... the collapse of the global credit markets circa 2011, which drastically
reduced consumer consumption to more sustainable levels worldwide.
Anita D. Bhappu, Ph.D.
Associate Professor & Division Chair, Retailing & Consumer Sciences
Research Fellow, Terry J. Lundgren Center for Retailing
Norton School of Family & Consumer Sciences
The University of Arizona
650 N. Park Avenue
P.O. Box 210078
Tucson, AZ 85721
Phone: (520) 621-5948
Fax: (520) 621-9445
Email:
abhappu@email.arizona.edu
Quoting "King, Andrew A." <
Andrew.A.King@TUCK.DARTMOUTH.EDU>:
> Looking back in his annual blog on new year's 2061, Walter Cronkite
> VI noted that the famous prognosticator commonly referred to only by
> his first name "Duncan" had gotten many predictions right. But
> Wal-c, as Mr. Cronkite liked to be called, noted that some of the
> causes of these changes remained clouded. Storms, price rises,
> congestion, and innovation had all had their part in motivating
> global change, but other events both big and small had also been
> important. At the top of his list, Wal-c put....
>
> A
>
> From: Organizations and the Natural Environment Discussion
> [mailto:
ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Duncan Duke
> Sent: Friday, July 09, 2010 12:33 PM
> To:
ONE-L@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
> Subject: Re: Tell me a story...
>
> It is 2060, and somehow the world has been made more sustainable.
> C02 didn't double. Less than 5% of world species went extinct. No
> world war or pandemic occurred. Energy consumption and human
> population levels are falling gradually. On average, human
> "happiness" is high.
>
> How did it happen?
>
> A
>
>
> A little dystopic, but here goes:
>
> CO2
> It didn't double, but it almost did. Weather patterns change, and
> extreme events become much more common. The developed world is more
> shocked by this and its people move back a little from the coasts;
> people in developing countries can't really see a difference in the
> disasters compared to what they suffered before. Oil prices continue
> to rise, interrupted by bouts of volatility, and the price finally
> aligns incentives for sustained clean tech development and energy
> conservation. Europe takes the lead in becoming carbon neutral
> (mostly through nuclear power as other clean tech can't shoulder the
> entire burden yet) and by 2050 is deploying technology/policy to
> become a carbon sink. China stops its coal burning and goes mostly
> nuclear primarily in response to oil prices, but also to localized
> environmental disasters and degradation. The rest of the world buys
> smaller cars, more efficient air conditioners, etc. in response to
> high energy prices. Most cars are electric or hydrogen based but
> their numbers plateau as traffic jams across the globe become like
> those in Nairobi and Sao Paulo. The US regains its position (lost
> for a while to China) as prime CO2 emitter; the country cannot
> implement meaningful energy reform until a second Katrina hits Miami
> and the president seizes the opportunity to declare "War on GHGs" -
> by 2060 the US is still not carbon neutral but Gore is canonized.
>
> Species extinction
> The rate of discoveries of new species is higher than that of known
> extinctions - but most new-to-science species are arthropods, fungi
> and bacteria. Higher order species, and apex predators in particular,
> show previously unheard of rates of extinction. Polar bears as well
> as all the great cats except Felis concolor are now found only in
> zoos and reserves. Africa's human population finally manages to
> fatally disrupt its ecoregions such as the Serengeti Plain, Rift
> Valley Lakes, and Okavango Delta. The Sahara keeps up eating the
> Sahel. Wild spaces in the US expand as the price of fertilizer rises
> and agricultural subsidies are gradually reduced. The Amazon, on the
> contrary continues to be converted to cropland as demand for soybean,
> corn, sugar cane biomass, etc. continue and northern countries cut
> production in response to high input prices, erratic weather, and
> short growing seasons.
> The bluefin tuna goes extinct, and 95% of existing ocean fisheries
> collapse - most of them beyond recovery. Seafood consumption is
> maintained at a much lower level via aquaculture, but the species
> consumed tend to be lower on the food chain.
>
> Consumption
> World income and consumption continues to rise, but the digital
> revolution drastically reduces its energy and material intensity.
> With rising incomes, lack of space, and increased education levels,
> ever-increasing proportions of the income are spent on "content",
> "experiences", and "services" (see smartphones for example). The poor
> in developing countries show "unnatural", non-Maslovian consumption
> patterns, as eager as their richer counterparts for certain
> entertainment services and digital technologies yet still living in
> enormous, crowded, dangerous, unhygienic shantytowns. Land use
> patterns and transportation networks in North America gradually start
> to shift towards the densities and clustering found elsewhere -
> Americans come to realize that large private lawns are simply wrong,
> and that lawn mowing is not therapeutic.
>
> Happiness
> Most peoples' baseline happiness levels continue to be dictated
> mainly by cultural and social cohesion issues, with small "healthy,
> wealthy, and wise" countries performing the best. Areas of the world
> that manage to become peacefully regionalized, educated, and
> homogenized show bumps in happiness while persistent extreme poverty
> in Africa, and sunless winters in Russia keep the happiness index
> from heading higher. Continued migration to the large and wealthy
> countries, while spurring their economies, postpones their social
> integration and depresses their potential happiness.
> The development of a new soma, free of side-effects, enables the rich
> to achieve permanent medicated bliss, thus buoying the average.
> Marihuana gradually becomes legalized and mainstream across the US,
> organizational sociologists study in real time the emergence and
> definition of a new industry/institution.
> China wins the 2060 World Cup thus momentarily boosting a quarter of
> the world's population's happiness level.
>
> Saludos,
>
> Duncan Duke
>
> Duncan Duke | johnson school | cornell university |
dod3@cornell.edu
> | 607.216.8550