The Next 100 Years

The Next 100 Years

Lecture 46

As I worked on these lectures, I soon realized that historians seem to be more or less the only people who refuse to think seriously about the future.

After surveying 13 billion years, can we resist peering into the future? I think not. Indeed, I will argue that it is appropriate and necessary to do so. I was rst prompted to do this by students who argued that, after surveying 13 billion years, it seemed odd to stop abruptly in the present moment. As a professional historian, I shared the historian’s taboo on considering the future. So I had to think hard about how I should approach such a topic. Why and how should historians study the future? I soon realized that thinking about the future is not such a strange activity! On the contrary, all human societies have tried to predict the future, and many professionals in our own society—from stockbrokers to gamblers—make a good living by doing so.

Furthermore, we must take our thoughts about the future seriously because they may in uence what we do today, and that in turn may shape the future. Besides, all organisms constantly try to predict; indeed, they are designed by natural selection to do so. Every time you act, you have to predict the likely outcome of your action, and sometimes (as in crossing a busy road) it’s vital to predict wisely.

How should we think about the future? Rule 1 is that the future really is unpredictable. Nineteenth-century physicists often claimed we could predict the future if we knew the motion and position of every particle in the Universe. Quantum physics has shown this is not true. At the very smallest scales there is a certain indeterminacy in the behavior of the Universe. Rule 2 is that those who think carefully about the future get it right more often (and, if they are stockbrokers or gamblers, earn more money) than those who do not. Rule 3 is that we must begin with existing trends—in other words, with history. A horse’s “form” is not a perfect guide to performance, but it’s better than nothing.

We will divide the future into three distinct periods. The rst period, the next century, is close enough to matter—and to be shaped by our actions. Existing trends can guide our predictions. The second period, the next thousand years, is harder to discuss. Possibilities multiply too quickly, and the outcomes are too remote to matter as much. Here, anything we say is highly speculative. The third period includes the rest of time. Oddly, in the remote future our predictions become more con dent again, as we return to slower and simpler processes such as the evolution of the Sun, the galaxy, and the Universe! This lecture discusses the next hundred years.

What large patterns or trends can guide our ideas about the next century? In his A Green History of the World, Clive Ponting took the history of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) as a warning about the dangers of a future Malthusian crisis. Rapa Nui, a tiny Polynesian island just 16 miles long, is one of the most remote places on Earth. It was settled between 1,000 and 1,500 years ago by 20–30 colonists. They kept chickens and grew sweet potato and shed. The population grew to about 7,000, and village chiefs began building the large stone gures for which the island is famous. About 500 years ago, their society suddenly collapsed in warfare, disease, and famine.

Archaeologists have reconstructed much of the story. The stone gures were carved in the island’s single quarry and moved on rollers made from trees. As villages competed to build more statues, more trees were cut down until eventually none were left. That meant no wood for boats, houses, or fuel. Islanders must have seen disaster coming as they felled the last trees, but they felled them nonetheless. Could modern consumption patterns cause a similar crisis but on a global scale?

What can this story tell us? Like the Easter Islanders just before their crash, we face some ominous trends. Populations are rising fast, carbon emissions threaten rapid climatic change, most sheries are in decline, reserves of fresh water are shrinking, and rates of extinction are higher than for many millions of years. Consumption levels are rising fast and will rise even faster as countries like China and India begin to consume at the levels of today’s richer capitalist societies.

Yet blocking rising consumption can only lock in existing inequalities and create new con icts. And, as the U.S. learned in September 2001, modern weaponry allows even small groups to in ict terrible damage. Can global consumption slow in a capitalist world? Does not the logic of consumer capitalism require endless growth throughout the world?

There are also more hopeful trends. Global population growth is slowing as a result of the “demographic transition.” As the proportion of peasants has declined and living standards have risen, fertility rates have fallen throughout the world. By the 1980s, fertility levels had fallen to the “replacement level” of 2.1 children per woman in most developed industrialized countries. But rates of population growth are also falling in poorer countries. In the 1960s, global growth rates were over 2% per annum. By 2005 they had fallen to under 1.2% per annum, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. These trends suggest that by the middle of this century, global population may level out at 8 or 9 billion people, rather than the 12–16 billion many had predicted in the 1980s.

Since the 1960s, ecological awareness has increased. Most governments have agencies concerned with environmental issues, there are many nongovernmental agencies concerned with environmental issues, and there have been two international environmental summits, in Rio in 1992 and in Johannesburg in 2002. There have also been some notable successes, such as the 1988 international agreement to reduce production of CFCs because they damage the ozone layer. Despite the existence of nuclear weapons since 1945, we have avoided a global nuclear war.

Capitalism may turn out to be part of the solution as well as part of the problem. Recent centuries have shown capitalism’s astonishing capacity to adapt to change and generate social and technological solutions to new problems. Capitalism is particularly good at reacting to scarcities by

The collective brain of modern humanity, magni ed by billions of networked computers, is the most powerful problem-solving entity we know of.

shifting investment to alternative sources of supply. Already, investment is shifting toward technologies that may reduce dependence on fossil fuels and reduce consumption through recycling. And of course we should not forget “collective learning.” The collective brain of modern humanity, magni ed by billions of networked computers, is the most powerful problem-solving entity we know of. If there is a solution to the problems that face us and the biosphere, 6 billion networked humans are surely likely to nd it.

Which leaves the political question: If solutions can be found, will they be implemented in time? Many would argue that we already know most of the solutions, and the rst solution is to slow the rate at which we consume natural resources. Done with care, such a change might not mean a drastic reduction in material living standards, but it will certainly be painful. Will we show the political will and creativity needed to take these decisions? Perhaps the Easter Islanders saw perfectly what needed to be done (stop building ahus!) But their chiefs wouldn’t let them, and anyway they wanted to build just one more ahu that was better than that of the neighboring village … Will modern humans do any better?

Though there are ominous trends in our relationship with the environment and a real threat of a global Malthusian crisis, there is also growing awareness of the dangers. Will we, unlike the islanders on Rapa Nui, show the insight and the political and moral will needed to act before it is too late?

Essential Reading

Supplementary Reading

Christian, Maps of Time, chap. 15.

Brown, Eco-Economy. Ponting, A Green History of the World.

Questions to Consider

1. Is it legitimate for historians to consider the future? If so, how should they do it?

2. Are we overdue for a global Malthusian crisis? What steps need to be taken to avoid such an outcome?