{"id":390,"date":"2017-02-10T12:53:22","date_gmt":"2017-02-10T12:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/?p=390"},"modified":"2017-07-24T11:29:49","modified_gmt":"2017-07-24T10:29:49","slug":"the-world-in-2050-and-beyond-part-1-the-ever-heavier-footprint","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/iprblog\/2017\/02\/10\/the-world-in-2050-and-beyond-part-1-the-ever-heavier-footprint\/","title":{"rendered":"The World in 2050 and Beyond: Part 1 - The Ever-Heavier Footprint"},"content":{"rendered":"

Lord Rees of Ludlow is Astronomer Royal at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy<\/a>, and founder of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk<\/a>. This blog post, the first in a three-part series, is based on a lecture he gave at the IPR<\/a> on 9 February.<\/em><\/p>\n

A few years ago, I met a well-known Indian tycoon. Knowing that I had the title of Astronomer Royal, he asked: \u2018do you do the queen\u2019s horoscopes?\u2019 I responded, with a straight face: \u2018If she wanted one, I\u2019m the person she\u2019d ask\u2019. He then seemed eager to hear my predictions. I told him that stocks would fluctuate, there\u2019d be new tensions in the Middle East, and so forth. He paid rapt attention to these \u2018insights\u2019. But I then came clean. I said I was just an astronomer \u2013 not an astrologer. He then lost all interest in my predictions. And rightly so; scientists are rotten forecasters \u2013 almost as bad as economists.<\/p>\n

Nor do politicians and lawyers have a sure touch. One rather surprising futurologist was Lord Birkenhead, crony of Churchill and Lord Chancellor in the 1920s. He wrote a book entitled \u2018The World in 2030\u2019. He\u2019d read Wells and Bernal \u2013 he envisaged babies incubated in flasks, flying cars and suchlike fantasies. In contrast, he foresaw social stagnation.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a quotation: \u201cIn 2030 women will still, by their wit and charms, inspire the most able men towards heights that they could never themselves achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to make forecasts, but \u2013 mindful of these precedents \u2013 very tentatively.<\/p>\n

Astronomers think in billions of years. But even in that perspective this century is special. The Earth has existed for 45 million centuries \u2013 humans for a few thousand centuries. But this century is special: it\u2019s the first when one species, ours, has the planet\u2019s future in its hands. We\u2019re deep in an era that\u2019s called the Anthropocene. We could irreversibly degrade the biosphere, we could trigger the transition from biological to electronic intelligences, or misdirected technology \u2013 bio or cyber \u2013 could cause a catastrophic setback to civilisation.<\/p>\n

Twelve years ago I wrote a book on this theme which I entitled Our Final Century? My publisher deleted the question-mark. The American publishers changed the title to 'Our Final Hour'. (Americans seek instant gratification \u2013 and the converse).<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t think we\u2019d wipe ourselves out. But I did think we\u2019d be lucky to avoid devastating setbacks \u2013 and we\u2019ve had one lucky escape already.<\/p>\n

At any time in the Cold War era \u2013 when armament levels escalated beyond all reason \u2013 the superpowers could have stumbled towards armageddon through muddle and miscalculation.<\/p>\n

Nuclear weapons are based on 20th century science. I\u2019ll focus later in my argument on 21st century sciences \u2013 bio, cyber, and AI \u2013 which offer huge potential benefits, but also expose us to novel vulnerabilities<\/p>\n

But before that let\u2019s focus on the long-term threats that stem not from conscious decisions, bur from humanity\u2019s ever-heavier collective \u2018footprint\u2019. Even with a cloudy crystal ball there are some things we can predict. For instance, it\u2019s almost inevitable that by mid-century, the world will be more crowded.<\/p>\n

Fifty years ago, world population was about 3 billion. It now exceeds 7 billion. But the growth is slowing. Indeed, the number of births per year, worldwide, peaked a few years ago and is going down. Nonetheless world population is forecast to rise to around 9 billion by 2050. That\u2019s partly because most people in the developing world are young. They are yet to have children, and they will live longer. The age histogram in the developing world will become more like it is in Europe.<\/p>\n

Experts predict continuing urbanisation \u2013 70 percent of people in cities by 2050. Even by 2030 Lagos, S\u00e3o Paulo and Delhi will have populations above 30 million. To prevent megacities becoming turbulent dystopias will surely be a major challenge to governance.<\/p>\n

Population growth seems currently under-discussed. That is maybe because doom-laden forecasts in the 1970s, by the Club of Rome, Paul Erlich and others, have proved off the mark. Up until now, food production has more than kept pace \u2013 famines stem from wars or maldistribution, not overall shortage. And it\u2019s deemed by some a taboo subject \u2013 tainted by association with eugenics in the 1920s and 30s, with Indian policies under Indira Gandhi, and more recently with China's hard-line one-child policy.<\/p>\n

Can 9 billion people be fed? My layman\u2019s impression from reading the work of experts is that the answer\u2019s yes. Improved agriculture \u2013 low-till, water-conserving, and perhaps involving GM crops \u2013 together with better engineering to reduce waste, improve irrigation, and so forth, could sustainably feed that number by mid-century. The buzz-phrase is \u2018sustainable intensification\u2019.<\/p>\n

But there will need to be lifestyle changes. The world couldn't sustain even its present population if everyone lived like Americans do today\u2013 using as much energy per person and eating as much beef.<\/p>\n

Population trends beyond 2050 are harder to predict. They will depend on what people now in their teens and 20s decide about the number and spacing of their children. Enhanced education and the empowerment of women \u2013 surely a benign priority in itself \u2013 could reduce fertility rates where they\u2019re now highest. And the demographic transition hasn\u2019t reached parts of India and Sub-Saharan Africa.<\/p>\n

If families in Africa remain large, then according to the UN that continent\u2019s population could double again by 2100 to 4 billion, thereby raising the global population to 11 billion. Nigeria alone would by then have as big a population as Europe and North America combined, and almost half of all the world\u2019s children would be in Africa.<\/p>\n

Optimists remind us that each extra mouth brings also two hands and a brain. Nonetheless, the higher the population becomes, the greater will be all pressures on resources \u2013 especially if the developing world narrows its gap with the developed world in its per capita consumption \u2013 and the harder it will be for Africa to escape the \u2018poverty trap\u2019. So we must surely hope that the global figure declines rather than rises after 2050.<\/p>\n

Moreover, if humanity\u2019s collective impact on nature pushes too hard against what Johan Rockstrom calls \u2018planetary boundaries\u2019, the resultant \u2018ecological shock\u2019 could irreversibly impoverish our biosphere. Extinction rates are rising; we\u2019re destroying the book of life before we\u2019ve read it. Biodiversity is a crucial component of human wellbeing. We're clearly harmed if fish stocks dwindle to extinction; there are plants in the rainforest whose gene pool might be useful to us. But for many environmentalists, preserving the richness of our biosphere has value in its own right, over and above what it means to us humans. To quote the great ecologist E O Wilson, \u2018mass extinction is the sin that future generations will least forgive us for\u2019.<\/p>\n

The world\u2019s getting more crowded. And there\u2019s a second firm prediction: it will gradually get warmer. In contrast to population issues, climate change is certainly not under-discussed.<\/p>\n

The famous Keeling curve shows how the concentration of CO2 in the air is rising, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuels. It\u2019s still unclear how much the climatic effects of rising CO2 are amplified by associated changes in water vapour and clouds. The fifth IPCC report presents a spread of projections.<\/p>\n

But despite the uncertainties there are two messages that most would agree on:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Regional disruptions to weather patterns within the next 20-30 years will aggravate pressures on food and water, and engender migration.<\/li>\n
  2. Under \u2018business as usual\u2019 scenarios we can\u2019t rule out, later in the century, really catastrophic warming, and tipping pints triggering long-term trends like the melting of Greenland\u2019s icecap.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    But even those who accept both these statements have diverse views on the policy response. It\u2019s important to realise that these divergences stem less from differences about the science than from differences in economics and ethics \u2013 in particular, in how much obligation we should feel towards future generations.<\/p>\n

    Economists who apply a standard discount rate (as, for instance, Bjorn Lomberg\u2019s Copenhagen Consensus does) are in effect writing off what happens beyond 2050 \u2013 so unsurprisingly they downplay the priority of addressing climate change in comparison with shorter-term efforts to help the world\u2019s poor.<\/p>\n

    But if you care about those who\u2019ll live into the 22nd century and beyond, then, as economists like Stern and Weizman argue, you deem it worth paying an insurance premium now, to protect those generations against the worst-case scenarios.<\/p>\n

    So, even those who agree that there\u2019s a significant risk of climate catastrophe a century hence will differ in how urgently they advocate action today. Their assessment will depend on expectations of future growth, and optimism about technological fixes. But, above all, it will depend on an ethical issue \u2013 in optimising people\u2019s life-chances, should we discriminate on grounds of date of birth?<\/p>\n

    (As a parenthesis, I\u2019d note that there\u2019s one policy context where a discount rate of essentially zero is applied \u2013 radioactive waste disposal, where the depositories are required to prevent leakage for 10,000 years. This is somewhat ironic, when we can\u2019t plan the rest of energy policy even 30 years ahead)<\/p>\n

    Consider this analogy. Suppose astronomers had tracked an asteroid, and calculated that it would hit the Earth in 2080, 65 years from now \u2013 not with certainty, but with (say) 10 per cent probability. Would we relax, saying that it\u2019s a problem that can be set on one side for 50 years \u2013 people will then be richer, and it may turn out then that it\u2019s going to miss the Earth anyway? I don\u2019t think we would. There would surely be a consensus that we should start straight away and do our damnedest to find ways to deflect it, or mitigate its effects.<\/p>\n

    What will actually happen on the climate-policy front? The pledges made at the Paris conference are a positive step.<\/p>\n

    But even if they\u2019re honoured, CO2 concentrations will rise steadily throughout the next 20 years. By then, we'll know with far more confidence \u2013 from a longer timebase of data, and from better modelling \u2013 just how strong the feedback from water vapour and clouds actually is. If the so-called \u2018climate sensitivity\u2019 is low, we\u2019ll relax. But if it\u2019s large, and climate consequently seems on an irreversible trajectory into dangerous territory, there may then be a pressure for 'panic measures'. This could involve a 'plan B' \u2013 being fatalistic about continuing dependence on fossil fuels, but combatting its effects by either a massive investment in carbon capture and storage, or else by geoengineering.<\/p>\n

    It\u2019s feasible to inject enough aerosols into the stratosphere to cool the world\u2019s climate \u2013 indeed, what is scary is that this might be within the resources of a single nation, or even a single corporation. There could be unintended side-effects; moreover, the warming would return with a vengeance if the countermeasures were ever discontinued \u2013 and other consequences of rising CO2 (especially the deleterious effects of ocean acidification) would be unchecked.<\/p>\n

    Geoengineering would be a political nightmare: not all nations would want to adjust the thermostat the same way. Very elaborate climatic modelling would be needed in order to calculate the regional impacts of an artificial intervention. (The only beneficiaries would be lawyers. They\u2019d have a bonanza if nations could litigate over bad weather!).<\/p>\n

    I think it\u2019s prudent to explore geoengineering techniques enough to clarify which options make sense, and perhaps damp down undue optimism about a technical 'quick fix' for our climate.<\/p>\n

    Many still hope that our civilisation can segue smoothly towards a low-carbon future. But politicians won't gain much resonance by advocating a bare-bones approach that entails unwelcome lifestyle changes \u2013 especially if the benefits are far away and decades into the future. But three measures that could mitigate climate change seem politically realistic.<\/p>\n

    First, all countries could improve energy-efficiency, insulate buildings better, and so forth\u2014and thereby actually save money.<\/p>\n

    Second, we could target cuts to methane, black carbon and CFC emissions. These are subsidiary contributors to long-term warming. But unlike CO2, they cause local pollution too \u2013 in Chinese cities, for instance \u2013 so there\u2019s a stronger incentive to reduce them.<\/p>\n

    But third, nations should expand R&D into all forms of low-carbon energy generation (renewables, 4th generation nuclear, fusion, and the rest), and into other technologies where parallel progress is crucial \u2013 especially storage (batteries, compressed air, pumped storage, flywheels, etc) and smart grids. That\u2019s why an encouraging outcome of Paris was an initiative called \u2018Mission Innovation\u2019. It was launched by President Obama and the Indian Prime Minister Modi, and endorsed by the G7 nations, plus India, China and 11 other nations. It\u2019s hoped they\u2019ll pledge to double their publicly funded R&D into clean energy by 2020 and to coordinate efforts. There\u2019s been a parallel pledge by Bill Gates and other private philanthropists.<\/p>\n

    This target is a modest one. Presently, only 2 per cent of publicly funded R&D is devoted to these challenges. Why shouldn\u2019t the percentage be comparable to spending on medical or defence research?<\/p>\n

    The faster these \u2018clean\u2019 technologies advance, the sooner will their prices fall so they become affordable to developing countries \u2013 where more generating capacity will be needed, where the health of the poorest billions is jeopardised by smokey stoves burning wood or dung, and where there would otherwise be pressure to build coal-fired power stations.<\/p>\n

    It would be hard to think of a more inspiring challenge for young engineers than devising clean energy systems for the world.<\/p>\n

    All renewables have their niches \u2013 wind, tides, waves and hydro here in the UK, for instance. But an attractive scenario for Europe might be large-scale solar energy, coupled with a transcontinental DC smart grid network (north-south to transmit power from Spain or even Morocco to the less sunny north, and east-west to smooth over peak demand in different time-zones) with efficient storage as well.<\/p>\n

    Of course the unique difficulty of motivating CO2 reductions is that the impact of any action not only lies decades ahead, but is globally diffused. In contrast, for most politicians the immediate trumps the long term; the local trumps the global. So climate issues, which gained prominence during the Paris conference, will slip down the agenda again unless there\u2019s continuing public concern.<\/p>\n

    For more information on Lord Rees' IPR lecture, please see our writeup here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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