consequences for our political order and belief that human beings are equal by nature.” Biotech’s most significant threat, he states, is the possibility that it will alter human nature and thereby move us into a "posthuman" stage that will have “malign consequences for liberal democracy and the nature of politics itself.” He argues for regulatory limits on biotech advances and believes such limits can be enforced by the global community. 
Fukuyama puts forth a number for future scenarios for the next one or two generations:

“The first scenario has to do with new drugs. As a result of advances in neuropharmacology, psychologists discover that human personality is much more plastic than formerly believed…..But in the future, knowledge of genomics permits pharmaceutical companies to tailor drugs very specifically to the genetic profiles of individual patients and greatly minimise unintended side effects. Stolid people can become vivacious; introspective ones extroverted; you can adopt one personality on Wednesday and another for the weekend. There is no longer any excuse for anyone to be depressed or unhappy; even "normally" happy people can make themselves happier without worries of addiction, hangovers, or long-term brain damage.

“In the second scenario, advances in stem cell research allow scientists to regenerate virtually any tissue in the body, such that life expectancies are pushed well above 100 years. If you need a new heart or liver, you just grow one inside the chest cavity of a pig or cow; brain damage from Alzheimer's and stroke can be reversed. The only problem is that there are many subtle and some not-so-subtle aspects of human ageing that the biotech industry hasn't quite figured out how to fix: people grow mentally rigid and increasingly fixed in their views as they age, and try as they might, they can't make themselves sexually attractive to each other and continue to long for partners of reproductive age. Worst of all, they just refuse to get out of the way, not just of their children, but their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. On the other hand, so few people have children or any connection with traditional reproduction that it scarcely seems to matter.
“The social impact of ever increasing life expectancies will depend …..on the "evenness" of future life-prolonging advances.

The best scenario would be one in which technology simultaneously pushes back parallel ageing processes - for instance, by the discovery of a common molecular source of ageing in all somatic cells, and the delaying of this process throughout the body. Failure of the different parts would come at the same time….“The worst scenario would be one of highly uneven advance, in which, for example, we found ways to preserve bodily health but could not put off age-related mental deterioration. Stem cell research might yield ways to grow new body parts. But without a parallel cure for Alzheimer's, this wonderful new technology would do no more than allow more people to persist in vegetative states for years longer than is currently possible. “An explosion in the number of people in category two might be labeled the "national nursing home scenario", in which people routinely live to be 150 but spend the last 50 years in a state of childlike dependence on caretakers.

“In a third scenario, the wealthy routinely screen embryos before implantation so as to optimise the kind of children they have. You can increasingly tell the social background of a young person by his or her looks and intelligence; if someone doesn't live up to social expectations, he tends to blame bad genetic choices by his parents rather than himself. Human genes have been transferred to animals and even to plants, for research purposes and to produce new medical products; and animal genes have been added to certain embryos to increase their physical endurance or resistance to disease. Scientists have not dared to produce a full-scale chimera, half human and half ape, though they could; but young people begin to suspect that classmates who do much less well than they do are in fact genetically not fully human. Because, in fact, they aren't.”

 

Energy and Transportation Task Force Report.
Author: Global Business Network  Prepared for the President’s Council on Sustainable Development (1996), as part of the Sustainable Energy and Transportation Scenarios Project http://clinton4.nara.gov/PCSD/Publications/TF-Reports/energy_appa.html

The Energy and Transportation Task Force report was one of seven such reports prepared for the President’s Council on Sustainable Development to understand how energy and transportation systems might evolve in the future.  The report outlines four scenarios set in the year 2025, which explore the interplay of the global economy and the environment.

Scenario 1) The Way We Are: “This is a world where gradual change continues, but the future is not necessarily a mirror of the past.  The restructuring of the global economy is the major force shaping this scenario.  Fragmentation, not cooperation, keeps people’s lives a bit unsettled.  A shifting job market in the U.S. and the resulting underemployment keep real incomes stagnant in many sectors well into the new century.  In this world, people desire more mobility, but also face increasing congestion.  Looking back from 2025, observers would note that most Americans are better off, in part due to technology instead of rapidly increasing incomes, but remain conce
rned by chronic social problems and a latent perception that the United States is no longer the world’s economic power.” 

Scenario 2) Inclusive Development:  “This is a world where social and economic priorities overwhelm environmental ones, at least temporarily.  Over the course of the 1990s, a new social consensus emerges in the U.S., acknowledging that the widening gap in incomes and advancement opportunities is not sustainable.  As the trend continued into the 1990s, concerns about social justice came into the forefront – a concern that already motivated many environmentally concerned citizens.  The Inclusive Development scenario presents the story of a new political bargain that delays the timing of environmental progress.” 

Scenario 3) Eco-Crisis: “In this future, the onset of global climate change is characterized by increasing weather variability and turbulence, which quickly reaches crisis intensity by the year 2001.  This phenomenon is not limited to the United States, as Asia, Europe and other pa
rts of the globe are hard hit.  Following close behind are two nuclear accidents in Europe, which surprise and shock the world.  A series of steps, which move beyond strictly environmental concerns to include trade and security, are taken to restructure and ensure a more harmonious relationship between the environment and economic development.” 

Scenario 4) Eco-Eco-Tech (Economic-Ecological-Technologies): “This is a world of increasing environmental awareness linked with a strong U.S. (and global) economy, technological developments, and governmental initiatives to create cooperative win-win solutions. Unlike the previous scenarios, this world is driven by the values of the baby boomers, who occupy top management and policy positions and favor market and incentive-based approaches.  But as this scenario plays out, not everyone in society benefits from these technological changes, with technological elites receiving most of the gains from economic and environmental improvements.”

 

North American Transportation Energy Futures Study – Long Term Scenarios to 2050.

Office of Transportation Technologies Department of Energy, July 2002 www.ott.gov/future_highway.htnl 

The North American Transportation Energy Futures Study outlines three long-term scenarios for the evolution of the North American transportation sector through the period 2000-2050.  Based on three drivers – energy interdependence, environmental responsiveness and the pace of innovation – the scenarios are designed to estimate the energy, oil carbon and economic impacts of introducing alternative technology/fuels into the North American market over the next 50 years. 

Scenario 1) Greening the Pump:  “This is a world with a slow pace of innovation, full of energy interdependence and high environmental responsiveness.  Fuels such as natural gas are preferred for the North American market while conventional, offshore and oil sands resources are extracted processed and used in incrementally cleaner and more efficient ways. Technology investment is mainly for the demonstration and deployment of off-the-shelf technologies.  This focus on deployment and nearer term activities resulted in a very uneven pattern of investment along the innovation chain.  The lack of commitment to longer-term planning and R&D in transportation left North American with limited pools of technologies from which to draw on.” 

Scenario 2) Rollin’ On: “Full energy interdependence and a revolutionary pace of innovation with low environmental responsiveness have led to a North American transportation sector with a high reliance on fossil fuels.  North Americans growing demand for passenger and freight transportation are met by a concerted effort of governments and industry.  Rapid growth and capital stock turnover result in the new technologies being developed and deployed as rapidly as possible and North American energy sources tapped and delivered to market.”

Scenario 3) Go Your Own Way: Rapid innovation, limited energy interdependence and high environmental responsiveness have led to regions in North America seeking their own solutions to the development of a sustainable energy system.  Rapid innovation has produced a variety of fuel and vehicle choices; however, many of the individual country solutions are constrained by the slate of vehicles and drive trains produced by the U.S. who continues to be one of the major vehicle suppliers.  This world sees the greatest strides in renewable energies, fuel cell technology and biofuels.”

 

Hubbert’s Peak: The Impending World Oil Shortage.
Author:Kenneth S. Deffeyes. Princeton Univ Press, October, 2001.

In Hubbert's Peak, Deffeyes writes about the history and future of the oil business.  He says quite frankly that, “ the 100-year petroleum era is nearly over. Global oil production will peak sometime between 2004 and 2008, and the world's production of crude oil will fall, never to rise again.”  “…If nothing is done to reduce the increasing global demand for oil--energy prices will soar and economies will be plunged into recession as they desperately search for alternatives.”  Is this just another doomsayer forecast?  The original author of “Hubbert’s Peak,” M. King Hubbert, was a Shell geologist who, in 1956 predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in the early 1970s and then begin to decline. Hubbert was dismissed by many experts inside and outside the oil industry. Pro-Hubbert and anti-Hubbert factions arose and persisted until 1970, when U.S. oil production peaked and started its long decline.  (Scientific American)  The Hubbert method is based on the observation that oil production in any region follows a bell-shaped curve. Production increases rapidly at first, as the cheapest and most readily accessible oil is recovered. As the difficulty of extracting the oil increases, it becomes more expensive and less competitive with other fuels. Production slows, levels off and begins to fall.  In the last chaper of this book, “A New Outlook”,  Mr. Deffeyes boldly assumes that Hubbert’s theory is correct and makes a case for an imaginative scenario. 

Scenario: A Hubbert Scenario of Crisis and a Case for Normative Action.    “An unprecedented crisis occurs during the first quarter and second quarter of the 21st Century.  There will be chaos in the oil industry, in governments, and in national economies. Even if governments and industries were to recognize the problems, it is too late to reverse the trend. Oil production begins to shrink. In an earlier, politically incorrect era the scene would be described as a "Chinese fire drill." What will happen to the rest of us? In a sense, the oil crises of the 1970s and 1980s were a laboratory test. We were the lab rats in that experiment. Gasoline was rationed both by price and by the inconvenience of long lines at the gas stations. The increased price of gasoline and diesel fuel raised the cost of transporting food to the grocery store. We were told that 90 percent of an Iowa corn farmer's costs were, directly and indirectly, fossil fuel costs. As price rises rippled through the economy, there were many unpleasant disruptions.  In the future, particularly around 2010, to avoid deprivation resulting from the exhaustion of non-renewable resources, humanity must employ conservation and renewable resource substitutes sufficient to match depletion.”  Anticipating that demand for energy will continue to increase as supplies decline, humanity may, in a normative sense (with the exception of some elements of “Deprivation”), adjust by some combination of the following: Conservation -- the same life-style accomplished with more energy-efficient artifacts ... more fuel-efficient cars;  Life-Style Change -- a form of conservation: telecommuting instead of commuting ... back to the land ... living closer to work ... ; Substitution -- using other energy sources to accomplish the same objectives ... solar power... walking not driving .. ; Deprivation -- just plain doing without ... no more plane trips to visit the family across the country ... or, more seriously, pestilence ... mass starvation ... war ...”

The following graph depicts possible alternative scenarios for humanity (as described above) as oil goes into decline over the next few decades.

 

 

Plotting Corporate Futures: Biotechnology Examines What Could Go Wrong.
Author: Barnaby J. Feder.  New York Times Business/Financial Section. June 24, 1999.

As biotechnology becomes more widespread and debated as a global issue, Montsanto, a company  oftentimes “demonized” by environmentalists, invited Jeremy Rifkin and 13 members of the World Business Council to lead a scenario planning session about the future landscape of biotechnology to the year 2030.  Mr. Rifkin, an environmentalist, is known the world over for his illustrious statesmanship and environmental protests. To say the least, this scenario exercise caught Montsanto by surprise.  It increased awareness of the vital importance of challenging assumptions.  Can we, in 2002, make assumptions about public reactions to political surprises, potential industrial accidents, and social disruption in the future?  In a normative sense, Montsanto’s scenario exercise presents a good example to other industries manufacturing product-lines with long-range impacts that may or may not affect the environment in a good way, such as, insect-resistant crops and blockbuster drugs. 

 Scenario One:  Unheeded.  “In the first scenario, none of the critics' warnings about health and environmental hazards prove warranted and biotechnology products gain widespread acceptance. It is not a happily-ever-after story for the companies, though, because success brings wide-ranging consequences and challenges.  This scenario includes examples of the social and political impact of large numbers of people living past the age of 100. There are pressures to divert public spending and product development to the needs of the elderly. Some biotechnology products in this story become unprofitable because they become so widespread that they turn into low-margin commodities.”  

Scenario Two:  Chaos Theory.   “Complex systems can be changed radically by tiny disruptions that have dramatic ripple effects. This story turns on an event such as publication of a small research report attributing an environmental setback to genetically engineered crops. This in turn kicks off a string of public reactions leading to drastic regulations that stifle many biotechnology applications. A Presidential candidate who is courting environmentalists is cast as the leader of the anti-biotech charge.  One plot twist to this story : the perceived threat to the environment is the result of faulty research. The lesson for the industry: the same science that serves you so well today can trip you up in the hands of critics.” 

Scenario Three:  The Market Decides.  “In the third story, which might be summarized as ''thanks but no thanks,'' consumers and financial markets decide that most biotechnology applications simply are not as appealing as the alternatives. Insurers balk at liability risks and investors flee the industry's meager returns. Agricultural biotechnology markets shrink as farmers and consumers embrace organic food. Biotechnology becomes a tool to improve breeding techniques rather than to move genes among different species.  At the same time, health care companies conclude there is limited profit in engineering new drugs and in harvesting organs for transplants in humans from genetically engineered animals. Instead, they use their expertise to analyze people's vulnerability to certain diseases and then reap profits from advising people how to avoid getting sick.”

 

Scenarios for a Clean Future (CEF). 
Report commissioned by the US Department of Energy (DOE), 2001. 

The Interlaboratory Working Group was commissioned by the DOE to examine the potential for public policies and programs to foster efficient and clean energy technology solutions.  The introduction to this work communicates a number of energy and environmental challenges as humanity moves into the 21st century; among them: acid rain, rising sea levels, and more extreme weather.  The CEF scenarios address energy and environmental concerns & issues for the next 20 years, then couples them with a well-surveyed analysis of current and future policy solutions. This highly quantitative study provides near-term issues to illustrate specific clean energy technology and policy opportunities.

Scenario One:  “Advanced” & Scenario Two: “Moderate”:  Both scenarios develop into highly quantitative charts, graphs,  NAU forecasts for 2010 (for both scenarios ), as well as assessments of Btu, cost, demographics, consumption  of domestic and imported crude oil and petroleum products; and, an additional set of NAU quantitative forcasts for 2020 .    These forecasts are defined by fifty policy actions.   The following 10 are the most important: In the Building Sector: efficiency standards for equipment, voluntary labeling, and deployment programs; For Industry in General: voluntary programs; voluntary agreements with individual industries and trade associations; In the Transportation Sector: voluntary fuel economy agreements with auto manufacturers; “pay-at-the-pump” auto insurance;  For Electric Generators:  renewable energy portfolio standards & production tax credits and electric industry restructuring.  

The scenarios led to three key conclusions: 1) Smart public policy can significantly reduce carbon emissions; 2) Overall economic benefit of good policy matches cost; 3) CEF Scenarios show an abundance of good policy to consider on a local, state, regional, and national level.  

 

Weathering the Debate Over Climate Change.
Author: Peter Schwartz, Red Herring Magazine, January, 2002.  

In this compelling article, Mr. Schwartz writes about what we know and what we don’t know about climate change.  What we know is, that we are experiencing  a period of climate change. What we don’t know is, “how fast it is changing? What are the dynamics of  climate change? Where will it end up?”   Humanity is on the threshold of understanding that climate change is indeed, the result of  “human activity amplifying dynamics.” Mr. Schwartz reviews three theories of climate change and encourages scientists to watch climate change more carefully and to continue improving climate science and modeling.  A profound book Mr. Schwartz references in this article, “The Two-Mile Time Machine: Ice Cores, Abrupt Climate Change, and Our Future(Princeton University Press, 2000), quotes Dr. Alley, professor of geosciences : “Our ice core records show that huge shifts have happened in the climate – not over centuries or even decades, but over years.”  Humanity needs to go beyond the threshold of understanding, and walk into the living room of more actionable study. This takes courage. 

 Scenario One: Gradual Warming:  “We could experience a gradual warming of 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit over the next century. Such a change could be highly disruptive, especially to agriculture. The reduction of greenhouse gases proposed in the Kyoto protocol is far too modest to help change this scenario.”

Scenario Two: Modest Blip: “In this scenario, there is little cause for concern, because we are experiencing just a modest blip and will return to stability. But if it proves wrong, then trusting in it will prove catastrophic.”

Scenario Three: An Era: “Finally, the third scenario is an era of unstable climate extremes. We don't know when the climate will whipsaw, but human activity will likely produce change sooner and cause it to be more extreme. If this scenario is correct, then it may make sense to reduce our output of greenhouse gases much further and faster than the Kyoto protocols dictate.”

 

Game Changer.  

Author: Anders Hove, RAND Corporation (with the assistance of James Bartis, Richard Silberglitt and Helena Chum of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory of the U.S. Department of Energy.)

“Game Changers"  is the title of a RAND study about the innovations and technologies that could potentially drive discontinuous change on a global scale.  The technologies examined in this article focus on those that could change the environmental landscape.  These include methane hydrates (a large source of energy that is currently untapped), the prospect of a hydrogen-powered economy, and the regulation of contaminants that are only now emerging as problems in our water supply.  “Water World”, written by Anders Hove, is a scenario to the year 2020.   
Water World: Powering the Nation with Hydrogen: “Imagine a world powered almost entirely by an infinitely abundant and totally clean fuel. Hydrogen is just such a fuel: the most common element in the universe, it can be made from water and used to generate ordinary electricity for homes and cars. In such a world energy would come from an easily stored and domestically produced fuel. Electric power and transportation would be totally clean and entirely free of messy geopolitical problems. Peering into the glass, we could see people using "cHars" -- run on powerful but silent fuel cells -- as mobile power plants. Plugging the home into the family car in the evening would offset the peak loads created by heating, air conditioning, lighting, and recreation. At work, employees could receive a bonus check every month for contributing power to the office park "grid." Unlike fossil fuels used in today's cars and power plants, the only by-product of hydrogen power would be pure water.  With hydrogen the challenge isn't finding a supply, but extracting the hydrogen cheaply and cleanly.”  ("Yes, my friends," [said Cyrus Smith], "I believe that one day water will be used as a fuel -- that the hydrogen and the oxygen which constitute it, separately or simultaneously, will provide an inexhaustible source of heat and light of an intensity unknown to petroleum. One day, instead of being fired with coal, steamships and locomotives will be propelled by these two compressed gases, which will burn in their engines with enormous energy. Thus there is nothing to fear. As long as the earth is inhabited it shall provide for the needs of its inhabitants, and they will never want for light or heat... Water is the coal of the future."  "That I'd like to see," said the sailor.   Jules Verne, The Mysterious Island, 1874)

 

Scenarios for society and the environment in 2020.

The Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies

The Danish Environmental Protection Agency asked the Copenhagen Institute for Futures Studies to outline four scenarios for tomorrow’s society and environment. Each of the four scenarios presents its vision of how society and the environment will interact in 2020. The scenarios are outlined in a graph with two axes – a society axis and an environment axis, which together create the four scenarios. The two axes are produced from answers given in qualitative interviews with a number of key players in the environment area, including representatives from NGOs, industry and the authorities.   The society axis illustrates actions in society. We may have a situation where environmental initiatives originate at the bottom of society or a situation where initiatives are primarily centralised.  The other axis is aimed directly at the environment and environmental discussions. The axis illustrates a world where, at one extreme, environmental discussions are characterised by little or almost no will to create a sustainable society. Each of the following four scenarios paints its own picture of Denmark in the future.

Scenario 1. A world on the brink of environmental disaster. All danger signals have been ignored, and we must react immediately to save the world.

Scenario 2.   A technologicalised world. Man lives in symbiosis with technology, and environmental problems are solved by means of technological innovations.

Scenario 3. The staged world. We live in a society of entertainment, and environmental questions must amuse us to catch our attention. 

Scenario 4.  A world at peace with nature. Danes have come to their senses. We have realised that we have caused excessive environmental impact over time and are now reacting accordingly.

Consumer Power.  Author:by Joel Makower, edior of the “Green Business Letter” and creator of GreenBiz.com, a nonprofit resource center on corporate environmental responsibility.
Mr. Makower takes a look at how technology and economy growth have impacted consumption, waste generation, and energy use patterns over the last 50 years.  This study takes a close look at consumer habits and trends; as well as industrial trends that contribute to environmental responsibility. Of course, there are the downsides – environmental work has only begun, particulaly with the enhancements & effectivness of technologies and educating the consumer.  Three current trends are described as having a significant impact on consumer decisions in the marketplace:

  1. “Sustainable Consumption" Goes Mainstream -  “Amid an age of plenty -- at least in the U.S. and other industrialized nations -- there is growing interest in the simple question about "How much is enough?" This question is certainly not new, but more recently it has extended beyond a small corps of alternative lifestylers to more mainstream folks. who, for a variety of reasons, are beginning to question the linkages between quantity of possessions and quality of life.”;
  2. Looking Beyond Products to Companies - “The protests over the notion of globalization in recent years are a pointed reminder of the growing collision of environmental concerns with those of human rights, labor, and community economic development -- the so-called triple bottom lines of economic, environmental, and social sustainability. Activists -- and a few enlightened business leaders -- are recognizing that companies increasingly are being judged not just on how much economic value they add, but also on how much environmental and social value they add -- or destroy.” 
  3. The Rising Power of NGOs:  - This third trend reviews a scenario written by World Resources Institute scientist Allen Hammond in his book,  Which World?  This book explored three scenarios of possibilities for how the global future may unfold.  In the scenario, “Transformed World” Hammond describes an explosion in the number and influence of nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. The NGO’s power, he said, comes from their “ability, despite the bewildering number of causes they espouse, to form spontaneous coalitions and to motivate and arouse public opinion.”    The concluding portion of Mr. Makower examines the “state” of Hammond’s 1998 scenario. 

The State of a 1998 Scenario:  “Transformed World”.   “ Whether "Transformed World" comes to pass remains to be seen, but the transforming power of the NGOs already is evident. In recent years, coalitions of activists increasingly have influenced how companies, politicians, and the public think about issues ranging from child labor to sustainable forestry.      The world of NGOs -- which range from public-service and humanitarian-relief agencies to local, national, and global activist organizations -- is growing. For example, in 1948 there were 41 consultative groups formally associated with the UN Economic and Social Council. Half a century later, there were more than 1,500.    
Why the growth? One contributing factor may be the near paralysis of government institutions in addressing environmental and sustainability issues. Another may be the recognition that there is a wealth of knowledge and expertise outside of government and the private sector. Still another is a sense that cooperation is needed to produce new technologies and policies. Today's NGOs are more willing to engage companies in productive dialogues and partnerships. They are better tuned to what makes companies tick, and they know how to leverage meager resources to promote corporate change.     
Consider, for example, the experiences of one well-known consumer-products company that came under scrutiny by a group of "zero-waste" NGOs for failing to live up to a commitment to use a significant percentage of recycled material in its packaging. The NGOs placed the company on a list of targets for a nationwide campus boycott. Most such boycotts have negligible effect on company sales and profitability, and this boycott was no exception. But the NGOs added a twist: College students also were urged to boycott the company's recruiters when they visited campuses seeking to interview potential job candidates.     
That hurt. The company's top environmental manager received a call from senior management, wanting to know how the company got into this mess -- and how it could get out of it. In an economy in which a company's ability to attract and retain talent has become a source of competitive advantage, the recruitment boycott cut to this company's core business strategy.      NGOs' roles can cut both ways. As P.J. Simmons writes in "Learning to Live with NGOs": "Embracing a bewildering array of beliefs, interests, and agendas, they have the potential to do as much harm as good. Hailed as the exemplars of grassroots democracy in action, many NGOs are, in fact, decidedly undemocratic and unaccountable to the people they claim to represent. Dedicated to promoting more openness and participation in decisionmaking, they can instead lapse into old-fashioned interest group politics that produces gridlock on a global scale."     
All signs indicate that NGOs' power will not wane any time soon. During the 1990s, NGOs rose to become almost de facto governments, often wielding more clout than elected officials in engendering change in the corporate sector. Emboldened by their fight against globalization and empowered by the Internet, NGOs increasingly will band together to fight industrial pollution, push a sustainability agenda, and encourage consumer participation. But NGO activity won't all be anti-business: Many groups will promote firms they see as proactive and responsible, create buyers' groups to support emerging technologies, and even launch for-profit ventures to jump-start promising products and services. All of which will create opportunities for companies and consumers to engage in new and productive dialogues.”

 

The Future of Consumer Power   Mr. Makower summarizes his final conclusions with a summary chapter, The Future of Consumer Power.  “Where green consumerism goes from here will depend a great deal on the ability to unite companies and consumers. The problems described above -- the lack of public understanding of the relationship between purchases and environmental impacts, the timidity of companies to make environmentally bold statements, and the need for businesses to vastly increase their communication with consumers on environmental topics -- can only be solved by a kind of shared vision between producers and their customers.      In the end, the future will hinge on everyone's ability to improve environmental literacy at all levels, from elementary school to the marketplace. The challenge will be to communicate in a fair, balanced, and accurate way the impact of everyday purchases on the environment in a way that will empower, not alienate, consumers. Without such empowerment, the majority of consumers will be doomed to a frustrating and cynical assumption that there is little they can do and it is up to others to solve the planet's woes.      The environmental and social marketplace is a dynamic, living entity, and today's marketplaces appear more dynamic than ever. The turn of the century has seen the birth and maturing of new environmental and sustainability issues around which consumers are increasingly being heard. The growing furor over genetically modified organisms, for example, whose marketing often promotes their environmental benefits, points up the double-edge sword of environmental technologies in the era of the triple bottom line: They must do more than merely reduce pollution; they must also improve people's lives. Energy deregulation and the advent of so-called "green power" is another area rife with opportunities for consumers to vote with their dollars. The growing activism against sprawl -- and all of the congestion, pollution, and loss of green space that comes with it -- may represent yet another area in which companies will come under consumer and activist scrutiny.     On the horizon loom other, increasingly sophisticated, information-based technologies, such as robotics, genetics, and nanotechnology. All three bring the promise of dramatic new breakthroughs in food, medicine, communications, and other commodities needed for a sustainable world -- as well as the potential to wreak havoc on social structure and natural ecosystems. In the coming years, as these technologies' capabilities become commercialized at breakneck speed, the power of consumers in the marketplace will undoubtedly play a role in whether and how these products succeed -- and their impact on the environmental and social landscape.”

 

The Sheldon Scenarios.
A collaboration created for the Architectural Program for the Urban Institute for Contemporary Arts,  Grand Rapids, Michigan, 2002.

The leadership of the Contemporary Arts Architectural Working Group asked a very significant question: What form will the arts take in the future?  The arts, not unlike the global economy, have highly uncertain elements.  Yet, there are predetermined notions that the arts will continue “as is” -  mostly derived from global trends - particularly historic triggers in Europe.  (A stone already knows what it will be before it is carved? [Michelangelo].) Can the arts be predetermined?   Architecture is among the arts.  What is the future of the building? (*There is an excellent book by Stewart Brand, “How Buildings Learn”.)  The Architectural Working Group acknowledged that these challenges are all dynamic in nature and therefore, it was decided that scenario planning would help the Working Group to envision future changes in architecture to optimise solutions and opportunities.   Key questions asked among the Working Group:

  1. “What is the future of cultural institutions?
  2. “What is the future of the relationships between economy and culture?
  3. “How can form serve to support the building of community through experience?
  4. “What will the dynamic be between new media and technology and the arts and culture?

5)  “How does an organization plan through a structure to support innovative thought and creative action toward the development of a vital cultural community?”   Four scenarios for each of five elements were developed. The five elements: External Environment, Structuring, Sustaining, Experiencing, and Movements.  Each element contained a set of four distinct scenarios. In sum, this study developed a total of 20 scenarios of the future of architecture.  Here is a sampling of four (out of the 20), representing the “External Environment”.

“External Environment” Scenario One:  Institute Showcase.   “The economy is stable and subtly stratified. The work environment is steady and stratified into 25% information and management workers, and 70% in service and some manufacturing. Income difference between these groups is significant.  Downtown development in both residential and commercial areas progresses. Development spreading out from the Arena finally reaches Sheldon. Country retreats and the nostalgia of small towns are popular escapes. New technology blossomed, then was quickly overrun by commercial interests and trash. Currently, internet techies still progress the technology, but it never took off for broad community and democratic discourse.  People seek cultural experiences that reinforce and develop their interests. Meaning is found in exposure to new forms and ideas. People value their personal objects. People associate mostly with other individuals of similar economic, religious, and cultural backgrounds.” 

“External Enviornment” Scenario Two: Urban Community.   “Businesses work to maximize profit by targeting upper income groups, government, and other businesses resulting in extreme economic stratification. Manufacturing moves offshore and value of commercial property plummets as economy is based on financial paper and information.  Work is scarce for 40% of the eligible population. The government gives credit for volunteering in community service organizations. UICA qualifies as a site for these credits.  Downtown becomes deserted as financial power centers move to Ada, Cascade, and Holland. Regional and local planning bodies are controlled largely by corporate politics.  New technology has grown under the control of big commercial media companies. However, access is expensive, putting it out of the reach of 70% of the population. Microsoft Network is the ultimate because it is seamless, organized, and composed.  People seek cultural experiences through which one gains a sense of place in community through material interaction with form. Meaning is made by focused engagement with material. There is a reverence for hand-made objects: crafts, weaving, pottery, and gardening are popular. People value family keepsakes. People associate within groups of similar social, religious and political beliefs. Radical political groups thrive.”

“External Environment” Scenario Three: Contemporary Bazaar. “Businesses work to maximize profit by creating many targeted micromarkets. Success in this approach hinges on effective prediction and control of consumers' interests. Choice is high and costs are low. The economy is fast and diversified. The world of work is process-oriented and individualized. People organize in professional firms and trade groups which facilitate protocol between trades and distribute projects to its members. Zoning quickly responds to the market. Both the city and the suburbs experience continuous and quick redevelopment, with shifting phases of growth and deterioration. New media is the focal point of culture and commerce. People seek cultural experiences that refine individual interests. Meaning is found by developing one's interests through refinement of technical understanding. People value personal tools and technologies. People associate mostly with other individuals of similar professional and recreational interests. Many relationships begin on the internet. There is a strong resurgence of cultural uniformity.” 

“External Enviornment” Scenario Four: Art Expo.  “The economy is diversified, with quickly changing markets. The work environment is organized by projects. People work based on independent contracts and form crossdisciplinary relationships, teaming up for specific projects. Consequently income, activity, and schedules are erratic. Neighborhood centers grow and diversify, including downtown, with a mix of commercial and residential. Small town and rural locations are popular options for homes and businesses. New media has become ubiquitous: small, wireless, inexpensive and commonplace. People seek cultural experiences in which new connections among people are formed. Meaning is made through progressive cyclical shifting from experiencing form to engaging in discourse. People value new policy. People associate in ever-changing and overlapping networks of contacts centered on projects, events, and activities.”

 

A Whole Earth View of the Global Environment and Environmental Movement.
Author: Peter Warshall, Whole Earth

Peter Warshall discusses the "briefest history of the environmental movement ever written," accompanied by a compelling future vision for the environmental movement - a staple for environmental scenarios and a lesson for business to learn.  As Warshall puts it,  "Environmentalism" has transformed government, business, religious, and citizen organizations throughout the planet. This is the story, much condensed...[taking into account]...Industrial ecology, conservation biology, ecological economics, environmental health, environmental justice, green plans, natural resources management, landscape ecology, and international environmental law; ... thousands of citizen groups, government bureaucrats, consultants, teachers, and corporate departments concerned with environmental matters.  This author firmly believes that the environmental movement strengthened both the democracy movements, especially in former communist nations, and "side agreements" on labor and health in international trade pacts.  

Lifeboat Earth: The environmental movement to the present changed the world - “ burning down walls between disciplines formerly considered separate  (e.g., ecology and economics, transportation infrastructure and fisheries); reviving the British idea of "commons,” but transforming it into an enriched sense of one kind of common embedded into another: local commons embedded in a network of many-places-commons; a many-places-network inside a global commons, and all of it under the umbrella of the human mythic/moral commons. This expansive view of common grounds has followed the increasing worldwide acceptance of the planet as a metaphorical "lifeboat"... the image of Earth afloat in an inhospitable universe revives pride and care for the biosphere.”  For any scenarist or futurist contemplating scenarios for business, governance, international, or local, some serious questions must be considered: Will in 2010 or 2020 "this ecological and moral view persuade enough citizens, and take hold in time to prevent serious local and global disasters?"  In all likelihood, according to Warshall, the future holds one of many, but still, a startling vision: the environmental movement, especially since the 1960s, being visited and revisited so that the vision continually "revision(s) the planet and keep the boat afloat."

 

World Energy Outlook 2000.
International Energy Agency (IEA)

According to the OECD, "The International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook has become the authoritative source for medium-term projections of the world’s energy future."  This report presents probable developments from now to the year 2020. Most importantly, the projected "reference scenario” takes into account those greenhouse gas policies that have been adopted since 1997 and are now in place in OECD countries.  Along with solid global statistics, this report offers a selection of "alternative cases", which trace what could happen if additional measures were taken.
Reference Scenario of the WEO 2000:  “This scenario is dynamic, expanding and rapidly changing. It assumes that the world economy will grow by 3% a year, that fossil fuel prices remain flat till 2010, then rise to $28 in today's money by 2020. In that event, overall energy demand will grow by 57 percent over twenty years, just slightly below the rate in recent years. CO2 emissions will swell by 60% or 2.1% annually - one-third from power generation.  Fossil fuels - coal, oil and natural gas - will continue to provide 90% of the world's primary energy, although gas will displace coal in some regions. Petroleum will remain the dominant fuel, meeting 40% of world energy needs. Oil use will surge from 76 million barrels a day now to 115 mb/d in 2020. Nuclear power output will remain constant in absolute terms, but decline as a proportion of total energy supply as older nuclear reactors in Europe and North America are retired. New renewable energy sources will increase rapidly, from 2% to 3% of total demand. "   In addition to the reference scenario, there are two alternative growth scenarios for both high growth and low growth, with a different set of assumptions made about the range of possible economic growth rates among industrial, transitional, EE/FSU, and developing economies. For the high growth, one percentage point is added; for low growth one percentage point is subtracted, using the reference case as the median.
NOTE: Another way to examine the uncertainty associated with the IEO2000 projections is to compare them with those derived by other forecasters. Four organizations provide forecasts  comparable to those in IEO2000. The International Energy Agency  (IEA) provides “business as usual” projections out to the year 2020  in its World Energy Outlook 2000. Standard & Poor’s Platt’s (S&P) also provides energy forecasts by fuel to 2020 in its World Energy Service: World Outlook 1999. Petroleum Economics, Ltd. (PEL) and
Petroleum Industry Research Associates (PIRA) publish world energy forecasts, but only to the years 2015 and 2010, respectively. For this comparison, 1997 is used as the base year for all the forecasts.

 

Powerful Sunshine Vs Deadly Meltdown - What Can We Leave For The Growing Generations In The 21st Century?  
Author: Kazuo Mizuta, Millennium Project.

The author very boldly and plausibly challenges the report,  “Energy Prospects to the year 2010  - Energy and its Consumption", filed by the Department of Natural Resources and Energy, Japan Ministry of International Trade and Industry.  Mizuta makes a clear case that some of rather 'radical" scenarios on energy futures for Japan are based on assumptions that don't take into account the reality of finity: fossil fuels run out.  The energy "face saving" alternative of nuclear power is dangerous. By technical definition, power plants live short lives and there are too many that meet only minimal safety standards.  Meltdown can bring devastation. Moreover, decommissioning processes are risky, and, as Mitzuka reminds the reader, "More than 300 facilities around the world will have to be decommissioned by 2010," which creates the problem of what to do with the hazardous waste? 

Another energy alternative is infinity: solar energy. Mizuta discusses another scenario by the same Ministry, in which solar energy is acknowledged, and has in fact, attracted some attention.  The possibilities of solar energy in terms of cleanliness, abundance, and security are better. Science is proving that solar transition rates from the "old" energy production to "new" is reasonable if applied with genuine effort.   Harnessing solar energy is a matter of harnessing two simple things: heat & light.  The author adds a fundamental scenario of solar energy in the year 2010, written on a personal level, that "strike at the heart" of the average household:

Scenario 2010: On the Sunny Side: One day in the year 2010, I go downstairs as soon as I get up and check the number on the meter of our household solar light electricity generator. Our household system of solar power has been producing more than an adequate electricity supply for our daily life. We can now sell stored electricity to a commercial power dealer.  Communities operate their greenhouses where they grow vegetables and flowers; public buildings are also equipped with solar panels to produce enough electricity for heating and cooling. And a great number of firms of various kind use electricity provided by the sunlight to manufacture products.  Since we produce electricity at home, we have grown more conscious of conserving energy, and the Internet is available at a minimum cost for 24 hours, our sons and daughters have changed their life-style, from a mid-morning-to-midnight-life-style to a sunrise-to-sunset-life. With the development of the information network, they don’t have to be at the office at nine o'clock in the morning everyday. So they have more time to spend with their family. The cars they drive are also run by electricity. The air is cleaner and the sky is brighter. But alas, [if we go back in our imaginations back to 2001] at the moment we have to lead our lives in the more than
ever deteriorating city environment.

 

2050: A Scenario for People and Forests. Jan Laarman, Journal of Forestry 2/01/00.

In this trip into the future, a professor of history interviews two retired foresters in the year 2050. They tell how events and trends during the preceding 50 years have transformed forestry and the professionals who practice it. 

2050: A scenario for people and forests:  “Professor Knowgood: Based on what I learned earlier about the two of you, it seems you were surprised by your career paths, and by the changes that overtook you along the way. Can you begin to describe that for me?
Margaret Sylva: Well, Richard, when I look back to what I thought I knew in the late 1990s, I have to admit that I was not prepared for the decades that followed. You might say that I was a "babe in the woods." I really had no idea of the twists and turns that we foresters would encounter down the road.
David Woods: That's also true for me. I never cease to be amazed by where I started in forestry in the 1990s, and everything that happened after that.  The signs and symptoms of a different future were all around us, but in many ways we failed to act on-or even to believe-what we were seeing.
Knowgood: David, will you elaborate on that?
Woods: To start with, I remember that foresters back then were wrangling about whether timber production was the dominant purpose of the forest and the profession. Foresters were locked into ideological positions, and they wasted a lot of time and energy over them. Thank goodness that squabble has nearly ended.
Knowgood: What caused this change?
Woods: Today, virtually all wood production is agribusiness. It is plantation tree growing-high-tech, neat and clean. On the other hand, virtually all public lands in this country are managed for recreation, water, and wildlife. There is almost no tree cutting on these lands. In effect, we separated the commodity business from the aesthetics. We divided the land and the profession into two distinct sectors, which defused the old arguments about timber getting in the way of other things we want from forests. But it did not happen because of planning and design. No, it happened because of social and political forces,
and economics.
Knowgood: What kinds of social and political forces?
Woods: Even before the new century began, the influential people of this country wanted forests for wildlife, recreation, and water. And the leaders of our government agencies agreed with them. When I was a university student in the 1990s, the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management were hiring fewer traditional foresters than in the past, and they were recruiting more biologists, hydrologists, recreation managers, and so on. I suppose that pattern was replicated at state and local levels.
Sylva: From what I remember, I accept David's observation. The traditional foresters were up in arms, but there was little they could do because of their shrinking numbers. The rank-and-file foresters slowly but surely became a minority element. And as I recall, by about 2020 the extreme, "timber beast" forester was an extinct species, at least on the public lands.” See article for continuation of the scenario.

 

Discovering Sustainability: A Case Study of Learning through Environmental Scenarios.
Author:Lars Strannegard, Greener Management International, Autumn 98 Issue 23, p 53, 15p.

Describes how actors within the appliance group Electrolux conducted a change program aimed to introduce business-driven views of environmental issues. Process toward sustainability; features of Electrolux's change process; details on the Environmental Change Programme (ECP); aim of the ECP; scenarios that were agreed and on which the ECP based; conclusion.

 Scenario 1: Summertime - This scenario describes the environmental situation in 2005. A series of 'natural' disasters has led to a worldwide consensus that global warming is a significant problem and that it is induced by anthropogenic emissions. In 1999 severe storms hit the east coast of the United States, destroying several tall buildings and bridges costing millions of dollars. Dramatic weather changes, evidenced by floods and droughts, and increased skin cancer as a result of ozone depletion have now proved conclusively--along with the use of simulation tools--that human use of fossil fuel is the cause of global warming. This problem has led policy-makers to triple the price of electricity, enforce a compulsory 'energy content' label on products, and introduce ration books for electricity purchases. To encourage counter-behaviour, governments are presenting examples of 'good citizenship', such as a bus driver holding a bottle of ethanol to indicate the amount of energy she saved during her shift, as she was able to drive without braking even once.
People are buying local products with a small energy content as a result of short transportation distances; they share cars, and use public transport. Greenpeace is focusing on companies that are nonenergy-efficient in production or that sell products requiring large amounts of energy to manufacture. Managers travel less and use video conferencing; companies mostly favour railway distribution, and the key to success is to be as energy-efficient as possible.”

Scenario 2. Cocktail: “In the Cocktail scenario, the year is also 2005 and chemical and toxic substances are the issues in focus. The problems are local and the situation is chaotic. Companies are being attacked by militant environmental organizations such as the Green Army Faction. Findings on estrogen-like substances that affect organisms' reproductive capacity and birth defects caused by toxic substances have made the public suspicious and frightened. The mixture of two or more substances from landfills, industrial sites or incineration emissions could cause toxic 'cocktails' with unknown effects. Governments throughout the world are unable to keep pace with the new findings, and market demands drive companies to change. The percentage of people suffering from allergies has increased vastly; computer game manufacturers are sued by consumer organizations and parents, charged with causing electromagnetic allergies. People avoid all substances that are thought to trigger intolerance, and risk avoidance in general is high. There is information fatigue regarding new threats, and therefore a trend towards the use of traditional materials: natural fibres, wood, metals and mono-materials are chosen in favour of synthetics, plastics and composites. The precautionary principle, i.e. staying away from everything that is perceived to be harmful to personal health or the environment, is heavily practiced. Companies try to manage the credibility issue through environmental certification, environmental indicators, labeling, etc. in their marketing. Crucial factors for business success are constant vigilance in identifying environmental problems within the organization and finding credible ways of communicating with different actors.”

Scenario 3: Evergreen:“In the Evergreen scenario, the volume of waste is the number one problem facing society in the year 2005. This scenario imagines a more positive development. Extended producer responsibility is enforced by law, virgin materials have vastly increased in price, and legislators, to a great extent, leave industry to design their own systems to close value chains. Ash from incineration plants has been proven to be poisonous and special landfills have had to be constructed. Eighty per cent of the population thinks it is necessary to take 'extreme measures' to reduce virgin material use and waste. There is a near-consensus that effective recycling schemes can be developed, mostly due to new technology that allows the effective recycling of used plastics.

Landfill costs have increased dramatically: the cost of disposing a kilogram of waste has, in Sweden, increased from SEK2 per kilo to SEK 30. Products are being designed for disassembly; retailers offer take-back systems; and material content labels give information about the products. A majority of consumers are willing to buy second-hand appliances if they get a one-year guarantee on functionality. There is 'nostalgia' value in old cars and appliances, and it is politically incorrect to throw away consumer durables.”

 

What Would a Green Future Look Like?
Author:Charles P. Alexander, Time Canada; 11/08/99, Vol. 154 Issue 19, p80, 2p, 1c. Twenty-first century -- Forecasts; MAN -- Influence of environment.

Predicts lifestyle in the 21st century. Description of the work and transportation environment; food; shopping. See original article on Web for an interactive view of each aspect of this scenario –www. time.com.

What Would a Green Future Look Like?  “By the year 2025 society will no longer tolerate the scourges of 20th century suburban life: the marathon commutes, the maddening traffic jams, the pollution spewing from tailpipes and chimneys. Society will demand neighborhoods where the air is pristine and places to work, shop and play are close at hand. In work and transportation, lots of us will work in our houses or apartments, telecommuting with our computers. Others will make a short hop to a nearby office park. Those who have to go downtown will prefer swift mass transit. Cars and trucks will still be used, but they will run on clean, hydrogen-powered fuel cells. To keep in shape and save money, people will spend more time on bicycles.  In the area of food, people will likely favor fruits, grains and vegetables grown close to home, either in our backyard gardens or on nearby organic farms. It won't take much energy to get the fresh produce to local markets. Since the farms will employ natural forms of pest control rather than potentially toxic chemicals, there will be much less of a buildup of suspected carcinogens in the food supply. Shopping - even in an era of online marketing, there may still be a mall, but it will be relatively small and easy to get to, with sidewalks and bike racks instead of a mammoth parking lot. An airy place where a flood of natural light will cut down on energy use, the mall will be a two-way operation: when consumers are through using any product bought, the stores will be required to take it back for recycling.   Energy - power will come from sources cleaner than fossil fuels. Some energy will flow from modern-day windmills, but much of it will be generated in our own homes. Rooftop solar panels will supply electricity to appliances and to a basement fuel cell, which will produce hydrogen. When the sun is not shining, the cell will operate in reverse, using the hydrogen to make electricity. Waste - sewage piped into enclosed marshes where selected plants, fish, snails and microbes will purify the wastewater before it enters streams and reservoirs.” See article for more details.

 

Sustainable Farming, Possibilities 1999-2020: A Discussion Paper.

Science Council of Canada, 1991.

This discussion paper offers a series of scenarios that depict various paths to sustainable agriculture. Each scenario was evaluated by international experts for the logic, economic feasibility, and timetable of the described transitions. Two scenarios depict a fairly surprise-free future based on existing trends, and the remainder present scenarios that could arise from the fracture of existing trends, or discontinuous change. To order this report contact NTIS by: phone at 1-800-553-NTIS (U.S. customers); (703) 605-6000 (other countries); fax at (703) 321-8547; and email at orders@ntis.fedworld.gov. NTIS is located at 5285 Port Royal Road, Springfield, VA, 22161, USA.

 

Can We Make Garbage Disappear? 

Author: Barry Michael, Time Magazine, November 1999, Special Issue. Visions of the 21st Century.

An emerging field of smarter technologies that use one industry’s waste as raw material for another, coupled with the emerging field of nanotechnology brings a world of non-waste.  Making Garbage Disappear: According to the vision of Gary Liss of Loomis, California, a veteran of recycling and solid-waste programs who advises clients aiming to reduce landfill deposits, his vision is to see humanity emulating nature’s garbage-free ways. The drivers are innovative technology and a big change in society’s attitude.  Kalundborg, Denmark is the prototype of more wide spreading “eco-industrial parks” designed for recycling and resource sharing. Within the park, for example, a power company, a pharmaceuticals firm, a wallboard producer and an oil refinery share in the production and use of steam, gas and colling water. Excess heat warms nearby homes and agricultural greenhouses.  “One company’s waste becomes another’s resource.” The power plant, for example, sells the sulfur dioxide it scrubs from its smokestacks to the Wallboard Company, which uses the compound as a raw material. Biotechnology turns waste into an advantage - microbes that take toxic substances in contaminated soil or sludge and convert them into harmless by-products. Genetic engineering creates “designer waste streams.”  

Recycling gains momentum, as materials become easier to reuse.  New types of foamed glass that can be made unusually strong and still lightweight.    Society increasingly puts less value on things that use lots of materials – like three cars in the family driveway—and more on things that don’t swallow up resources – like telecommuting and surfing the Internet. Downloading collections of music from the web will reduce the demand for CD cases. And while visions of a “paperless office” have proved wildly wrong so far, the future holds an opportunity to use computers to cut consumption of paper and the trees it comes from. The attitude that, ‘one person’s garbage is another’s treasure’ goes global - human beings of the third millennium look back on their former garbage-producing ways as a forgivable error of their youth as a species.

 

Will we Still Eat Meat?
Author:Ed Ayers, Time Magazine. November, 1999. Special Issue on the 21st Century.

Article outlines how man ‘awakens’ to the what unnecessary mass production of animal flesh is doing to health – and the planet’s. Forsees a huge global shift in food habits from one in which the developing world today consumes more meat in rising out of poverty to realizing the environmental and social costs of this habit.   Imagining the future of meat :  “The developing world leads the charge in conserving freshwater and other scarce resources through production of creative meat-less foods indigenous to cultures.  India, China, North Africa, and the US continue to run  freshwater deficits, and are, for that reason, at the forefront of new policies of sustainability. Protein sources supplement with a wide variety of vegetables in the average diet. Mankind begins to move down the food chain; eating foods that take less water and land, and that pollute far less, than cows and pigs do. In the long run, some theorists believe, society can lose it’s memory of eating animals and discover the intrinsic satisfactions of a diverse plant-based diet, as millions of people already have. However, this world doesn’t spell the end of meat eating.  Decades from now, cattle will still be raised, perhaps in patches of natural rangeland, for people inclined to eat and able to afford a porterhouse, while others will make exceptions in ceremonial meals on special days like Thanksgiving, which link us ritually to our evolutionary and cultural past. But the era of mass-produced animal flesh, and its unsustainable costs to human and environmental health, is forecast by the authors to be over before the next century is out.”

 

Meeting the Challenges: Natural Resources and Environmental Scenarios.
Author: Chris Fay, chairman and chief executive, Royal Dutch Shell. Given in an address to the Foresight Sustainable Technologies for a Cleaner World Conference, May 19, 1998.

Royal Dutch Shell scenarios given by speech to Natural Resources and Environment Foresight Panel comprised of Shell and government Technology Foresight Program.  Government’s aim is that of encouraging long-term planning and helping British industry to capitalize on new markets and technologies over the next twenty years.  Building a sustainable future will require a partnership, shared expertise and experience.  It will be a challenge among government, industry, academia, NGOs and consumers.  Two long-term energy scenarios which are helping to drive important research and development and which are pointing to new business opportunities for the future. “ We believe that technological advance is essential both for continued economic growth and for developing new and more successful approaches to environmental management. Our faith in good science remains undented. We agree with the Government’s Panel on Sustainable Development that "in future we shall be more rather than less dependent on technology for our society to be sustainable."

Chris Fay Scenario 1. Sustained Growth:  “This scenario suggests that global energy demand will continue to grow at its current rate of about 2 per cent a year. Under this scenario, the world’s energy supply will see a continuing trend from high to low carbon fuels, from coal to oil and gas, and to renewables.  In other words, continued decarbonisation.  Over the medium-term, Shell believes that renewables will at last begin to compete in terms of price, availability and convenience. The ‘Sustained Growth’ scenario indicates that renewables may have about 5-10 per cent of the energy market by 2020. This process accelerates after 2020, as continuing innovation lowers renewable costs, and depleting reserves lead inevitably to higher prices for oil and gas...”

Scenario 2. Dematerialization:   “Under this scenario the world experiences far more radical changes in energy consumption. Improved energy efficiency and the more widespread use of new information technologies, particularly in the developing world, suggests that the world’s increased energy needs will be met with fewer materials and less energy. Overall, demand for energy rises more slowly because human needs are met through technologies which require lower energy input. It’s easy to see how this scenario could be used to encourage practical solutions to today’s sustainable development challenges. For example, in road transport, the widespread use of "cleaner" vehicles is not going to come about overnight. No one, least of all, individual companies can wave a magic wand and solve Britain’s air quality problem just like that.   But it is possible to envisage a convergence of complementary developments in politics, business and wider society. Government action, the development of new technologies and lighter materials in car manufacturing, and the widespread availability of alternative fuels could all come together. According to this scenario, "new generation vehicles" three times more fuel-efficient than today’s vehicles, could become commonplace…”

 

Five Complex Forces Could Change Structure of Industry.
Author: Roland Kjell, The Oil and Gas Journal, April 13, 1998.

Projections about the future of energy fall into Conventional or Environmental (Green) categories. Although the issue of global warming dominates the Green projections, there are other forces in addition to the environment that are capable of undermining the current structure of the energy industry.  Expectations for the coming decade: Much effort has been devoted to looking at the future of energy, particularly for oil. Despite an impressive amount of sophisticated computer methodologies, the reputation of energy forecasting has been in decline.  Long term trends in energy consumption display some remarkable resilience in the underlying structures that determine energy growth. The dramatic rise and fall of oil prices over the last few decades were more than blips in the curves, but they hardly caused fundamental changes to the relationship between economic activity and energy use.  The role of oil relative to other energy sources has not changed in any permanent and fundamental way. However, climate policy may eventually call for a change in historical trends, and this is currently reflected in forecasts of energy futures. Roland Kjell To illustrate this, Kjell collected energy scenarios from a number of respected and well known institutions involved in the analysis of future energy developments and divided them into two basic scenario camps: “Green Scenarios” and “Conventional Futures”. The fundamental difference between Green Scenarios and Conventional Futures is 2022 mtoe in 2020.

 Scenario-set 1.  Green Scenarios:  “Exit fossil fuels?  Many seem to believe that the oil age will soon be over. Green Scenarios show lower overall growth in energy consumption, albeit not drastically lower.  The basic fuel mix remains generally the same. In the Green Scenarios, global oil consumption grows by 0.5% per annum from 3,180 mtoe in 1990 to 3,714 mtoe in 2020. At the end of the forecasting period, oil demand approaches a plateau and further growth in developing countries is offset by a decline in consumption in industrialized countries.   For gas, the situation appears to be even less dramatic. Global consumption grows by an annual rate of 1.5% to 2020.  Gas is less vulnerable to environmental measures than oil and coal because a number of environmental policies may result in a change in the fuel mix in its favor. Green Scenarios contain vigorous environmental policy efforts, and as a result, stretch the imagination compared to what has been observed in energy/environmental policies. Still, they are less radical than many environmentalists would like to see, and less alarming than some industrialists fear…”

Scenario set 2.  Conventional Futures:  “Starting with overall energy consumption, in most scenarios, energy consumption increases from 7,850 mtoe in 1990 to 12,550 mtoe in 2020, by 1.5% annually. This compares with 1.0% per year to a total of 10,550 mtoe in Green Scenarios. Relative to historical trends, both projections are low. In the past 3 decades, global total primary energy (TPE) increased more than 2.5% annually (1965-1996 = 2.6%, 1970-1996 = 2.1%).  The Conventional Futures energy growth of China (TEA, 1996a) is set at 4.2% per annum to 2010  based on a GDP growth rate of 7.8. Keeping the same energy intensity decline as in the International Energy Agency (TEA) forecast, an economic growth of 10.1% would imply an energy consumption level in 2010 of 1,800 mtoe, 23% higher than in the IEA forecast and 176% above the 1990 level. This illustrates that if China, and other developing countries for that matter, succeed in their striving for modernization and economic development, energy demand growth may turn out to be notably higher than most of the forecasts have shown in Conventional Futures…” 

 

Global Environmental Scenarios 2000 - 2050.
World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), 1998. <www.wbcsd.com>

Sustainability is a topic of our age. In creating global environmental scenarios, the Council for Sustainable Development conducted extensive interviews worldwide. The Council started with the Brundland Commission’s definition of sustainable development: “Humanity has the ability to make development sustainable – to be sure it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”  The Council’s explorations of sustainability identified these major components: economy and technology, ecology and demography, and governance and equity. These components are embedded in the prevailing myths – those deep premises on how the world works, which we take for granted. In industrial and trading societies, for example, the economic myth of self-interest dominates. WBCSD  The Council built three scenarios to illustrate the number of plausible routes forward that pose challenges to business and industry.

Scenario 1. Frog: “The world of FROG! is a familiar world - at least at first.  Many nations experience a fair degree of economic success, and, for almost all, economic growth is the major concern, with sustainable development acknowledged to be important, but not pressing.  As environmental NGOs continue to demand enforcement of standards that have been set in global summits, those nations who are striving to develop argue that if the developed nations insist on raising environmental standards, they should “First Raise Our Growth!”  Indeed, in this scenario, some nations leapfrog from underdeveloped status to benchmarker in particular areas of technology. People in western nations respond in uneven ways—sometimes by offering help in improving the environment, and sometimes in raising various cries of “FROG!”…But, by 2050 there is evidence that the darkest predictions about global warming are actually nearer to the truth than the more optimistic ones...

Scenario 2. Geopolity: “ Geopolity begins with a succession of signals in the first two decades—some real, some imagined – that an environmental and social crisis looms.  The prevailing “economic myth” is increasingly viewed as dangerously narrow. This is particularly true in Asia, where rapid economic growth has meant that corners have been cut and traditions lost. Because many institutions, especially governments, have lost credibility as problem-solvers, people expect something from the new centres of power—multinationals. But the business sector seems unable or unwilling to respond adequately.  …In the absence of leadership from business and government to solve problems, people form new global institutions such as the Global Ecosystem Organization (GEO), with broad powers to design and enforce global standards…”

Scenario 3. Jazz:“In the world of Jazz, diverse players join in ad hoc alliances to solve social and environmental problems in the most pragmatic possible way.  The key note of this scenario is dynamic reciprocity.  This is a world of social and technological innovations, experimentation, rapid adaptation, much voluntary interconnectedness, and a powerful and ever-changing global market.  What enables the quick learning and subsequent innovation in Jazz is high transparency—the widespread availability of information about ingredients of products, sources of inputs, company financial, environmental, and social data, government decision-making processes, and almost anything else consumed with what consumers want to know. …Jazz is a world in which NGOs, governments, concerned consumers, and businesses act as partners—or fail...”

 

Victory Cities.
Author: Orville Simpson, author and inventor;  <www.victorycities.com>, 1999.

Present-day cities are already obsolete and are threatening to engulf the entire countryside.  According to Orville Simpson, futurist in urban planning and renewal, Victory City ™ is the wave of the future. His vision is to build an entire city under one roof, to be built and operated by private enterprise alone.  There will be not just one, but many such cities throughout the entire world.  The scenario of Victory City is highly plausible and realistic as Simpson takes the reader through his website (www.victorycities.com) and introduces a utopia of no crime, no pollution, and no over-crowding.  Future projections show tremendous advances in heating, venting, air conditioning, air purifying, and humidity control so that rooms will be pleasant, healthful, and comfortable.  Victory Cities will create a higher standard of living for people, but will require less natural resources, money and energy to achieve it.

A Scenario of Victory City: Among the extensive list of contents in the Resident’s Guide, the viewer of this site can click on any aspect of this futuristic city - from schools to safety and security, to postal systems.   The money system, for example, is such that no money will be used. Instead, everyone will carry a bankbook that automatically debits purchases. Bills are deducted automatically.  In the food system, the bulk of food will come from the city’s own farms in the surrounding countryside.  Fresh foods are brought into the city, cooked, served, and eaten on the same day. Food is cooked in all-electric kitchens, brought to the cafeteria on high-speed elevators, and served on a Circle-Serve. From a nutritional standpoint, this will bolster the health and stamina of citizens, and contributes to the more favorable future evolution of man. Transportation connects all cars, trucks, busses, monorails, and railroads.  Citizens can go from any one place to another, anywhere in the city, in only five to ten minutes and without hurrying. Cars are replaced by electric cars the size of wheelchairs within the city.  Auto accidents are kept to a minimum, as automobiles are only used to travel between cities.  The most unique feature of the scenario are the innovations applied to protecting the environment, e.g. 90% trash eliminated before it gets started (since apartments will have no kitchens); high-end recycling; no cemeteries; no emissions.

 

Sustainable Global Future: Scenario Building for the Twenty-First Century.
United Nations University.

This research project constitutes a further development of UNU's work on global change and modeling. The objective is to generate information and apply analytical skills to formulate medium- and long-term strategies and policy alternatives for restructuring the global ecology-economic system for sustainable development. The UNU/IAS is providing a forum where existing modeling groups and scenarios analysts may discuss their studies and findings. The project is centered on database development, trend analyses, broad scenario building for the 21st century, and simulation studies evolving into plausible configurations of the future of natural and societal systems.  Scenarios for future global development can be viewed as a tool for systems analysis to allow for a structured debate on global trends and on the opportunities for, and threats to, sustainable development.  Global models and scenarios are, therefore, useful tools to support and facilitate national and international efforts to (re-) direct development towards a socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable future. In this context, scenario building offers a framework for debating key issues related sustainable development, at the global scale and taking into account different regional and sectoral perspectives and interests. This is an ongoing project that seriously takes into account the global modeling and global scenarios of developing countries as well as industrialized countries.  The work will be published in a series of papers in which different groups around the world will develop, compare, and debate comprehensive future global scenarios. In doing so, the UNU/IAS adds its own perspective: "global sustainability and fairness in economic growth."

 

Global Energy Perspectives: A Summary of the Joint Study by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and World Energy Council.  Authors: Arnulf Grubler, Michael Jefferson, and Nebojsa Nakicenovic. Technological Forecasting and Social Change  51, 237-264 (1996).

Global Energy Perspectives to 2050 and Beyond was conducted jointly by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the World Energy Council (WEC).  Three cases of economic and energy developments were sprawled into six scenarios of energy supply until the end of the 21st century. Each of these six scenarios covers the energy system as a whole from resource extraction to the provision of energy services.  The study purposely involved a long lead-time - changes in the energy system that would become significant only after the year 2020.  The internal consistency of the scenarios were assessed with the help of formal modeling that included world population prospects, economic growth, technological advance, the energy resource base, environmental implications from the local to the global level, financing requirements, and the future prospects of both fossil and nonfossil fuels and industries. Patterns that are robust across a purposely-broad range of scenarios are identified. Three High Growth Scenarios: Three scenarios that assume high rates of economic growth and technological progress, a liberal international trading regime, and preference for markets rather than detailed regulation.

 Scenario A1.) Clean Fossils:   “ Favors neither coal nor nuclear, but as a result of technological changes sees the tapping of the cost potential of conventional and unconventional oil and gas resources.  As a result, fossil fuel resources are sufficient to allow a smooth transition to alternative supply sources based on acceptable nuclear and new renewables, matched with high quality energy carriers in the form of electricity, liquids, gas and -- later--hydrogen.  Coal is regarded as a relatively unattractive fossil fuel and continuously loses market share.

 Scenario A2.)  Dirty Fossils:  “ For a variety of reasons, concerns about potential climate change wither away, and coal’s vast resources make it the fossil fuel of choice as conventional oil and gas resources dwindle.  Local and regional sulfur and nitrogen emissions are controlled through add-on technologies; however, challenges continue as coal is exploited at ever deeper and more remote locations, and conversion to synthetic liquids is increasingly required.”

 Scenario A3: Bio-Nue:  “Large-scale renewables and a new generation of nuclear power lead to a technology-driven transition to a post-fossil fuel age.  The transition parallels history as industrialized countries moved from fuelwood through coal to oil and natural gas.  In this scenario, natural gas is the transitional fossil fuel of choice, supported by economically competitive oil resources.  There is little pressure to exploit nonconventional oil resources or large columns of coal.  By 2100, there is almost equal reliance on nuclear energy, natural gas, modern biomass, and a fourth category composed mostly of solar energy with smaller contributions from wind, geothermal, and a few ocean/tidal schemes. 

A Middle Course Scenario:    “A single scenario with more modest assumptions about economic growth, technological development, removal of trade barriers, and satisfaction of the development aspirations of the South (more so than in Case A).  Recent setbacks and slower economic restructuring than anticipated for the transitional economies, together with weak economic performance in sub-Saharan Africa and some other developing countries, are also reflected in the comparatively modest near-term economic growth assumptions of Case B.  This case has the greatest reliance on fossil fuels of any scenario except the coal-intensive Scenario A2.  Beyond 2020, the failure to match depleting fossil fuel resources with the necessary technological advances and exploration and production effort creates challenges for energy supply structures.”   Two Ecologically Driven Scenarios.   These are the most ambitious by being highly optimistic about technology diffusion and geopolitical innovations to meet the challenges of the environment and international equity.  “Substantial resource transfers from North to South recycle environmental taxes to spur growth in the South, enabling wide participation in international environmental agreements and policies to reduce emissions from energy supply and end use.  Nuclear energy is at a crossroads illustrated by two scenarios.” 

Scenario C1)  Assumes nuclear energy is a transient technology that is phased out entirely in the long-term, leaving new renewable forms of energy to substitute for fossil fuels.

Scenario C2) Assumes a new generation of small-scale nuclear reactors is developed which is, and is also perceived to be, inherently large.”

 

Mending the Ozone Hole - Science, Technology, and Policy.
Author: Arjun Makhijani and Kevin R. Gurney. Cambridge, MA; MIT Press, August, 1995.

The potential for ozone depletion beyond what has already been ensured by past releases of ozone-depleting compounds (ODC) is intimately tied to the amount and pattern of future emissions.  Because stratospheric ozone depletion is exhibiting a nonlinear response to the present chlorine and bromine burden in the atmosphere, any future emissions of chemical compounds that would contribute to this problem must be minimized.  This report examines the potential magnitude and timing of future atmospheric chlorine and bromine levels by constructing a model of ODC emissions under various control strategies. The time domain of the model for which the three emissions scenarios are based extends from 1985 - 2090.   The scenarios are referred to as the Copenhagen Amendments scenario, the Accelerated Phaseoutscenario, and the Saving Our Skinsscenario. The primary differences among these ODC emission scenarios concern regulatory issues such as: the phaseout schedule of ozone-depleting compound production; consumption of the ODC production and consumption phaseout schedule followed by Third World countries; the extent of future HCFC production; the future control or elimination of emissions from ODC banks; and the future control of methyl chloride and methyl bromide emissions due to low-temperature biomass burning.
The highly detailed scenarios are global in scope, representing all production and all emissions.  The reader is encouraged to view the original material, as it also presents a table comparing the three scenarios; each scenario categorized by Industrialized countries and Third World.  The table then compares by global CFCs, Halons, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, HCFCs, Methyl bromide, and Methyl chloride.

 

After Man: A Zoology of the Future.
Author:Dougal Dixon, Published 1981.Evolutionary scenarios.

Contains an introduction by Desmond Morris, author of the “Naked Ape”.  Dixon spends the first part of the book discussing important evolutionary concepts including natural selection, radiation of many species from a single species and convergent evolution of species in similar niches.  He includes a history of the earth to the present and then jumps to a time 50 million years into the future.  Dougal includes the theory of plate tectonics to show how the continents will be arranged in the future.  He assumes that human impact will cause a major extinction episode, which might be already happening.   Dixon describes the human species dying off:  “Man’s knowledge grew, most significantly in the field of medical science.  Accidents and diseases that help to keep natural populations in check were overcome or reduced in their effects by man’s endeavors.  Genetic defects that, in the wild, would have proved fatal and would have been eliminated by natural selection were perpetuated because their possessors were allowed to live and reproduce.  World population increased exponentially and hardly a region of the earth remained untouched by man.”.... “The ultimate effect was that, whereas other animals change and adapt through the slow process of evolution to fit into their environment, man was able to change his environment to suit his current needs, reaping a short-term advantage in the process.  Living outside evolution each stage of his rapid cultural development was passed on to the next generation, not through his genes but by learning.  Although he avoided the unpleasant effects of natural selection, he also did without its long-term benefits and in short called a halt to evolution as it applied to himself.  The result was a world overburdened by a population of beings unable to survive without their own conscious intervention, a world given over to the essential needs of man, a world poisoned by his waste.”   With man’s extinction, “...  the animal world entered a period of evolutionary chaos that lasted tens of thousands of years.  However, man’s extinction provided the impetus for the formation of many animals and his disappearance was of fundamental importance in shaping the world that has emerged 50 million years later.”  Dougal then describes the species that came to be in the various ecosystems of 50 million years into the future.  Many species disappeared in the age of man, such as whales and many large predatory mammals.  More adaptive mammals and birds filled in these niches eventually.  Rats and rabbits radiated into many species, including predators.  The whale niche was eventually assumed by krille-eating penguins 50 feet long.

Quite a fun scenario.  The language of Dougal dates him, and of course he isn’t aware of the newer paradigms available to biologists today, such as the preeminence of plants, fungus, insects, and especially bacteria.  Stuart Kauffman’s ideas coming from chaos and complexity theory and from modern biochemistry are also available forcing Dougal to rely on natural selection more than would be necessary today.  Ideas like the Gaia hypothesis were just showing up on the radar in 1981. Dougal does well in coming up with a plausible scenario, which insists that the earth will be fine and evolution will go on after man is gone.  Of course, there is always hope that we will become a species which is not dominated by men, but also includes the wisdom of women and appreciates the connections to the rest of nature.  With that, maybe we could stay around a little longer.  [Summary written by James “Jim” Laurie, graduate of Futures Studies, University of Houston Clear-Lake, Texas.]

 

Deep Design - Pathways to a Livable Future.
Author:David Wann with the Center for Resource Management. Island Press, Washington, DC, 1996.

“The industrial revolution was characterized by mechanical designs that didn’t accommodate biology and human psychology; the post-industrial revolution is characterized by designs that are more nature compatible and, like nature, flexible enough to adapt to changing conditions.  The best nature-compatible new designs--whether they are products, buildings, technologies, or communities--are sensitive to living systems with which they come into contact, accomplishing their missions without undesirable side effects such as pollution, erosion, congestion, and stress.”  Rather than being above nature, deep designs are aligned with nature--water, the sun, our genetic heritage.  Their strategies often incorporate living systems, such as alternative wastewater treatment in a greenhouse environment that’s designed to take advantage of lilies, snails, and fish.  These living machines, as John Todd calls them, are self-adjusting and capable of improving their own performance.  Rather than being “one-size fits all”, systems, living machines can be customized to meet a particular need.  Thus, they are a synthesis of nature and technology.

This book presents a best-case scenario: Diversity, Conservation, and Caretaking. In the scenario, deep designers resist many of the industrial guidelines of twentieth-century engineering.  They know that if they follow the specs as currently written, it will result in inefficiency, isolation, planned obsolescence, lack of quality, environmental decay, and social chaos.  Deep designers believe it is well worth the effort to shoot for something more inspired: that designs can be made reasonably fail-safe if they incorporate diversity, flexibility, and biological compatibility, eliminating the need for overengineering.

 

Certification of Forest Products: Issues and Perspectives.
Edited by Virgilio M. Viana, Jamison Ervin, Richard A. Donovan, Chris Elliott, and Henry Gholz.  Washington: Island Press. Oct. 1996.

Over the past 10 years, forest conservation has become an increasingly high-priority issue for policy make and the general public throughout the world. Initial concern focused on tropical forests and the activities of the timber industry. In the mid-1980s, two international initiatives were launched to lessen the industry’s impact on tropical forests: the Tropical Forestry Action Program (TFAP) and the International Tropical Timber Organization (Iyyo).  This book covers the concept of certification, key issues raised by certification, and a variety of perspectives - opinions from conservation NGOs, forestry professionals, community groups, businesses, certifiers, and regional, national, and government perspectives.  Three scenarios for certification are explored: an optimistic, a pessimistic, and a catalytic one.

Optimistic Scenario.  “In this scenario, forest certification becomes part of mainstream forestry for major forest-producing regions of the world within the next 10 years.  This scenario implies that certification becomes supported by major forestry institutions at the national and international levels. Certification would then become a part of regular protocols of forest management, and certified operations would receive governmental and intergovernmental support.  This scenario would depend on negotiations and institutional linkages within and between key international players.”

Pessimistic Scenario.  “Economic viability of certification schemes is vital for their credibility.  There are indications that, although a significant part of the world markets has increasing environmental concerns, consumers are not willing to pay prices for certified products that are much higher than those of uncertified products. The costs of certification are now often being subsidized by various donors with the understanding that eventually certifiers and support institutions will be self-sustainable.  If a time comes when certification is proven not to be economically viable either through higher prices or better market share for certified products, then it may collapse and become discredited.” 

Catalytic Scenario.  “Certification assumes an important role as a catalyst of change in the development of sustainable forestry.  The development of criteria and indicators of sustainability at regional or national levels, as well as the development of guidelines for certification at the forest management unit level, is developing, and will continue to have profound influences.  The participatory processes of consultation with multiple stakeholder groups from different geographical regions has also provided a new dimension in the global perspective of sustainable forestry.”

 

The Climatic Effects of Nuclear War.
Authors: Richard P. Turco, Owen B. Toon, Thomas P. Ackerman, James B. Pollack, and Carl Sagan, Scientific American 251:2, August 1984, 33-43. Global scenario of a nuclear winter.

The long‑term climatic effects of nuclear war are much more severe than had been supposed.  The scenario of a nuclear winter is a world in which vast regions are subjected to prolonged darkness, abnormally low temperatures, violent windstorms, toxic smog, and persistent radioactive fallout. Under such circumstances, the extinction of many species, including humans, is possible.

 

Our Common Future.
Author: Faye Dunchin and Glenn-Marie Lange.  Oxford University Press, 1994.

The Our Common Future scenarios and alternative scenarios were designed in relation to the Brundtland Report in 1987.  These scenarios examine likely future changes in emissions of carbon dioxides and oxides of sulfur and oxides of nitrogen, thus focusing on the most energy-intensive sectors.  In the latter part of the book, case studies were used to develop the scenarios.  They rely mostly on technological changes in lowering pollution or climate change.  Along with a global scenario, the book contains regional scenarios.  In all scenarios, it is assumed that the levels of economic activity (as measured in GNP) will increase by 2.8% a year worldwide, that the relative price of petroleum will gradually rise above its level of the 1980s to $44 per barrel and by 2020, the population will increase from 5.l3 million in 1990 to 8.1 million in 2020, with 42.7% in 1990 to 57.5% in 2020 of urban population worldwide.  Case studies cover the likely future changes in the use of energy in households, transportation, electricity generation, and industrial production, along with pollution control options.

Neptune’s Revenge: The Ocean of Tomorrow.
Author: Anne W. Simon (NYC).  NY: Franklin Watts, Oct. 1984/222p.  Environmental scenario in the 21st century.

The author describes mankind’s various uses of the ocean and how these uses have turned into abuse.  A continuation of these trends would drastically affect the ocean of tomorrow.   Some abuses cited by the author include overfishing and the dumping of sewage, radioactive waste, and toxic chemicals.  A pessimistic scenario  “Neptune’s Revenge” describes a world in which the oceans have suffered irreversible damage in the 21st century, and are no longer able to support mankind. This is a scenario of survival of life on earth.

Global Climate Change: Linking Energy, Environment, Economy, and Equity.
Edited by James C. White, NY: Plenum Press, 1992/242p.  Energy scenarios to the 21st century.

Proceedings of the 8th annual conference of the Center for Environmental Information (Rochester NY), held December 1991 in Washington.  This conference examined trends affecting climate change such as increasing greenhouse gases; warming generally greater at higher latitudes than at lower latitudes; and how differences in seasons can create trouble for urban water supplies.  Conference papers include scenarios of multiple benefit environmental policies, local and regional policies, the role of markets in energy/environmental policy, and sectoral perspectives (government, electric utilities, auto industry, industry); other conference papers included scenarios of future energy consumption.

 

Principles for Electric Power Policy.
Technology Futures, Inc. and Scientific Foresight Inc., Greenwood Press/Quorum Books, Oct 1984/448p.  Six scenarios of electric power to the year 2014.

A National Science Foundation sponsored technology assessment on the future of electric power conducted within the context of six alternative sets of scenarios of the 30 year future of the U.S. Trends and assumptions driving the scenarios are: growing importance of electrical power; projections for long‑term size and distribution of electrical power demand is increasingly uncertain; the type of practical power generation sources will increase dramatically; roles, structures, and procedures for electrical utilities will change significantly; electric power policy will find it increasingly difficult to find a balance between efficiency, equity, and risk.

Scenario 1.)  The Average Future: total energy demands and electrical power demands in particular will continue to grow. There will be a limited but increased role for nuclear power and a dominant role for coal‑based generation.

Scenario 2.) Nuclear Resurgence: high energy demand and increased acceptance of nuclear power, coupled with disenchantment with coal‑based generation results in a resurgence of nuclear power generation.

Scenario 3.) Mega‑Plant:  high demand, coupled with resistance to both nuclear and coal‑based generation results in unconventional, high‑capacity sources of electricity, such as solar power satellites.

Scenario 4.)  Small Coal Plants: high energy demand and moderate increase in oil prices slows the trend towards electrification. As a result, relatively small coal‑based generators are preferred.

Scenario 5.) Post‑Industrial Economy: an economy dominated by services and high‑technology manufacturing results in low demand for energy generally but a high demand for electricity. This demand is met by distributed electric power technologies such as solar cells. 

Scenario 6.)  Economic Malaise: economic malaise results in low demand for both electricity and energy in general. Conventional coal‑based generators supply the electric power that is needed.

 

Vision 2020: Reordering Chaos for Global Survival.
Author: Ervin Laszlo, Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, March 1994/133p.  World environmental scenario to 21st century.

This book provides an analysis of environmental trends. Laszlo projects that human population will soon be at the edge of the planet’s carrying capacity, masses of people will be poverty stricken, and food production will decline.  A normative scenario, “Vision 2020” shows a world in which the environment is supportive of humanity.   The author recommends that five objectives be accomplished: restraining the power of the nation-state; restraining the power of politicians by promoting direct democracy; concords of cooperation in defense environmental protection; and development. The “Vision 2020” scenario is a strategy to launch humanity on the path toward a global “holarchy” where human beings co-evolve with their societies. This calls for maintaining mastery over the complex and interdependent world we have created.

 

A 21st Century World Gas Scenario.
Author: Ove Sviden  Futures, 18:5, Oct. 1986, 687-691.  Three gas scenarios to 2010, 2040, and 2070.

This article represents a long-range outlook on natural gas as a primary energy source and gas as an energy product. 

Scenario 1.)  Scenario Scene 2010: “world population is 7 billion. Natural gas now represents 25% of world TPE. The gas supply pipelines span the continents and cross deep waters. Offshore exploration of natural gas takes place around most continents.  The world is again experiencing flourishing growth.  Demand for energy is growing by 2% per year. The search for petroleum resulted in a bigger growth for the natural gas reserves than for the oil reserves, but oil is still the dominant energy form with its 31% of world TPE.”

 Scenario 2.) Scenario Scene 2040: “ World population has increased to 9 billion.  World energy demand has more than doubled since 1985. Natural gas is now the major fossil fuel used.  The volume consumed is four times larger than in 1985.  Its share of world TPE is 34%.  Worldwide gas supply and distribution networks span the continents. Natural gas is recovered from subsea installations. Gas is considered to be the only environmentally acceptable form of carbon to be burned.”

 Scenario 3.) Scenario Scene 2100: “ World population has stabilized now at 12 billion.  World energy demand is six times the amount consumed in 1985. This represented an average energy growth rate of 1.57% /year during the last 15 years. Over 40% of the energy is reserved for transportation usage. This means that 2.5 times the world total energy consumption in 1985 is now used in mobile power packs.  The environmental specification for combustion is very strict indeed. The only sufficiently clean fuel is gas, i.e. hydrogen.”

A Matter of Degrees: The Potential for Controlling the Greenhouse Effect.
Author: Irving M. Mintzer,  Report #5.  Washington: World Resources Institute, April 1987/60p.  Four scenarios of greenhouse warming to 2030.

Various models are integrated into the Model of Warming Commitment, a major model that was used to project future emissions of the six gases that contribute most to global warming.  From the perspective of 1987, four scenarios are utilized to reflect different levels of effort toward the slowing of greenhouse warming. 

Scenario 1.) Base Case: there is no change in industry practices, it is a business as usual world, with no policies to slow down Co2 emissions and minimal environmental costs are included in the price of energy.

Scenario 2.) High Emissions: growing population in the industrialized nations and developing nations accelerate the use of technology and thus the demand for energy, but no policies are set in place to improve Co2 emissions or improve end-use efficiency. 

Scenario 3.) Modest Policies: in this scenario, there is a lot of successful research and development in the area of solar energy, which gives people a strong realization about the importance of the environment; substantial environmental costs are imposed on energy prices to encourage fuel switching. 

Scenario 4.) Slow Build-Up: strong emphasis on energy efficiency, major global commitment to reforestation, high environmental costs imposed on energy prices.  Even in the bast case scenario of a slow build-up of greenhouse gases, there is still a likelihood of an increase in 2 or 3 degrees C by 2030, resulting in major climate change.  In the other scenarios, temperature change could be two to three times as great.

 

Superquake! Why Earthquakes Occur and When the Big One Will Hit Southern California. Author: David Ritchie (Baltimore MD). NY: Crown, Feb. 1988/185p.  An “Earthquake Day” scenario to 21st century.

At 7:30 on a summer morning in the not‑too‑distant future the Los Angeles area is hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake lasting 75 seconds. This is the “Big One,” but it occurs not along the San Andreas Fault, but along the relatively minor Newport‑Inglewood Fault. The results, however, are anything but minor. Tens of thousands are killed, a million injured. The transportation links that tie the Los Angeles area to the rest of the United States are virtually severed. Fire rages and toxic chemicals spill. Ultimately the costs are in the trillions of dollars, driving the U.S. economy into a tailspin.   In addition to this scenario, the history of earthquakes in California and discussions of other quake‑prone areas of the United States are discussed in this book.    Worthwhile to compare the details of this scenario with the 1994 Los Angeles quake.

 

Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? 
Author: Stephen H. Schneider, San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, Oct. 1989/317p.  A global warming scenario to the 21st century.

A warmer climate resulting from the greenhouse effect causes significant impacts on North America. Drier, hotter summers result in a loss of agricultural production in the Midwest, the death of forests in northern states like Minnesota, and water shortages in states like New York and California. Violent hurricanes spawned in the warm waters of the Atlantic and Caribbean devastate large areas of the coast from the Gulf of Mexico to New England. Smoke from massive forest fires darkens the skies across vast areas of North America. Coastal areas and areas around the Great Lakes are faced with decisions to either abandon shoreline infrastructure or invest hundreds of billions, perhaps trillions of dollars to rebuild them so as to accommodate fluctuating sea and lake levels.

 

Using Scenarios to Explore Future Energy Demand in Industrialized Countries.
Author: Lee Schipper and Stephen Meyers Energy Policy   March 1993.  Three scenarios of OECD average sectoral energy intensities in the year 2010.

This article presents scenarios that represent the direction in which current and expected trends seem to be moving; what might happen if energy efficiency were given a high priority by governments and the private sector; and what might be achieved if restraining energy use became a very high priority for public policy.  The scenarios delineate an important boundary between a relatively easily attainable improvement in efficiency and a more problematical level of change.

Scenario 1.) Trends: “this scenario reflects a world in which energy prices rise slowly, and only modest attention is given to energy efficiency.  In keeping with the current expert consensus world oil prices increases by around 50% between 1990 and 2010, with more of that increase coming in the first decade of the next century than in the 1990s. 

Scenario 2.) Cost:  “this scenario envisions a future in which full adoption of marginal cost energy pricing and internalization of many environmental and other externalities boosts real energy prices to uses by 25-50% relative to the trends scenario.”

Scenario 3.) Vigorous Effort: this scenario depicts the most that could plausibly be achieved within a 20-year time horizon.  The limit is not so much technology itself, but rather the rate at which more efficient technologies and practices could penetrate widely into the capital stock.  Energy prices rise to 50-100% higher than in the trends scenario, reflecting incorporation of strong carbon taxes as well as more aggressive internalization of externalities associated with local environmental problems related to energy production and use.”

 

Scenarios for Energy: Sustainable World vs. Global Mercantilism.
Author: Adam Kahane Long Range Planning August 1992 Vol. 25.   Two energy scenarios of the world to 2010.

This paper outlines two scenarios prepared in the Group Planning coordination of Shell International Petroleum Company.  The World of 1990: “The only solid basis we have for discussing the future is information about the past and the present.  In 1990, the present is a time of promise but also of considerable risk.  In these scenarios, we concentrate on three areas of potentially far-reaching change: geopolitics, international economics, and the natural environment. 

Scenario 1.) Global Mercantilism: “In this scenario, the new post-Cold War international order proves to be too weak to withstand serious political and economic shocks and set-backs. Regional conflicts, such as in the Middle East, are destabilizing and difficult for the new order to deal with.  The current GATT negotiations fail or, at best, produce a feeble and meaningless agreement. Financial instability is accentuated by deregulation and rising interest rates.  Faced with a downturn, politicians focus on national economic difficulties, and there is little international leadership.  Continued frustration over trade and investment imbalances leads to increased protectionism. Overall, the response to the downturn is ineffective and confrontational, and it turns into a recession as severe as in the early 1980s.”

 Scenario 2.) Sustainable World: In this scenario, the international economic frictions that have been in the headlines can be resolved, and attention focuses instead on the resolution of common problems, including environmental ones. There is widespread consensus on recipes for economic stability and growth, and co-operation among the largest economies allows economic shocks to be defused rather than accentuated.  The dangers of a failure in international trade negotiations are recognized, and interdependence -- especially between the U.S.A. and Japan--is seen to be too great for ‘divorce’ to be a feasible option. Regional conflicts are dealt with effectively by large power alliances.  A new security framework is built in Europe around the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE).

 

The Greenhouse Doomsday Scenario.
Author:Jeremy Rifkin, The Washington Post, Sunday, 31 July 1988, C3.  A global warming scenario to 2035.

In the mid-21st Century, the world is hotter by 4-15 degree F.  Current industrial growth, fossil fuel use, and consumption continued unchanged - global temperature rise was destined to be the result.  “By 2035 there were palm trees in New York City, Holland was under water, Bangladesh no longer existed; there were parched deserts in central Europe and the US Midwest, and the Canadian population swelled to 200 million.” This scenario concludes that the only effective means of absorbing Co2 is through reforestation, but currently, the rate of deforestation is 10 times greater than reforestation.  Reducing Co2 will require enormous worldwide coordination and mobilization.

 

Our Drowning World: Population, Pollution, and Future Weather.
Author: Anthony Milne, Bridgeport, Dorset UK: Prism Press, March 1988/154p.  A environmental scenario to mid-21st Century.

The author describes the earth getting warmer, in which rising tidal levels may be the most critical environmental problem of the coming century.  “During two centuries of progress we have been our own ‘Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ killing not with fire and sword but by unleashing ill-understood and complex chemical and biological processes.”  The author describes a pessimistic floodwave scenario of the end of the world, as we know it, due to warming.  “Our assault on nature was driven by what was perceived as the virtue of accumulation, and for a long time we excused it as cruel innocence, a tolerable side effect of progress.  But it turned into a culture of consumption and an inexcusable threat to human survival.”

 

Los Angeles 2007: Implications of a Scenario Analysis for Energy Forecasting.
Author: Stephen M. Millett Planning Review May/June 1992.  Three scenarios of L.A. to 2007.

Using alternative scenarios of possible future conditions, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWAP) has developed contingency plans to meet long-term demand in the most efficient and economical manner.

Scenario 1.) Continued trends: In this extrapolation of current statistics, the population grows to 10.8 million by 2007; growth in per capita income is moderate; the regulatory environment remains the same; fuels increase in price between 3 and 8 percent per year; advances in technologies using electricity create modest increases in total demand; technologies improving the efficiency of generation and transmission of electricity make minor advances; rates charged by LADWP rise at or near the inflation rate: demand for electricity increases slowly and steadily, mostly in the commercial and residential categories.

Scenario 2.) Technology Pull for Electricity: “Innovations in certain technologies, such as electric cars, vastly increases demand, especially in the residential category; Federal regulation toughens; fuel costs rises more than 8 percent per year; co-and self-generation of electricity by commercial and industrial customers increases; LADWP rates rise faster than inflation; population ranges from 8.8 to 9.8 million; and growth in per capital income is moderate.” 

Scenario 3.) Reduced Demand for Electricity: “Adoption of the electric car and other demand-creating technology is slow; regulation is weak, co-and self-generation facilities increase; power station generation or transmission technologies don’t become significantly more efficient; the cost of fuel increases less than 3 percent per year or even declines slightly; LADWP rates increase at or near inflation rate; current economic and demographic trends continue; electricity sales to residential, commercial and industrial categories falls almost to 1986 levels, largely due to conservation.”

 

Twelve Scenarios for Southern California Edison.
Case Study Planning Review May/June 1992. Twelve scenarios of the energy environment for Southern California to 21st century.

In 1986, Southern California Edison completed a review of its planning practices over the past 20 years.  The company decided that the best way to plan for future uncertainties is to postulate a series of plausible scenarios and prepare flexible responses for each of them.  After a historical review of trends and a scenario planning analysis, the following 12 scenarios are presented and in the article, coupled with responses.

Scenario 1.) Economic Bust: “the nation is in a protracted depression, the result of a U.S. imposed high tariff on imports, followed by retaliations, which greatly reduce international trade...The reduced level of economic activity results in a direct loss of 3,000 megawatts of load...”

Scenario 2.) High Fuel Cost: “extremely high oil prices and sluggish economic growth are triggered by such events as the re-emergence of OPEC.   The price of oil skyrockets to $80/bbl and the resulting shock creates a global economic recession much like the mid 1970s.”

Scenario 3.) Extensive Bypass: “Plentiful supplies of natural gas, improvements in micro-cogeneration systems, and high SCE rates induce many industrial and commercial customers to provide their own power...”

Scenario 4.)  Expanded Environmentalism: “drastic environmental restrictions on air emissions, water quality, waste disposal, and land use are imposed on Southern California to meet EPA standards...”

Scenario 5.) Noncompetitive Pricing: “SCE’s efforts to contain “uneconomic bypass” cogenerators have been unsuccessful. Sales lost to self-generation increase, and SCE’s ability to maintain its cost competitiveness is in jeopardy.  As a result, the company loses 1,000 megawatts of load”.

Scenario 6.)  Economy Imports: “An abundance of externally generated, low-cost energy is now available for purchase by SCE from new hydro projects in Canada...”

Scenario 7.) Generation Shutdown: “Two thousand megawatts of SCE-owned baseload capacity is lost due to events beyond the company’s control...”

 Scenario 8.) Conflict: “Because of global tensions, a large military buildup occurs. California defense contractors increase production of airplanes, missiles, and space weapons...”

 Scenario 9.)  Electrification: “A sudden wave of new electrical devices, processes, and applications on the market. There is also a big increase in industrial electricity usage and wide acceptance of electrical powered vehicles...” 

Scenario 10.) Low Oil Prices: “A period of strong economic growth is bolstered by low oil prices as a result of declining open power or the discovery of new resources elsewhere...” 

Scenario 11.) Economic Boom: “There is an explosion of economic activity in California created by strong economic activity throughout the Pacific Rim, which produces a large proportion of the world’s manufactured goods, particularly electronics, computers, automobiles, steel, machinery, aerospace, and textiles.  China and Japan rival the U.S. as the largest consumer markets in the world.”

Scenario 12.) Base Case Business Environment: “Assumes a continuation of present trends. These include economic expansion, a continued shift from heavy industry to services, moderate inflation, stable prices for oil and gas fuels, intensified environmental quality concerns, and continued residential construction and customer growth within SCE's service territory.”

 

Environmental Futures: Four Visions from the Appalachian Trail.
Author: Rik Scarce, Futures Research Quarterly, 4:1, Spring 1988, 5-22. Four environmental scenarios to 2000.

In 1986 the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) established a Long-Range Planning Committee (LRP) to look at environmental and control issues affecting the Appalachian Trail (AT).  The committee wrote a report, Alternative Futures for the Appalachian Trail and Appalachian Trail Conference in the Year 2000 that included scenarios derived from an extensive alternative futures matrix.  The matrix and four scenarios are presented. 

Scenario 1.) Continued Growth: “an optimistic scenario extrapolating trends touting the success of U.S. economic liberalism, achievements in technology, and the promise of general advancement for all. Tensions between the icehouse effect (another theory about climate change) and the greenhouse effect stabilizes world climate.  The AT is managed by private hands and private funds, with the ATC as a shining example of the success of private groups directing the use of public lands.”

 Scenario 2.) Decline and Stagnation: “the economy is weak and American life is chaotic.  Ecological changes along the Trail are most profound and the demand for wood, long the primary fuel of developing countries, skyrocketed in the US, as natural gas and oil prices rose.”

Scenario 3.) Sustainable Society: “a new set of values gains growing acceptance throughout the US.  The bioregional concept, based on the geographical, floral, and faunal characteristics of given areas, appealed to people from coast to coast who were disgusted with the ever-increasing environmental degradation. The Trail stands as a symbol of these new values and is well taken care of.”

 Scenario 4.) The Transformation Future: “people realize the importance of individual freedom.  The work-hard-for-money 80’s was appreciated, but there is more to life than that.  There are many choices since society has become high-tech.  New technology and increased leisure time have influenced the Appalachian Trail in profound ways.”

 

Paradigms in Progress: Life Beyond Economics. 
Author:Hazel Henderson.  Knowledge Systems (1991); Berrett-Koehler, 1995.  Environmental scenario to the 21st century. 

Social and environmental costs increasingly challenge the price system and GNP/GDP calculators of economic growth as “progress.”  The rise of civil society: the world’s informal, non-money sectors and citizen movements for corporate and government accountability compete for media and policy attention.  The search for new values and “earth ethics” leads to new statistics beyond GNP/GDP which are inter-disciplinary and measure “quality of life” directly.

 

Dead Heat: The Race Against the Greenhouse Effect. 
Author: Michael Oppenheimer and Robert H. Boyle, A New Republic Book. NY: Basic Books, April 1990/268. A global warming scenario to 2050.

In this scenario, a series of disasters from the mid-1990s until 2050 devastate the continental United States. The cause -- global warming. This book considers the many strategies that might be applied toward reducing the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

 

Into the 21st Century: A Handbook for a Sustainable Future. 
Author: Brian C. Burrows, Alan J. Mayne and Paul Newbury,  Adamine Studies of the 21st Century, #1. Twickenham UK: Adamantine Press, Aug 1991/442p. Three scenarios of sustainable development to 2100.

After considering world models and past scenarios of world futures, the authors provide the following alternative scenarios of sustainability.

 Scenario 1.) A Pessimistic Scenario: unchecked continuation of present trends. In the 1990s, widespread conflict continues in the Middle East despite efforts to build a lasting peace. As a result, oil production is reduced and major pollution problems occur. Terrorism becomes an increasing problem around the world. Environmental damage continues unabated as economic expedience overrides long‑term sustainability. In the 21st century, the situation worsens as climate change resulting from global warming, combined with massive population growth, results in wide‑scale environmental destruction.  

Scenario 2.)  A Piecemeal Scenario: various environmental problems facing the planet are tackled, but slowly and separately.  The Middle East conflict continues with much destruction to the environment but relatively small loss of life. The economies of Eastern Europe make a successful transition to capitalism while poverty and malnutrition becomes endemic in the developing world.    China’s industrial development adds to the greenhouse gas problem. Although some technological “fixes” have solved a few problems, accidents by technology, such as nuclear power plant explosions, contaminate urban and rural areas. 

Scenario 3.) An Optimistic Scenario: a new world social order emerges and problems are dealt with systemically.  Private enterprise becomes more responsive to the environmental needs of the planet. This, combined with public pressure, results in dramatic reductions in energy and resources. The improved economic and political climate results in a decline of social tensions and a reduction in terrorism. In the 21st century, many of the world’s problems are well on the way to being solved. By the mid‑21st century the standard of living for all of the world’s people begins to increase significantly as new technologies (for example, solar energy, genetic engineering, and computers), are put to uses that benefit humanity.

 

2050: Standing Room Only? 
Author: Carl Haub, The Washington Post, Sunday, 8 July 1990, C3.  Population scenarios to 2050.

This article makes a plausible argument against conventional population projections.  The author believes that population growth will be much higher by 2050.   The article utilizes mini-scenarios to illustrate population trends.    Recent trends suggest that generally accepted UN estimates of a world population peaking at around 10.2 billion people may be too low, citing such things as the increase in fertility in some industrialized countries and decreasing commitment to controlling population growth in the developing world. 

 

Beyond the Petroleum Age: Designing a Solar Economy. 
Authors: Christopher Flavin and Nicholas Lenssen. Worldwatch Paper 100.  Washington: Worldwatch Institute.   Dec. 1990/65p.  A practical energy scenario to 2030.

The authors describe a scenario that is driven by sustainable energy technologies becoming increasingly cost‑effective. In this scenario, a major transition from petroleum energy sources to sustainable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and hydroelectric) occurs in the early part of the 21st century.   These renewable energy sources will be cleaner and more secure than current petroleum‑based sources. By 2030, renewable energy will supply much of the world’s energy needs ‑‑ 50 to 70 percent of current U.S. needs, for example, can be plausibly supplied by renewable energy.

 

The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States. 
Authors: Joel B. Smith and Dennis A. Tirpak, NY: Hemisphere Publishing Corp. May 1990/689p.     Global warming scenarios to 2100.

A variety of computer-based scenarios using different meteorological variables identify a series of impacts that could result from global climate change.  These impacts include: changes in water availability and quality, a one‑meter rise in sea level by 2100 resulting in 25% to 80% of U.S. coastal wetlands being drowned; reduction in food crop production; significant changes in the country’s forests by the mid‑21st century; a reduction of air quality in urban areas; increase in the mortality rate of the population, and increased demand for electricity

 

The Cosmic Winter.
Authors: Victor Clube and Bill Napier.  Oxford UK and Cambridge MA: Basil Blackwell, March 1990/307p.   An asteroid scenario. 

This book opens with an apocalyptic scenario of Earth encountering a cosmic swarm of asteroids. The first few strikes occur in the Midwest of the U.S. and are initially interpreted as low-level nuclear attack. “The Secretary is informed that the damage corresponds to explosions amounting to at least twenty megatons. …The conclusion seems unavoidable that for some reason the Soviets have targeted bombs onto American territory, having somehow circumvented military radar.” Within 24 hours the entire earth is bombarded by this terrestrial catastrophe.  Clube discusses “terrestrial catastrophism” - the idea that the evolution of life and fundamental geological processes were actually controlled by sudden impacts of material from space.    The conventional view is “that earth evolves in splendid isolation from its surroundings.” According to the authors, this is proving to be wrong. “Swarms of asteroids that have crossed earth’s path have been proven to have occurred and had thus affected cosmic winters and sudden cooling of the globe over the past 5000 years.” 

 

Our Country, The Planet: Forging a Partnership for Survival. 
Author: Shridath Ramphal,  Washington: Island Press, May 1992/291p.   Three scenarios of the environment to the year 2000.

This book derives from a personal statement by the former foreign minister of Guyana on the agenda of the Earth Summit.  It contains a number of chapters on the environmental state of the world and concludes with three scenarios.

Scenario 1.) Muddling Through: “a continuation of the present pattern of inadequate ad hoc responses to developments as they become critical.  This is a scenario of well intentioned but usually limited action; fire fighting rather than fire prevention. Only lip service is paid to the “precautionary principle” of minimizing, and wherever possible, preventing discharges of substances that would be harmful and of ensuring that products and processes are nonpolluting.”

Scenario 2.) An Ordered World:  “the IMF and World Bank gain power as these institutions increasingly tackle global environmental problems, but on the overall, failure ensues because external values and methods are imposed on communities that more often have a better understanding about how to manage resources than outsiders.” 

Scenario 3.) Enlightened Change: the path of shared responsibility for our common future.  A significant degree of multilateral commitment to environment and development, and ascendancy of democratic values worldwide. A good line is struck between self-denial and self-indulgence.  Multilateral funds finance sustainable development.

 

Factors Shaping and Shaped by the Environment: 1990-2010.
Author: Joseph F. Coates J.F. Coates Inc, Washington, Futures Research Quarterly, 7:3, Fall 1991, 5-55.  Six regional scenarios of the environment to 2010.

Despite a mixed regional situation, the overall prospects for environmental improvement are poor.  These scenarios provide a glimpse of the major trends driving each region, and environmental consequences from the perspective of 1991.  

Scenario 1.) Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc: the openness of glasnost reveals massive environmental degradation and economic systems ill-equipped to deal with it ‑‑ the hope is a massive Civilian Conservation Corps‑like program. 

Scenario 2.) Taiwan:  rapid economic growth is both cause and cure. It leads to a very degraded environmental situation, but provides the financial means for a subsequent cleanup.  

Scenario 3.) Western Europe: environmental prospects are the brightest here of any region in the world.  

Scenario 4.) Brazil:  faces the problems of rapid industrialization and world outcry about the degradation of its rain forests. A promising development are debt‑for‑nature swaps.  

Scenario 5.) China:  faces the problems of industrialization, but unlike many other developing nations, has it’s population growth more or less effectively under control. 

Scenario 6.) Sub‑Saharan Africa: grim prospects as governance deteriorates and limits effective actions, and population growth is largely unchecked.  

 

From Growth to Equity and Sustainability: Paradigm Shift in Transport Planning? 
Author: Ian Masser, Ove Svinden, and Michael Wegener  Futures, 24:6, July - Aug 1992, 539-558.  Two scenarios of transportation in Europe to 2020.

The Network for European Communications and Transport Activities Research was set in 1986, “involving more than 70 scholars from 19 European countries in a series of research projects. One project sought to explore the future evolution of transport and communications in Europe and to discuss alternatives for an integrated policy.  The year 2020 was chosen as the forecasting horizon.”  Future Survey Annual 1994 This report poses two scenarios of transport and communications in Europe.  Key assumptions driving the scenarios are: continuing legitimacy of the European government, population of 400‑500 million, and no big catastrophes. 

Scenario 1.) Basically a scenario of growth, equity, and environmental sustainability. 

Scenario 2.) A horror scenario, considered most likely by experts if the growth path of Western European economies continues.  There will be “unparalleled spatial disparities between regions and cities, congested roads, a collapsed public transport system, a disappearing countryside, and a devastated environment.”

 

The Future of World Population.
Author: Wolfgang Lutz, Population Bulletin, 49:1, June 1994/47p. World population scenarios to 2030.

This is a report based on a late 1992 meeting of demographers at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis.   Key trends discussed were: world population continues to grow; developing countries will account for a growing share of the population; and average age increases will take place in all regions. This report provided a full array of scenarios. 

Scenario 1) Baseline: moderate levels of fertility decline and mortality improvement yields a world population of 9.5 billion in 2030 or 12.6 billion in 2100;

Scenario 2.) High Migration, High Mortality, Low Fertility: world population is 8.3 billion in 2030;
Scenario 3.) Low Migration, Low Mortality, High Fertility: world population is 10.7 billion in 2030;

Scenario 4.) Low Migration, Low Mortality, Low Fertility: world population is 9 billion in 2030.

 

Energy for Tomorrow’s World: The Realities, the Real Options, and the Agenda for Achievement.
World Energy Council, WEC Commission.  London: Kogan Page & NY: St.  Martin’s Press , Dec 1993/320p. Energy scenarios to 2020.

The World Energy Council developed four energy scenarios to illustrate future possibilities in a world of 8.1 billion people by 2020, with global demand ranging from 17.2 gigatons (Gtoe)  oil equivalent in a “high growth” scenario to 11.3 Gtoe in an “ecologically driven” scenario.  Major concerns are reflected in the proposed Agenda for Action, such as increasing availability of non-fossil fuels, curbing harmful emissions, and removing institutional rigidities. This report concludes that, beyond 2020, the magnitude of supply problems could expand drastically, especially if higher global energy demand occurs and too little is done to develop alternatives.

 

The Fragile Tropics of Latin America: Sustainable Management of Changing Environments. Edited by Toshie Nishizawa and Juha I. Uitto, Tokyo: United Nations University Press, March 1995/325p. Two scenarios of sustainability to 2030.

Two scenarios in the next forty years are made for tropical Latin America, a region that is critical to global health with its biodiversity and natural resources.  

Scenario 1.) Reference Scenario: continuation of trends that push the agricultural frontier and intensify land use.  Moderate economic growth and decreasing national regulations cause the unchanged mode of development, expanding influence of transnational corporations, and the dominance of market forces.  Social and economic inequities can only increase.  The performance of environmental policies is ineffective, further threatening ecosystems due to an export-oriented economy.  New technology fails in its application.  International coordination of economic policies would reform the external debt of the LDC, reversing the current net capital flow from the South to the North.

Scenario 2.) Sustainable Scenario: characterized by the satisfaction of the needs of the population, better economic and social equities, participation, and decentralization.  Assumptions are the implementation of national and regional environmental policies; R&D focusing on regional issues; social and economic reforms; land use zoning and regulation of the agricultural frontier; industrial policies for renewable and non-renewable natural resources and agriculture; the development of local energy sources; technological innovations for the revalorization of the renewable natural resources, and the development of new sustainable productive uses and internal and international market “windows of opportunity”, especially regarding tropical forests and agricultural production.  The technological pluralism (complementary use of traditional, modern, and high technology), and productive pluralism (the coexistence of different types of agriculture), are emphasized.  Future Survey Annual 1996

 

Growing Green: Enhancing the Economic and Environmental Performance of U.S. Agriculture.
Author: Paul Faeth (WRI). Washington: World Resources Institute, April 1995/81p. Six scenarios of sustainable agriculture to the 21st century.

US economic and environmental performance in agriculture can be enhanced, with special focus on subsidy programs.  Scenarios illustrate the study’s findings.  

Scenario 1.) Standard Baseline: reflects policies enacted in the Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act.  Only predominant production practices are represented in the standard base line. 

Scenario 2.) Extended Baseline: the policy assumptions remain the same, but the alternative production practices are analyzed with more conventional ones.  Scenario 3.) Supercompliance: introduces a tighter conservation-compliance regulation in commodity practices. 

Scenario 4.) Fixed Subsidy for Best Management Practices Scenario: assumes nationwide extension of the Agricultural Conservation Program, providing cost-shares for conservation practices. 

Scenario 5.) Adjustable Subsidy for Soil and Water Quality: examines the benefit of targeting.  Subsidies are based on performance, determined by the value of avoided damages to off-site water quality. 

Scenario 6.) Adjustable Subsidies with Program Cuts: increases unpaid acreage (normal flex acres) from 15% to 50%.  As a result of this study, a major reduction in agriculture’s impact on the environment is possible as well as economically advantageous.

 

World Supply and Demand Projections for Cereals, 2020.
Author: Mercedita C. Agcaoili and Mark W. Rosegrant Listing of 2020 Briefs  file:///B!NUMBER02.HTM.    Three scenarios of world cereal supply to 2020.

Three scenarios of world food and supply.  Scenario 1.) Current Growth Rates will Continue: baseline scenario describing the developed countries producing more than they consume, but cereal deficits in developing countries continue to increase to the year 2020.   Scenario 2.) 20 Percent Reduction in Yield Growth Rates: presents the likely cereal supply and demand situation if yield rates are 20 percent lower than their current levels.   Scenario 3.) “Scenario 2” Plus a 20 Percent Reduction in Income Growth Rates in Developing Countries: compounds the slower yield growth (in scenario 2), with a 20 percent decline in the growth of national incomes in developing countries.

 

The Wealth of Notions - The Ecological Revolution and the Power of Ideas.
Author: William K. Shireman Global Futures Foundation Internet: http://www/quiknet.com/globalff/globnoti.html. Two scenarios of sustainability to early 21st century.

Study of sustainability by Global Futures Foundation.  Key trends are increasing resource depletion and increasing ability to conserve energy (Negawatts and Immaterials). Three things businesses need to do: identify waste, eliminate waste, and count the money they save. Scenario 1.) Sustainable Growth: taxes on consumption, energy efficiency, reduced transportation growth, stabilizing population.  Scenario 2.)  Industrial Growth: taxes penalize income and investment, little energy efficiency, industrializing countries follow industrial model, education remains stagnant, population grows.

 

The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States. 
Author: Joel B. Smith and Dennis A. Tirpak  NY: Hemisphere Publishing Corp. May 1990/689p.   Scenarios of global climate change from 2000 to 2100.

The Environmental Protection Agency pulled together a variety of scenarios to determine the impacts of global climate change.   Impacts include: changes in water availability and quality;  a one-meter rise in sea level by 2100 resulting in 25% to 80% of U.S. coastal wetlands being drowned;  reduction in food crop production; significant changes in the country’s forests by the mid-21st century;   a reduction of air quality in urban areas; increase in the mortality rate of the population; and increased demand for electricity.

 

Renewable Energy from the Ocean:  A Guide to OTEC. 
Author: William A. Avery and Chih Wu. NY: Oxford Press, March 1994/446p.  Two U.S. energy scenarios to 2020.

Two scenarios for commercial development are proposed: Scenario 1.) Methanol Commercialization: “construction of 427 methanol plantships at about $500 million each with enough total capacity to replace the imported petroleum used in the US; if financial support is maintained, the program can be completed by 2020.” Scenario 2.) Ammonia Commercialization: “construction of 1,681 ammonia plantships at about $450 million each to supply enough fuel to replace all gasoline used in the US in 1990.  The principal differences between the two scenarios are that replacing gasoline with ammonia fuel would entirely eliminate carbon emissions, but would require a larger automobile adaptation cost.”

 

Hyperforum Scenarios on Sustainability.
Global Scenario Group, California Institute of Technology http://www.hf.caltech.edu/hf. Six scenarios of sustainable development.

Global scenarios divided into three broad categories: Conventional Worlds, Barbarization, and Great Transitions.  Conventional Worlds  “have in common a vision of a world where development, governed by the growth dynamics of industrial society, is gradual and steady. Population grows and aggregate economic output expands indefinitely while consumption and production practices in developing and transitional regions converge toward those of industrialized countries, even as the latter become much richer. The world becomes progressively more integrated both economically and culturally.”  Within Conventional Worlds, there are two scenarios. 

Scenario 1.)  Reference Scenario:   economic growth is given first priority as economies open and largely unregulated markets expand internationally. While some countries, groups and firms lose the race and are excluded, many prosper. Technological development is rapid, driven by market opportunities.

Scenario 2.) Balanced Growth: growth-oriented, but assumes a comprehensive policy response to the environmental and social risks encountered in the Reference scenario. This scenario does not assume major deviations in the conventional development paradigm, values, and institutional structures, but within those constraints incorporates rapid economic growth, greater distributional equity, and vigorous attempts to protect the environment.  Barbarization scenarios “explore the possibility that the coming century will be far grimmer than the conventional wisdom. Barbarization scenarios assume that the negative stresses present in Conventional Worlds scenarios overwhelm the coping capacity of markets and management institutions. The world veers toward Barbarization - worlds of sharply declining physical amenities and widespread breakdown in the social and moral underpinnings of civilization.  The major driving forces initially propelling this scenario include worldwide political and economic changes, inequity and persistent poverty, growing populations, increasing environmental problems, and rapid technological innovation.” Within Barbarization, there are two scenarios. 

Scenario 1.)  Breakdown: the degree of conflict and rivalry between the different international actors has become so high that no long-term concerted actions are possible. Chaos rather than coherence becomes the order of the day.

Scenario 2.) Fortress World:  the rich international actors comprehend the dangers of forces leading to the Breakdown scenario that confront them, and are able to muster a sufficiently organized response to protect their own interests and to create lasting alliances between them. Arising within the cynical and pessimistic social mood of Barbarization conditions, these alliances are not directed at improving the general well-being, but at protecting the privileges of the rich and powerful elites.  Great Transitions: scenarios explore the possibility that global society, rather than continuing its present course (Conventional Worlds) or descending into cruelty and chaos (Barbarism), evolves to a higher stage. These scenarios may seem idealistic and improbable from today's perspective--but they are possible, and may even be necessary to achieve the goals of sustainability and equity. The scenarios are Global Governance and the New Sustainability Paradigm, which differ in their mechanisms but not in their (quantitative) endstates.  One feature common to these scenarios is the emergence of three important new social actors: intergovernmental global organizations, transnational corporations, and non- governmental organizations.

 

Humanity Comes Into Its Own - The First Truly Human and Global Society.
Hyperforum Scenarios on Sustainability, coordinated by Bruce Murray, California Institute of Technology.  http://www.hf.caltech.edu/hf.

This scenario assumes that the full economic and social effects of recent technological advances are still far from realized, and that they are likely to propel a widespread and lasting surge of economic growth--growth that will be surprisingly widespread and, in developing regions, very rapid. Further, this wave of rising prosperity will bring peace and increasing individual freedom to an unprecedented proportion of the world's people. This scenario acknowledges that many environmental problems may worsen (although some may eventually turn around) and that economic disparities may increase, but asserts that these stresses will not be sufficient to undermine progress in most regions. The result, a century hence, will be the first truly human and global society.

 

The Environment in Geopolitical Relations.
Authors:  Ike Chang and Lloyd Dixon, RAND. Hyperforum Scenarios on Sustainability, coordinated by Bruce Murray, California Institute of Technology.   http://www.hf.caltech.edu/hf.

A new paradigm of geopolitical relations emerges in which the environment acts as the basis of political, economic, and military relations between rich and poor countries.  National leaders of rich countries couch their foreign policies in terms of environmental protection. Political regimes of poor countries threaten the world with environmental contamination to extract financial concessions and political support from richer countries. Eventually, military actions are justified under the rationale of "protecting the global environment."

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