THE BEST PREDICTIONS OF 2013

By Anonymous

Proquest LLC

Forecasting the future is not the exclusive domain of futurists, so we looked at what experts in a wide variety of areas have had to say in the past year about what tomorrow may bring.

The end of Moore's law ... bad news for allergy sufferers ... good news for secular human- ists ... and everything in the world will talk to everything else. These are just a few of the best predictions we heard in 2013.

For this special report, the editors of TFIE FUTURIST turned our attention outward to what busi- ness and government leaders, top scientists, major institutions, and even celebrities were saying about the future and how we'll get there.

A prediction can be "good" for a variety of reasons besides a likelihood of coming true. We looked for boldness, soundness, urgency, and perhaps the reve- lation of a previously unseen trend.

No prediction is absolute. We offer these to you as ideas that speak to the future we are creating, but it's only the future that exists at this moment in time.

-Patrick Tucker, deputy editor, THE FUTURIST

Big data will make more big business decisions.

The story: We'll be generating more data-35ZB in 2020, or 44 times more data than in 2009. The industry analyzing all that data will more than triple by 2018 ($46.3 billion, up from $14.9 billion now). Big data is able to flout the laws of basic eco- nomics and become more valuable as more of it exists, because it's use- less without the ability to collect, an- alyze, and execute on it.

Bottom line: Big data will heavily shape the next era of humanity and will determine tomorrow's winners and losers.

Sources: Forbes, IDC, Marketsand- Markets, eWeek. -FT

Moore's law will be dead and buried by 2022.

The story: Moore's law refers to the ability to pack twice as many transis- tors on the same sliver of silicon every two years. Bob Colwell, for- mer chief architect at Intel, argues that businesses will cease to invest in raising computational power further and further, so the rapid pace at which information technology has been evolving for the past century is going to fizzle out.

It will be an anticlimactic future for us all if he's right. Technological change is going to continue, but at a much slower rate, and the near future may end up looking much more like the present than many might hope. Anticipated game changers like intelligent machines and ubiquitous Web-connected cars will all take much longer to roll out.

BUT... History is full of pessimis- tic predictions about technology's limits that turned out to be wrong: No one will want a personal com- puter... Flumans will never fly... There will never be more than a few hundred automobiles. Who's to say-maybe progress awaits only one new tech- nical breakthrough to keep on going. Quantum computing could be the next step after silicon.

Bottom line: They say all good things must come to an end. Perhaps that includes the ongoing accelera- tion of computational processing power. Time and human inventive- ness will tell.

Source: Bob Colwell, quoted by WCCF Tech. -RD

By 2028, your eyes and pulse will tell your teacher if you are learning.

The story: Educators (or education systems) will measure their students' biological responses, including pulse, sweat, and eye position, for a real- time understanding of how their stu- dents are mentally interacting with material, according to Terry Heick, director of TeachThought.com.

Educational institutions are not al- ways eager to embrace the opportu- nities of technological change, yet no field is going to feel the influence of this change more in the next 10 years than is education.

Heick backs up his prediction with a road map explaining how we get to there from here. First, in 2015, adaptive computer-based testing re- places those terrible no. 2 pencil tests, and game-based learning truly catches on. Next, in 2018, open- sourced learning models replace standard curriculums as we know them today.

BUT... The field of education has seen a number of fads come and go over the years. In decades past, some claimed that at-home correspon- dence-based education would close the schools; then it was the advent of at-home lectures and classes on VHS; then, computers for every stu- dent; today, MOOCs (massively open online courses). All of these in- novations are important, but they never succeeded in replacing the classroom model.

Bottom line: The world will al- ways need educators, but the defini- tion of education could change sig- nificantly, hopefully for the better, in the coming decade.

Source: "30 Incredible Ways Tech- nology Will Change Education by 2028" by Terry Heick, TeachThought .com. -FT

Your dreams will be program- mable within the next 15 years.

The story: People will be able to im- merse themselves in gaming envi- ronments and control their own en- tertainment experiences. They will even control their own dreams: "You're just going to put a hat on or plug into the computer and create your own world," George Lucas said in a recent panel discussion at Uni- versity of California's School of Cin- ematic Arts. "We'll be able to do the dream thing 10, 15 years from now. It's not some pie-in-the-sky thing."

BUT... Storytellers still need to come up with content. "You still have to tell stories," Lucas said. "Some people will want to be in a game... and some people will want to have a story told to them. Those are two different things. But the con- tent always stays the same. The con- tent hasn't changed in 10,000 years."

Source: "George Lucas & Steven Spielberg: Studios Will Implode; VOD Is the Future" by David S. Cohen, Variety, June 12, 2013. -CGW

Astronauts will be in Mars orbit by 2030.

Who said that: U.S. President Barack Obama.

Why great: His quote on the sub- ject, made to a crowd gathered at the Kennedy Space Center, says it all: "I believe that space exploration is not a luxury; it's not an afterthought in America's quest for a brighter future. It is an essential part of that quest."

BUT ... Barack Obama is not the first president to make bold prom- ises about the U.S. space program. Nor is he the first politician to date those promises far enough into the future as to escape any accountabil- ity for the failure of said space aspi- rations to come to fruition. George H.W. Bush forecast a manned mis- sion to Mars by 2019. His son, George W. Bush, took expectations down a notch by promising a return to the Moon by 2020. In the late 1960s and 1970s, various politicians and NASA managers believed it pos- sible to send a human to Mars by the mid-1980s. The cost of the Vietnam War and the Great Society programs relegated such ambitions to the back burner. Even under the Reagan boom years, the United States never did get around to building the Star Wars defense shield.

Bottom line: Politicians promise the moon but only sometimes de- liver. We would stand a better chance of sending a person to Mars if the planet showed signs of harbor- ing registered voters.

Sources: Phys.org, Space.com. -PT

Everything will eventually talk to every other thing, via ubiquitous Internet connections.

The story: There will be more than 50 million machine-to-machine con- nected devices in the year 2020, ac- cording to Cisco. But what will they do?

Intelligent devices could allow you to "put a chicken in the oven, and the oven says, 'ah ha, chicken,"' explains Nicholas Negroponte, co- founder of MIT'sMedia Lab and founder of One Laptop Per Child. "Or you arrive at your door carrying bundles, and the door recognizes you even if you're wearing a ski cap. It opens the door without letting seven dogs in behind you." It's a heartening vision of a future where more computers actually make com- putation less intrusive.

BUT... This vision of the Internet of Things has "almost gone by the wayside," Negroponte says, because of the spread of iPhone apps that al- low for the remote control of everything from car doors to secu- rity systems. The result is that the app "sucks the intelligence out of the device."

What would be better would be to imbed actual smarts into our envi- ronment, not just turn our living world into one big extension of a de- vice not everyone owns. The latter may be easier to develop for as a programmer, but as Negroponte asks, "What if you forget your phone?"

Bottom line: The world around us is about to get a lot smarter and more interactive. The jury is out on whether it gets better.

Source: Nicholas Negroponte, speaking at WorldFuture 2013. -PT

GOVERNANCE

Living in "Cloud Cuckoo Land": Risks of Predicting in Public

Tasked last summer with describing the state of their nation a decade hence, ministers in French President Francois Hollande's cabinet came up with some inspiring forecasts-and a healthy dose of ridicule.

The housing minister declared that all will be housed. The finance min- ister predicted that all will have jobs. And the minister for industrial re- covery foresaw "a factory of the future" and super-fuel-efficient cars.

Sample sound bite from Cécile Duflot, housing minister: "Everyone will have a roof over their heads in a quality environment.... Access to hous- ing will no longer be a stress factor. Finding a home will even become a pleasant step in people's lives."

The reaction, as re- ported by the London Daily Telegraph: "Le Figaro scoffed at the 'idyllic vision,' VExpress called them 'self-congratula- tory,' and France TV said: 'Ministers are in Cloud Cuckoo Land.'" -CGW

The world will become predominantly secular by 2041.

Who said that: Nigel Barber, an evo- lutionary psychologist and author of Why Atheism Will Replace Religion: The triumph of earthly pleasures over pie in the sky (Amazon Digital Ser- vices, 2012).

The story: Secularism in general is an indicator of a nation's economic development. It's associated with quality-of-life factors like improved education, longer lives, and more equitable income distribution, says Barber. To make his forecast, he ex- amined GDP and the human devel- opment index (HDI) to compare rates of economic development and average religious views-measured as those who believe in God or view religion as important.

"I calculated four estimates of when the average country in the world is likely to transition to a secu- lar majority, and the average estimate was 2041," he writes. 'The more reli- able HDI method predicts an earlier transition than does GDP alone."

Barber's book was published in 2012, but thanks to liberties taken by journalists anxious to cite an expert opinion on the "end of religion," Barber was able to clarify himself in a 2013 Huffington Post piece: He did not say religion would disappear by 2041. Rather, he projected that reli- gious people would become a mi- nority, "which is a very different pre- diction," he observes.

BUT... "All such extrapolation is notoriously risky, of course, and all bets would be off if the world fell into a 20-year depression," Barber warns.

Bottom line: Religion will not dis- appear, but it will lose clout as it becomes the minority view in more societies. Bellwethers of this trend include Sweden and Japan.

Source: "'Atheism to Replace Religion by 2041': A Clarification," Huffington Post, August 2, 2013. -CGW

Marriage could be extinct by 2042.

The story: UN statistics show that "87% of the world's population lives in countries with marriage rates that have fallen since the 1980s," writes Philip Cohen in The Atlantic. And that decline has accelerated since 1990. "If we just keep going on the same path,... marriage will hit zero at around 2042."

Why great: Young women have more education, independence, and options. Interestingly, however, it is college-educated women who are slowing the decline in marriage.

BUT... Widening acceptance of same-sex marriage may give the trend at least a short-term uptick. There is no denying the powerful appeal of weddings-and the reve- nues they generate for business. Trend extrapolation is a risky busi- ness, especially when it comes to so- cial values, and "major demographic trends usually don't just smash into 0 or 100 percent, so I don't expect that," notes Cohen.

Bottom line: Society has trans- ferred many of the family's roles to markets and public services. Rela- tionships still matter, but the sym- bolic gesture of putting a ring on it may become passé.

Source: The Atlantic ("How to Live in a World Where Marriage Is in De- cline," online June 4, 2013). -CGW

World population will reach 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion in 2100.

The story: The raw numbers reflect a great deal of complex global and re- gional data, and the UN offers ranges of predictions based on changes in many variables. The most important variable in projecting global population growth may be the female fertility rate, which gener- ally declines as economies develop, but longevity has become an increas- ingly significant factor.

BUT... Like many predictions, this one is conditional. The numbers of- fered here are the UN's medium- variant projection and assume con- tinued fertility decline. In the low-variant projection, world popu- lation begins to decline around mid- century and fall to around 5 billion or 6 billion in 2100. In the high-vari- ant, 16.6 billion people will expect accommodations in 2100.

Bottom line: This projection trans- lates to an average of 81 million ad- ditional humans a year. And it's not just that there will be more of us; we'll also be poorer and older.

Source: World Popu- lation Prospects: The 2012 Revision. Key Find- ings and Advance Tables, June 2013, United Na- tions, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Di- vision. -CGW

Tobacco could kill as many as 1 billion people this century.

Why great: We've been warned, and we can act. Deaths from diseases stemming from tobacco use are pre- ventable, and more nations are put- ting more effort into helping citizens break their addiction. Strategies in- clude banning tobacco advertising, taxing tobacco products, requiring warning labels, and restricting smoking in public buildings, includ- ing (in the United States) subsidized housing.

BUT... Two words: Big Tobacco. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the cigarette industry spends about $23 million a day on advertis- ing and promotion. Young people are particularly vulnerable to the to- bacco industry's influence, as are less-developed nations with fewer public-health resources to fight it.

Bottom line: Tobacco is the lead- ing cause of preventable deaths, the CDC reminds us. The current global rate of approximately 6 million to- bacco-related deaths a year will grow to 8 million a year by 2030, if current trends continue.

Sources: CDC; World Health Or- ganization, WHO framework con- vention on tobacco control (WHO fete), WHO report on the global tobacco epidemic, 2013. -CGW

"This Baby Will Live to Be 120."

Who said that: National Geographic magazine'sMay 2013 cover story.

BUT... Most people don't believe it and don't want it; we simply can't en- vision ourselves as happy at age 120. Two-thirds of U.S. adults surveyed by Pew said they thought other people might undergo life-extending medical procedures, but 56% said they them- selves would not. More than half (51%) said radical life extension was "bad for society."

Bottom line: The long-term trend is toward increased human life spans. When put in terms of break- throughs such as "cure for cancer" or "artificial limbs," people are gen- erally positive about potential life-extending developments. Afraid of being bored, lonely, or broke as a supercentenarian? Deal with it.

Sources: National Geographic, "On Beyond 100" by Stephen S. Hall; Pew Research Center'sReligion and Public Life Forum. -CGW

Oh Snap, Gingers! Worst Prediction of the Year

Redheads could be extinct in 100 years.

The story: Natural red hair is a genetic mutation; global popula- tion increase and intermingling will significantly reduce the chances of auburn futures.

Who said that: National Geo- graphic - allegedly. More likely, a bored news bureau's Department of Making Stuff Up. The rumor lit up the Internet for a while in Au- gust.

Why great: The stories came with lots of pictures of beloved celebrity redheads, like Prince Harry, Nicole Kidman, and Clay Aiken. Throw the year 2100 and an extinction threat into the mix, and we're hooked. It got us to think about genetics, population growth, and the future, and we didn't have to buy anything.

BUT ... National Geographic seems to have predicted nothing of the kind. The search results for "redheads" are empty at ngm.na- tionalgeographic.com. None of the news stories naming NG as the source includes a link to it or cites the specific issue in which

the "prediction" appeared. And it's not true.

What the expert said: "People really shouldn't believe everything they read on the Inter- net," Joshua Akey, associate pro- fessor of genome sciences at Uni- versity of Washington, told MSN News. "There is no scientifically compelling basis to the claim that redheads will become extinct in 100 years."

Bottom line: Credit goes to in- trepid, responsible, and entertain- ing reporting by Sally Deneen of MSN News for reassuring us of this prediction's unreliability. Whew!

Source: MSN. -CGW

British economic growth will outpace that of the United States every year from 2014 through 2020.

Who said that: Toscafund chief econ- omist Savvas Savouri.

The story: Savouri's optimism is based partly on his forecast for pop- ulation growth in Britain. In an inter- view with Reuters, he predicted that, by 2045, the UK's population will be bigger than Germany's. More people means more homebuilding and more manufacturing of products-all good for economic growth.

BUT... Savouri is clearly bullish on Britain and, as an investor, has an interest in being a booster. He told Reuters: "I can't think of another country on this planet that is the nexus of emerging world growth more than the UK." (He also predicts the euro zone "will stumble back into recession.") But the economists whom Reuters polled were less san- guine, expecting the United States to grow at a feverish 2.9% in 2014, com- pared with 1.8% for Britain.

Bottom line: People with money on the line tend to be very good fore- casters; those who actually build the futures they forecast are the best kind of self-fulfilling prophets.

Source: "Hedge fund Toscafund bets UK growth will outpace U.S." by Laurence Fletcher, Reuters, Au- gust 21,2013. -CGW

More than 6 million years' worth of video will be available to watch online by 2016.

The story: More than half (55%) of current Web traffic is already video based, and individuals spend an av- erage of 2,000 minutes each month watching video, observes Heather Taylor, vice president of Ogilvy.

The videos are shorter, thanks to apps like Vine and Instagram. Social media is putting more visual com- municators to work, and the most creative "vine-ographers" are gain- ing huge followings-attracting the attention of advertisers.

BUT ... Audiences know when they're being sold. The trick for brands is to engage without abusing the attention that consumers are willing to pay, however fleeting.

Bottom line: The pressure is on all communicators to get attention and get to the point. Commercials on television are already getting shorter-even a 30-second ad seems long-winded to many viewers. Be- ware the ever-shrinking attention span of the general public.

Source: Fox Business. -CGW

The market for printed books will collapse by 2020.

Who said that: Stephen Cole, founder of eBooks.com.

What he said: "There will always be a market for printed books, just as there is still a market for vinyl rec- ords and fountain pens. But the real future, a golden future, for books and reading is digital. All things con- sidered, I expect the print book mar- ket to collapse on September 12, 2020."

Why great: In reporting on the re- cent plateauing of ebook sales (due to early adopters and a quick satura- tion of the market), Cole observes several trends that may still prove troubling to traditional book pub- lishers-principally the rise of digi- tal natives to economic power.

Today, people buy books wherever they are exposed to them-physical books when they're in bookstores or libraries, and ebooks when they're reading online. Physical and digital books have different feels, and even- tually, Cole believes, ebooks will simply "feel" right to most readers, because that's what will have domi- nated their reading choices.

BUT... Consider the source. Cole's eBooks.com, founded in 1997, is a leading independent ebook-store, and his Ebook Library, founded in 2004, is a global leader in ebook pub- lishing for academic and research li- braries.

Bottom line: Demographics and technology are preceding economics here. The cost of a digital platform makes ebooks seem more market- able, but readers actually pay for content, not platform. Knowledge, ideas, and stories contained in books-both commercial and aca- demic-have inherent value, and most authors still expect to be paid accordingly.

Authors with other means of sup- port may be willing to go the Cre- ative Commons route and surrender royalties for the convenience of reaching a large digital audience. The fact that many authors already bypass the slow-moving process of traditional book publishing in favor of self-editing and publishing their work should be more troubling to the print industry-and to readers who appreciate quality.

Source: Today, a Singapore- based newspaper. -CGW

African agricultural output will nearly double by 2020, to $500 billion a year.

Who said that: Erastus Mwencha, deputy chairperson of the African Union Commission.

Why great: If Mwencha's right, then huge numbers of new jobs might open up. The continent's youth demographic is growing fast and will need as many as 2.4 million new jobs a year, by some estimates.

BUT ... Africa still has much catching up to do on infrastructure building. Also, governance prob- lems in many of the republics could make sustained economic growth and reliable food distribu- tion difficult. Finally, political up- heavals and ecological disruptions related to climate change are ongo- ing risks that could strike at any time, setting back development significantly when they do.

Bottom line: Africa may be a late bloomer in terms of global devel- opment, but it may have hit a new growth spurt. Let's hope that it lasts.

Source: Invest in Africa 2013, Af- rican Union. -RD

By 2023, the United States will have 5% more jobs than it does today, thanks to technology.

Who said that: Robert Atkinson, president of the Information Tech- nology & Innovation Foundation, writing in MIT Technology Review.

What he said: "Far from being doomed by an excess of technol- ogy, we are actually at risk of be- ing held back by too little technol- ogy-"

BUT... The premise that most jobs are safe from automation re- mains a controversial one among some very smart people.

Nick Bostrom, director of the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology, has forecast that as much as 45% of the jobs that currently exist in the United States will be taken over by comput- ers or AI systems by 2045. The team at Oxford ran detailed models on 702 different occupations to assess the ef- fects of computerization on U.S. la- bor to make that determination. But the Oxford folks had a hopeful take- away: "Wages and educational at- tainment exhibit a strong negative relationship with an occupation's probability of computerization." So the smarter you are, the safer your job.

Bottom line: The best way to pre- pare for either employment future is to build up technical skills, today.

Sources: Robert Atkinson, in MIT Technology Review. Nick Bostrom and the Oxford Martin Programme on the Impacts of Future Technology. -PT

The world will reach the end of strong economic growth.

The story: The International Mone- tary Fund (IMF) has revised down several of its recent economic growth forecasts, reflecting declining confidence in the global economy.

"We are entering an age of perma- nently slow growth-at best," pre- dicts international security specialist Nafeez Ahmed in The Guardian. Sev- eral factors are to blame: Environ- mental regulations, taxes, inequality, and the rising cost of resources.

BUT ... A transition to renewable energy sources could speed up eco- nomic growth. As resources become cheaper, new technology will be less costly to develop and manufacture, leading to greater technological in- novation.

Bottom line: Many variables will factor into global growth rates, and it's hard to predict whether the slow economic growth that the world has experienced in recent years is a bump in the road or part of a long- term trend.

Source: Nafeez Ahmed, in The Guardian, July 19, 2013. -KH

A movie ticket will cost up to $150, but going to the movies will be like going to a Broadway show.

Who said that: George Lucas.

What he said: "Going to the mov- ies will cost 50 bucks or 100 or 150 bucks, like what Broadway costs to- day, or a football game. It'll be an ex- pensive thing," says Lucas. Movies "will sit in the theaters for a year, like a Broadway show does. That will be called the 'movie' business."

Why great: The blockbuster men- tality of big studio filmmakers (a paradigm that Lucas popularized in the 1970s, along with Steven Spiel- berg) may have finally hit the wall. Rather than investing hundreds of millions of dollars in a single movie that might fail within weeks of open- ing, studios could be releasing a larger number of small, independent films that stay in theaters far longer.

BUT... Those audiences will need to be pulled away from their con- stantly streaming iPads.

Bottom line: We love to be told stories and always will. But for audi- ences who simply cannot be lured to public entertainment venues, Lucas envisioned a new paradigm: pro- grammable dreams. (See Science and Technology, above.)

Source: Variety, June 12, 2013.

A successful test of nuclear fusion will occur by 2017.

The story: The world desperately needs highly productive energy sources that don't emit toxic pollut- ants and greenhouse gases. Nuclear fusion, on paper at least, is just such an energy source. Fusion reactions are essentially carbon-free, like con- ventional nuclear fission reactions, but they also deliver much more en- ergy per reaction and leave virtually no deadly radiation in their wake. This energy source could be just what our species needs to finally make a long-term break from fossil fuels.

BUT... Nuclear fusion has some of the same downsides as nuclear fis- sion. First, developing it is hugely expensive, due to the huge amounts of energy needed to catalyze fusion reactions and sustain them. Second, fusion reactions will leave some vol- umes of nuclear waste-less waste than fission reactions do, but still too much for a hypothetical fusion plant to conveniently stash in a depot on site. So nuclear fusion reactors won't necessarily be easier to roll out on a worldwide scale than fission plants, and they may face very similar waves of public opposition.

Bottom line: Commentators have expressed sky-high expectations for nuclear fusion for more than 45 years. In just a few more years, we may find out if this hypothetical en- ergy source lives up to them.

Source: Brian Wang, Kaiser Per- manente business consultant and au- thor of the futurist blog Next Big Future. -RD

Renewables will account for a quarter of global energy consumption by 2018.

Why great: Renewable energy sources-solar energy, wind power, hydroelectricity, geothermal heat, and so on-are growing faster than any other energy sector. By 2018, they'll likely comprise a fourth of all energy consumption. This constitutes a sizable increase from 2006, when renewables constituted just 2% of energy use.

That's good news for the earth: Re- newable energy sources have far less environmental impact than conven- tional energy sources like oil and natural gas. And we don't really have to worry about exhausting the planet's supply of, for example, solar energy the way we do with coal and other fossil fuels.

BUT... Energy consumption is still increasing. So even though we'll be using more renewable energy, we'll still be using a lot of energy from nonrenewable sources.

Renewable energy also faces pol- icy hurdles. Many policies favor fos- sil fuels over clean energy sources. For instance, governments subsidize fossil fuels at rates six times greater than those given for renewables. Would-be investors are less likely to back renewable energy sources when policies don't provide a reli- able and predictable framework for invest- ment.

Bottom line: Renew- able energy sources are better for the planet, and we're going to con- tinue using more of them. But policy uncer- tainty could dampen growth.

Source: The Interna- tional Energy Agency. -KH

Nissan will sell self-driving cars for the public by 2020.

Why great: Courage. Nissan is mak- ing the hard choice to embrace a very different future from the car era of the past. Audi has also pledged to make self-driving cars available by 2020, so Nissan has company. Elec- tric car manufacturer Tesla has also been looking to build self-driving car capability. What's more exciting than an all-electric super sports car? One that drives itself to you.

BUT... The resistance to autono- mous vehicles doesn't just come from car companies worried about selling fewer cars when they can be more easily shared (see below). Many groups, from taxi drivers to delivery workers to street pavers, may soon start fighting to keep these out of the United States.

Different countries and cultures will react differently. Japan is more comfortable with autonomous systerns of all types, and there are far fewer legal restrictions on them. Also, consider that acceptance of drones in a particular country could telegraph the popularity of self-driv- ing cars. China is outpacing the United States in the deployment of drones for delivering goods.

Bottom line: Self-driving cars are coming, but the United States may not be their first stop.

Sources: Nissan Executive Vice President Andy Palmer; reported in The Wall Street Journal, Wired. -PT

The number of car sharers will quintuple in the next five years.

The story: Membership in car-shar- ing programs worldwide will grow from 2.3 million members today to 12 million in 2020.

Why great: Compared with own- ing a car, it's much more affordable to call up vehicles on an as-needed basis from Zipcar, Car2Go, or any of the myriad other car-sharing ser- vices that have sprung up in the last few years. It's also a more resource- conscious way to meet one's transit needs. And self-driving cars will make car sharing much easier (see above).

BUT... Car ownership is set to in- crease worldwide. In China and India, in particular, the ranks of fast- growing middle-class professionals are projected to buy millions of new cars in this same time frame. So more car sharing may not necessar- ily translate to fewer cars on the world's roadways overall.

Bottom line: More people using fewer cars is a good thing. If nothing else, it shows that consumers are adapting to the financial and natu- ral-resource limitations of our era.

Source: Navigant Research. -RD

U.S. crude oil imports will fall 32% by 2020.

The story: Oil and natural-gas ex- traction in North America will in- crease while China's imports rise 360%, making China the biggest oil consumer on the planet.

Why great: A massive shakeup in world oil markets appears to be in the works, and its implications are many. A one-third drop in oil im- ports would be big enough to alter U.S. relations with the oil-rich Mid- dle East and may lessen U.S. in- volvement in Middle Eastern affairs.

There may also be a substantial growth in jobs related to natural gas in Canada and the United States. Eu- rope may gain a more stable supply of fuel imports from the United States than the often-volatile sup- plies it now receives from Russia and central Asia. Meanwhile, China may become more intertwined with the Middle East and other oil-export- ing states than ever before.

BUT... It's always possible, albeit not likely, that some wild-card breakthrough in renewable energy in the next few years could make for another and even bigger shakeup, one that tilts world demand away from fossil fuels.

Bottom line: For now, at least, it's clear that fossil-fuel extraction everywhere will keep increasing. The whole world risks sinking into a deeper ecological hole and suffering even bigger shocks once fuel sup- plies tap out. The markets for fossil fuels are just going to keep getting bigger, but the supplies of those fos- sil fuels are not. The world needs to step up development of clean alter- natives sooner and not later.

Source: Wood Mackenzie, global energy and metals industry consul- tants, quoted in Forbes, August 25, 2013. -RD

The number of fast-charging electric vehicle stations worldwide will grow a hundredfold, from around 2,000 today to 200,000 in 2020.

Why great: Most consumers recog- nize combustible fuel engines' envi- ronmental harms, and the high price of gasoline hits many household budgets hard. Until now, electric ve- hicles have not been a very popular alternative, due in large part to the difficulty of finding places to re- charge their batteries. It looks like businesses are now working to solve the problem and put the missing in- frastructure in place. If this contin- ues, then petroleum-free transporta- tion could at last become a realistic option for car owners everywhere.

BUT... It will take a lot of electric- ity to keep all those new electric ve- hicles charged and running. We'll have to get that electricity from somewhere. What will the source be, if not fossil fuels? We'll have to work that out.

Bottom line: The era of electric ve- hicles may finally be upon us, and not a moment too soon, considering the pace of climate change and oil supply depletion.

<p>Source: UTS Automotive. -RD

Transportation-related energy consumption will double worldwide by 2050.

The story: Traffic is getting worse, not better. It's a clear net positive for car manufacturers and their work- forces, but it's a troubling develop- ment for everyone else.

All those added cars are going to emit more and more climate-altering greenhouse gases into the atmo- sphere and aggravate an already se- rious global warming problem. They will also consume greater volumes of oil with prices already higher than consumers everywhere would like. Residents in cities will have it even worse, in that their lungs will con- tend with the extra smog coming from those cars' tailpipes.

Bottom line: The world's cities have many, many cars in their future, and they had better think ahead on what they will do with all of them.

Source: International Energy Agency, "A Tale of Renewed Cities." -RD

The North Pole will become a shipping lane by 2040.

The story: Arctic sea ice, already at record lows, is predicted to recede even more in the future. With its dis- appearance comes new possibilities for a trans-Arctic shipping path. Transporting goods along the North- west Passage would shave thou- sands of miles off current routes. By 2040, enough ice will be melted that light icebreakers should be able to journey through most of the Arctic Ocean with ease, at least during Sep- tember, when ice is at its lowest levels.

BUT... Ice is not the only obstacle to traversing the Arctic Ocean. Infra- structure and services are minimal, the area is poorly charted, and safety concerns lead to high insurance rates.

Bottom line: Shipping companies aren't about to use trans-Arctic paths for all their shipping needs. But as the routes become more feasible, companies will find ways to over- come other hurdles and save big on shipping costs.

Source: U.S. National Academy of Sciences. -KH

The number of severe heat waves will quadruple by 2040.

The story: A 2009 heat wave over southern Australia resulted in more than 400 fires across the region. In 2010, a Russian heat wave left 15,000 dead. Severe heat waves have been cropping up more often in recent years. The cause? Global warming, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

It's estimated that about 5% of the earth's land is currently covered by "extreme" heat waves-up from just 1% in 1960. By 2040, severe heat waves will quadruple, covering about a fifth of land, no matter how much we curb greenhouse gas emis- sions. If emissions keep increasing, that number could jump to 85% by the end of the century.

The increases will disproportion- ately affect the tropics, though very little of the earth will be out of harm's way. The consequences are dire: Heat waves can kill people and animals, set fire to forests, and cause large-scale crop failure.

Bottom line: Heat wave increases through 2040 may be unavoidable now, but if we limit greenhouse gas emissions, we may be able to limit their spread in the years after that.

Source: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. -KH

Allergies will worsen over the next three decades.

The story: If you suffer from sea- sonal allergies, brace yourself. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency expects allergies to flare up more than usual in the coming years, thanks to two effects of global warm- ing: Many allergen-producing plants thrive in warmer temperatures, and higher carbon-dioxide levels cause plants to produce more pollen.

By 2040, pollen counts are pro- jected to double. This won't be your run-of-the-mill ragweed allergy: Pol- len formed under these conditions contains more proteins than usual and is a super potent allergen. Mean- while, mold and dust also thrive un- der warm, carbon-dioxide-rich con- ditions, leading to even more severe allergies and asthma-conditions that can sometimes lead to death.

BUT... We can hope for a medical breakthrough to control allergies and asthma, but, barring that, there's not really a silver lining here.

Bottom line: About 50 million Americans currently suffer from seasonal allergies. That number is going to increase over the next few dec- ades.

Sources: U.S. Environmental Pro- tection Agency, Live Science. -KH

Global sea level will rise up to four feet by 2100.

The story: Since 1880, sea level has risen by eight inches-the fastest it's increased in at least 2,000 years. But this record rate is about to be eclipsed, thanks to climate change. As atmospheric temperature rises, so does the earth's water temperature. Water molecules expand as they heat up, causing the ocean to rise and shorelines to recede. Melting glaciers and ice sheets at the poles will only exacerbate matters.

Forecasting just how much sea level will rise is difficult. In its most conservative estimates, NASA pre- dicts that oceans will rise about 11 inches. If greenhouse gas emissions are on the high end of estimates, an increase of four feet is completely possible. And it won't just stop in 2100. Because oceans respond slowly to changes in atmospheric tempera- ture, we can be sure that sea level will continue to rise for centuries to come.

BUT... Certain weather conditions can delay, though not prevent, oceans' expansion. From 2010 to 2011, three atmospheric patterns converged over the Pacific and Indian oceans, creating so much rain in Australia that global sea levels ac- tually dropped by 7 millimeters for a year and a half.

Bottom line: Al- though sea level isn't always rising at a consistent pace, it seems that significant in- creases are inevita- ble.

Source: NASA's National Climate Assessment and Development Ad- visory Committee. -KH

"Superstorms" like hurricanes Katrina and Sandy will become ten times more common by 2100.

The story: Niels Bohr Institute warns that global warming could lead to a greater number of destruc- tive hurricanes by the end of the twenty-first century. Warmer air temperatures mean that ocean tem- peratures will rise, too. Warmer oceans lead to more water vapor, which leads to stronger storms oc- curring more often.

If the atmosphere heats up by 1°C, we can expect three to four times as many superstorms. But if forecasts hold true and temperatures rise by 2°C, the number of superstorms will increase tenfold by 2100. With the rise of superstorms, we'll experience a surge in hurricane-related devasta- tion to infrastructure, the environ- ment, and human life.

BUT... Whether strong hurricanes increase is conditional. If the earth's temperature doesn't rise as pro- jected, we won't see as dramatic a rise in superstorms. If ocean water does warm as projected, there are still other factors, such as climate cycles, that play a role in hurricanes' forma- tion.

Bottom line: By century's end, we're going to deal with strong hur- ricanes more often. Exactly how of- ten is still up in the air.

Sources: Niels Bohr Institute, re- ported in Science Daily, The Guard- ian, Live Science. -KH

Greenland could actually become green by 2100.

Why great: A small amount of vege- tation can be found in the country's southern region, but Greenland is mostly barren: It has only four indig- enous species of trees, an ice sheet that covers three-quarters of its land, and a climate that isn't exactly nur- turing. Climate change could heat this Arctic country to temperatures capable of sustaining far more flora.

Ecological changes could boost the country's economy. Agriculture, for- estry, and tourism could all become viable sources of revenue in a ver- dant Greenland.

BUT... Unfortunately, while the transformation will allow for the growth of lush forests, it will likely result in the death of some existing plant and animal species.

Bottom line: Whether Greenland's environment flourishes or falters over the next century will be deter- mined by the actions it takes, includ- ing efforts to promote new plant growth and to take advantage of new commercial opportunities.

Sources: Research from Denmark'sAarhus University, led by Jens-Christian Svenning, published in The Philosophi- cal Transactions of the Royal Society B; Royal Society; Independent. -KH ?

About the Authors

This report was compiled by the editorial staff of THE FUTURIST magazine, includ- ing Cynthia G. Wagner, Patrick Tucker, Rick Docksai, and Keturah Hetrick.

2016 More than 6 million years' worth of videos online.

2017 Successful test of nuclear fusion.

2018 Renewables account for a quarter of global energy consumption.

2020 The market for printed books collapses.

African agricultural output nearly doubles.

U.S. crude oil imports fall by about one-third over 2014 levels.

2022 The end of Moore's law is reached.

2023 Technology adds 5% more new jobs to U.S. economy.

2030 Astronauts are in Mars orbit.

2040 The number of severe heat waves quadruples.

2041 The world becomes predominantly secular.

2042 Marriage becomes extinct.

2045 Computers or AI systems take over 45% of U.S. jobs that existed in 2014.

2050 Global population reaches 9.5 billion.

Global energy consumption for transportation needs will be double 2014 levels.

2100 Global population reaches 10.9 billion.

Superstorms like hurricanes Katrina and Sandy become ten times more common.

Greenland becomes green.

Tobacco will have killed a total of 1 billion people in the past century.

Copyright:	(c) 2014 World Future Society
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