The World: Better and Worse
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What kind of world can we expect
in the next decade?
The Millennium Project Executive Summary lists positive, negative, and uncertain trends for the world.
The August 1, 2011, the United Nations Millennium Project in its State of the Future Executive Summary indicates positive changes may occur in the world over the next decade. Researchers reviewed world trends for the past 20 years. Based on those projections, the report cites worldwide improvements—and problems—over the next decade. The world population will bear the responsibility for a positive change in the world. It’s up to us.
While the report findings reveal many troubling trends global warming, terrorism, corruption overall, there are also many positive signs that indicate the world will improve.
The world is getting richer, healthier, better educated, more peaceful, and better connected and people are living longer, yet half the world is potentially unstable. Food prices are rising, water tables are falling, corruption and organized crime are increasing, environmental viability for our life support is diminishing, debt and economic insecurity are increasing, climate change continues, and the gap between the rich and poor continues to widen dangerously.
There is no question that the world can be far better than it is—but world leaders must make the right decisions. When you consider the many wrong decisions and good decisions not taken—day after day and year after year around the world—it is amazing that we are still making as much progress as we are. Hence, if we can improve our decision-making as individuals, groups, nations, and institutions, then the world could be surprisingly better than it is today
Although the summary documents potentially catastrophic trouble in the next decade, it also offers solutions to the challenges facing the world. If countries learn to cooperate with each other, humankind has the opportunity to avoid terrifying changes. Future Internets, transnational cooperation, science, alternative energy, multi-faith dialogues, and nanotechnology may create an extremely positive future around the globe.
The disturbingly negative trends include problems in the current population growth, which may lead to food and resource depletion, climate change, terrorism, organized crime, and disease. Under these circumstances, the world may experience extreme instability.
The world’s material extraction increased eight times in the 20th century. Today, renewable consumption is 50% larger than nature’s capacity to regenerate resources. In only just 39 years, the report noted that the world population with increase by approximately 2.3 billion.
The burgeoning biological revolution may transform the world far more profoundly than the Industrial Revolution or Information Age. Humans still struggle with the ethical problems of scientists creating genetic code which may lead to new life forms. Just 13 years ago, few people realized they would become dependent on search engines, social networking, and e-books. Technology that was inconceivable to the world is commonplace today. In another 13 years, dependence on synthetically created life for medicine, food, water, and energy may also become normal.
The Millennium Project’s research demonstrates that the world has sufficient resources to address future challenges. The challenge is whether the world makes the correct decisions quickly enough to ensure improvement of the humanity. The solution lies in addressing the increasing complexity of global problems and technology to effect a positive outcome.
MMA thanks Kirk Citron from The Long News: stories that might still matter fifty, or a hundred, or ten thousand years from now and the United Nations Millennium Project Executive Summary.
What action can we take to effect positive changes in the world?
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This post has a lot of depth Dorothy, I hope that over the days, weeks and months, that people will get to read it and and digest what you have laid forth. Most of our posts here at MadmikesAmerica get picked up and are well read over time. This is very worthy.
If we can avoid destroying ourselves by ruining the environment, I am optimistic.