How will humanity and its natural environment progress over the next 50 years?

Great Debates
1

Well, the topic pretty much says it all. I know very little about the true state of global resource reserves (such as oil and fresh water), or about the state of the ozone layer, and less about how humanity will affect and be affected by them. How far will deforestation progress? How will ecosystems fare? What will air quality be like in major cities? I have heard that the average American consumes much more resources than the average Indian or Chinese citizen; how will the world sustain vast amounts more people in a “modernized” resource-guzzling state? Or will most people not reach this state? Will technology provide significant answers for sustainable growth in both population and resource consumption?

I am pretty ignorant about these things, and thus some of my questions themselves may be faulty. So, I would like to ask you Dopers how our crazy species will fare over the next 50 years, with respect to our natural environment. I mean, I have heard everything from we’ll be living in a technological utopia to we’ll all be killing each other for water, so I guess I really don’t know what to think.

I’d rather not get into discussions about politics and nuclear or germwarfare and stuff of that ilk; however, politics regarding environmental issues will neccessarily have to be considered, I imagine.

Please feel free to comment on the aspects of this rather broad question that you feel comfortable with. Also, I would request that people try to have some sort of basis for their perspectives; if I wanted to hear wild crackpot theories about the future, I’d listen to myself. :stuck_out_tongue:

2

Well, according to the EPA, the ozone layer will return to normal levels in about 50 years or so.

http://www.epa.gov/ozone/science/sc_fact.html

3

Well do you consider the exploitation of minerals on other planets and asteroids, as well as the non-biological origin of oil to be a crackpot theory? If so then you are limited to earth and whatever falls to it (including sunlight).

4

Hehe, sorry if I am limiting your options. Feel free to discuss plans that involve stuff that outside of Earth, if you wish :slight_smile:

5

I hate to do this, because I grew up always hearing things like, “by the year 2000 we’ll all be driving flying cars” et cetera; but I will indulge in a little prophecy non-the-less.

Fresh water, will likely never be a problem. Water Desalinisation (here or here) will likely be more than adequate to take care of any water needs we have.

Oil, which I hope we have done away with by 2053, can always be manufactured from everything from turkey guts, to raw sewage, to dead bodies (would take care of burial problems ;)).

Energy shouldn’t be a problem, what with all the new ways of thinking, we can always produce it solarly here, via wind, through nuclear fusion, in space, or even from cow crap.

We might run out of land, but china is looking up even if noone else is. And everyone else probably will be soon.

If global warming continues on its present course, europe may be experiencing an ice age within the next hundred years, if not fifty. But hopefully we will have at least a few new technologies capable of helping with the cleanup.

Food may be a bit of a problem. But even crazy ideas like this may help overcome them.

Disease and death will always be with us, but if we can tap even some of the potential out there, we will likely beat back the worst of it, and hopefully at the very least improve our overall health and well being.

I don’t know what is going to happen. But would like to think that we have just as much chance at utopia as we do at self-destruction (or at least close). We will likely however simply change our world as we have always done, and adapt to the changes we make, or go crazy, as we have always done.