What will the world be like in 60 years?

Answer 1

This sounds to me like an invitation for people to rant about their environmental catastrophe predictions. However, I will bite, as the question itself, independent of any agenda, is actually an interesting and useful question to present.

Here is my prediction of what Earth will look like in the year 2108. First thing that I think will be the most glaringly obvious observable difference will be that energy will be largely free for everybody. By now fusion technology will have been in commercial use for the last 50 to 60 years, and the last of the nuclear fission plants will be in the process of being replaced, as well as large scale solar and tidal reactors being used as a cheaper alternative to fusion power for poorer societies, or societies that arent as advanced. The most advanced civilizations will actually beam microwave power to low orbit satellites for transmission to receiving stations in their territories, by using huge geo-synchronous orbital solar panel arrays. Placed in orbit such that there is always one or 2 in direct view of the sun at all times. In addition by 2030 all internal combustion motors that are manufactured are likely to be hydrogen burning rotary engines, that will be used to power generators, that will be used to run electric motors in vehicles. Vehicles will use hydrogen fuel refined from salt water from the oceans, either on board or at gas stations that will no longer sell gasoline but will refine salt water, and make their own hydrogen to sell to customers who have vehicles that do not have their own electrolytic reactors, which by the way will be largely obsolete by 2108 anyway. Even the hydrogen stations at this point will be largely outdated, and will be falling out of use. There will be more metal hydride tank equipped vehicles in the scrap yards of 2108, than we have old chevies in ours now.

Next big change will be in massive hydroponics complexes. In 2108 we will produce more food in one square mile, than we currently do in 100. Large swaths of land in larger countries will be abandoned to nature in favor of far more comfortable and convenient accomodations in extremely highly advanced cities, that will make the cities of today look like post-apocolyptic nightmares from a movie. Room temperature super-conductors, combined with quantum batteries, and small scale fusion power will enable the use of anti-gravity propulsion technology by 2075. This technology will likely have been around since 2040 or 2050 but it will take that long for the technology to be de-classified and de-militarized. This anti-gravity technology will revolutionize mass transit, and long distance global travel, as well as ocean travel. It will revolutionize heavy industry as well, and by 2090 our first heavy mining and large scale manufacturing facility will be built on the moon.

All faith based or religiously motivated political interests will be so marginalized by the year 2080, that by 2108 they will be all but non-existant for all intents and purposes. Religious extremism will be almost un-heard of, and will have so little an impact on larger society that you wont likely find any evidence of it, even in the free press.

Human cloning and stem cell technology will have passed through its ethical challenges and will be utilized for repairing most of the damage that the human body endures over the course of a normal life, 80% of all diseases that are caused by genes and viruses and bacteria will be easily defeated in the most advanced countries, with other countries not far behind. The average realistic human lifesapn will approach 150 years without the use of cybernetics, even longer than that with cybernetic enhancement where legal.

Cybernetics will be a prime source of controversy in 2108, with purists in conflict over those who wish to be enhanced. With those who support cybernetic enhancement at odds against those who are from families who could afford genetic enhancement. The world will be in the process of its first "eugenics" war.

Space travel will be commonplace, with many privately owned space stations and fleets providing a multitude of services, in cluding tourism, security, mining, orbital debris clean up, and asteroid prospecting. Several different organizations plan permanent colonization of Mars, and the technology challenges will be determined to be easily surmountable. Meanwhile, fusion power technology and anti-gravity propulsion will enable a manned exploration of the Alpha Centauri star system to be possible, and will be accomplished by 2150. The trip would take 9 years one way, and the crew upon return will only have aged 75% as much as every one else on Earth.

The temperature of the planet will have raised a total of 3 degrees fanheit by 2100, Ice no longer forms on the antarctic peninsula during summer, and the North pole is largely ocean during the summer now. However, the conbination of technology, legislation, and changing social and consumption patterns worldwide, will cause the warmer climate to do the following things. Since the advent of cheaper and more valuable synthetic building materials including the mass production of carbon fiber, and the introduction of much more comfortable urban technologies, many natural areas will be abandoned for more urban and indusrial exploits. The Amazon rainforest will have doubled in size and diversity, and by now would be considered so dense with predators and other malevolent creatures that even expeditions into the area have been prohibited by all but science or military equipped rescue personnel. Many areas in China, Russia and Canada will experience an improved climate quality, and overcrowding in such countries will be relieved. Greenland will actual enjoy a southern coast that is actually green. As a result of the more extreme weather patterns that will accompany the warming of the planet, The first "F-6" tornado is officially designated in 2066. The tornado allegedly ripped the actual topsoil itself from the surface of its path leaving only bare rock in its wake. The areas of the central plains and the gulf coast become too dangerous to live except in the largest cities that will have introduced structural technologies that offer adequate protection from the worst storms. Even more natural land in abandoned to nature.

All in all I think this is a fairly plausible prediction of what is to come, please e-mail me with your thoughts on my prediction. Your comments are welcome

PS THIS IS NOT MINE IT IS FROM Yahoo QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS HERES THE LINK:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20080211174051AATo9ip

Answer 2

It can be useful to imagine the future by examining the past. 10,000 years ago, people had discovered fire, but were only on the verge of discovering agriculture, and generally could not plant their own food. They gathered fruits and vegetables and hunted for meat. They generally lived in small nomadic bands. It was at least 4000 years or so before "the dawn of civilization." Writing had not been invented and the wheel lay 4 or 5 thousand years in the future. Our current level of technology would certainly be incomprehensible to our progenitors 10,000 years ago. So it is reasonable to imagine that the technology or our descendants 10,000 years hence will be incomprehensible to us. But it is also possible that the earth will be half destroyed and civilization will lie in ruins. - John Barefield

Answer 3

I guess we can all only imagine! The world could be damaged, or the complete opposite! If you want to know more, just let your imagination flow! No one will really know the 1 and only true answer, so many people predict. The environment will be very different though. I imagine that it cant be the same, because every day it is getting worse. So maybe the environment will be trashed.

Answer 4

In the last 60 years, the world has seen the rapid development of technology and the information economy. It's impossible to say what the world will look like in 60 years because of these changing technological trends, unless you decide what you think it should look like and then you invent the technology to make it happen.

Answer 5

well ive been to the year 3000 not much as changed but they live under water (global warming) and they are all ruled by narwhuls and chtulu

Answer 6

sea level will increase and in some parts in the world like the United Kingdom there may not ever be a winter and the temperature in the summer may increase by at least 2 degrees Celsius.