Reason Mag Q1 2014 Seite 14

Hinweis: Dies ist eine maschinenlesbare No-Flash Ansicht.
Klicken Sie hier um zur Online-Version zu gelangen.

Inhalt

14 Reason ISSUE 1 2014 theLATEST Peering into the Crystal Ball In their new books authors Laurence C Smith and Woody Wade describe what they see economically culturally and socially when they look to the future Imagine a future where the world population has doubled A future in which Canada Finland Greenland Iceland Norway Russia Sweden and the United States are the paramount strate gic players representing the hub of global economic and human activity In The World in 2050 Four Forces Shaping Civilization s Northern Future Laurence C Smith illustrates how demography resource demand globalization and climate change will strongly affect a migration to the world s northern hemisphere Smith refers to these speci c countries as Northern Rim countries NORCs Smith is a professor and chair of geography and professor of earth and space sciences at the University of California Los Ange les USA UCLA Re ecting on lessons from history and geogra phy and combining them with paramount statistical models he has projected what the world may look like in 40 years According to Smith most of the globe by then will have under gone a demographic shift where urbanization modernization and the empowerment of women will stall fertility rates and subsequently global population growth As a result Smith argues that by 2050 the THE WORLD IN 2050 FOUR FORCES SHAPING CIVILIZATION S NORTHERN FUTURE by Laurence C Smith majority of the population will be older stating Only our poorest least developed countries like Afghanistan Somalia and the Demo cratic Republic of Congo will have youthful populations Smith s literary journey into 2050 points to a growing demand placed on natural resources as the population transitions to urban areas When people move to modern cities consumption goes up not down says Smith He attributes this to the additional demand for essentials such as food and water in addition to the massive amount of steel chemicals wood water and hydrocarbons it takes to build a viable infrastructure Perhaps the most notable and disturbing of Smith s revela tions is his prediction of a shortage of fresh water the lifeblood of all global activity in 2050 This theory is a combined result of demographic factors technological advances such as water use ef ciencies and sophisticated computer modeling According to Smith the areas where human populations will be most water stressed are the same areas where they are stressed now but worse This includes areas such as the Mediterranean southwestern North SCENARIO PLANNING A FIELD GUIDE TO THE FUTURE by Woody Wade