You don’t need to look very hard in a place like Miami to see how cities are changing in the 21st Century – rising sea levels are gradually making some of them disappear. Fuelled by climate change, not only are floods becoming more common in the streets, but the changing weather patterns have also influenced building design. Aside from more seawalls, the city is requiring all new buildings be built with their first floor built higher. But that’s all a sticking plaster – if current trends continue, we may have to come to terms with losing whole swathes of cities, islands and low-lying regions such as Bangladesh. The economic impact to regions will be profound, and climate refugees could become the norm.
Pressure is already growing on cities, as urban populations grow. If climate change forces mass migration, then existing infrastructure, services and economies may be stretched to breaking point.
THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA
Social media has complicated the way we communicate for the better part of a decade. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, given that most people get their news from it now. That’s before we even get into the mess of online harassment, as well. What might social media look like in 30 years, and by that time, what are some threats it might pose?
A world with no privacy, for one. That’s one problem we’re already seeing. And besides weathering away our sense of and desire for anonymity and privacy, social media brings with it the many problems of cyber bullying too. Many charities and non-profit organizations across the world have mobilized in the fight against internet trolls, but it’s an open question about whether law enforcement agencies and the social media companies can fix it or whether it will get worse.
Then there’s also the problem of our information diet to consider: if the status quo of ubiquitous fake news remains, how will that shape how people see the world? If individuals spend months, years, even decades of their life exposed only to unreliable news sources, it does not augur well for civilized society and debate.
That said, given how fast social media has arrived in the world, an optimist may suggest that those problems could soon be resolved. In 30 years’ time we may be dealing with social media issues that we’ve not even considered yet. After all, Face book is only 13 years old.
NEW GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONS
The past year has seen a complete upset of our geopolitics’ fragile balance. That could make the global stability of the next couple of decades a complete question mark.
North Korean missile launches. Thousands of refugees crossing borders to flee turmoil. Hackers meddling in other nations’ elections. Rising nationalist sentiment worldwide. Headlines in 2016 (and so far, 2017) have been dominated by never-ending political drama that’s been fuelling a ‘geopolitical minefield’ and an ‘unprecedented geopolitical shift’ – whether it’s managing unpredictable North Korea, the plight of Syrian refugees, or Britain’s transition from the European Union. Throw in widespread hacking, nuclear missiles and other dangerous technology, and it’s easy to see why maintaining basic diplomacy becomes vital.
SAFE CAR TRAVEL
Despite all the rapid urbanization and talk of bullet trains and fantastical technology like the Hyper loop coming to the fore, the car isn’t going anywhere – and in fact, in the next couple decades, there will be even more of them on the road.
Driverless car technology is swiftly rolling out, with major tech companies and automakers aggressively seeking to debut human-free vehicles in coming years. But in addition, the sheer number of cars – self-driving or not – is going to skyrocket, studies show. In countries like China that are seeing a growing middle class, the environmental and infrastructural needs that an increasingly road-faring population demands is going to be a grand challenge. How do we ensure safety, fight pollution, and make sure driverless cars aren’t a menace on the road?
The new tech and devices that characterize the 21st Century all require rare earth metals to make – an average Smartphone has over 60 “ingredients”. That’s putting a strain on the planet’s natural resources: in China, where 90% of the world’s rare earth metals are found, it’s estimated that its mines will run out in the next two decades – and good substitutes for those materials are hard to come by.
SETTLING OTHER WORLDS
How will space tourism companies make sure their activities are safe? How will we find ways to send humans to Mars or another planet to live there, as Stephen Hawking has urged us to figure out? Space travel might seem like the domain of space agencies and billionaires today, but as it becomes more accessible to everybody else, a whole host of new challenges will emerge. Outer space is increasingly looking less like the final frontier and more like our backyard, and with more money being shelled out to get humans up to the inky abyss than ever before, the logistics, safety and diplomacy behind the challenge all demand serious consideration.
BOOSTED BRAINPOWER
It’s already common to use drugs to boost brainpower (whether it’s coffee, or something stronger, like modafinil), and most of the developed world now relies on their smart phones as an ‘externalized’ memory – but let’s extrapolate that out a few decades. Imagine targeted pharmaceuticals that make us think faster than currently possible, and technological implants that help us concentrate beyond normal human ability for hours or days, for example – these advances are already well underway in laboratories around the world. The question it raises is: what happens to those that cannot afford such enhancements? Could it widen inequality, and allow the rich to get richer? Then there’s also the legal and ethical issues: it’s acceptable to drink a coffee before you sit an exam, but is it ok to use an implant or a smart drug? The challenges posed by intelligence enhancement are only just emerging.
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