Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

I'm creating my own 2030, I don't want yours.

• The United States represented 48.69% of the world's economy in 1960 (highest point), and was at its lowest point at 21.42% in 2011.
• The European Union represented 34.6% of the world's GDP at 1980 (highest point), and was at its lowest in 1985 at 25.01%.
• China represented 1.618% of the world's economy in 1987 (lowest point), rising to 11.47% in 2012 (highest point). According to Angus Maddison, China represented 32.9% of the world's economy in 1820.
• Japan represented 17.8% of the world's economy in 1994 (highest point), after that its contribution to the world's economy has gradually diminished, and reached its lowest point in 2012 (8.32%). Although the very lowest since 1960 has been in the year 1960 when it produced 3.28% of the world's GDP.
• Germany represented 8.98% of the world's economy in 1969 (highest point), falling to 4.74% in 2012 (lowest point)
• The United Kingdom represented 6.42% of the world's economy in 1960 (highest point), falling to 3.42% in 2012 (lowest point). According to Angus Maddison the United Kingdom accounted for 9.1% of the world's economy in 1870.
• France represented 5.8% of the world's economy in 1969. After rising to 5.94% in 1974, its contribution to the world's economy fell to 3.64% in 2012 (lowest point). According to Angus Maddison France represented 6.5% of the world's economy in 1870
• Italy represented 5.11% of the world's economy in 1969. After rising to 5.18% in 1974, its contribution to the world's economy fell to 2.81% in 2012 (lowest point).
• Canada represented 2.63% of the world's economy in 1969. This figure has been generally stable, having peaked at 2.76% in 1981 and 2002, and being at its lowest (2.55%) in 1992. In 2012 Canada's share was 2.54%.
• The Soviet Union represented 14.31% of the world's economy in 1969 (highest point) and at the year of its dissolution (1991) only produced 3.58% of the world's economy (lowest point). In 2012 Russia's share was 2.82% (highest point) and reached a nadir in 1998 (1.38%) before ending up at [9]1.9% in 2010.
• India represented 3.1% of the world's economy in 1964 (highest point), and had its lowest world economy share at 1.00% in 1992. According to Angus Maddison, India represented 32.9% of the world's economy in 0 CE.

The (American) world by 2030 will be made of 300 millions of Trump's clones.
We can see already a few ones at DnD, a world.

1. All products will have become services. “I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes,”

2. There is a global price on carbon. China took the lead in 2017 with a market for trading the right to emit a tonne of CO2

3. US dominance is over. We have a handful of global powers. Nation states will have staged a comeback, writes Robert Muggah, Research Director at the Igarapé Institute. Instead of a single force, a handful of countries – the U.S., Russia, China, Germany, India and Japan chief among them – show semi-imperial tendencies.

4. Farewell hospital, hello home-spital.Technology will have further disrupted disease, writes Melanie Walker, a medical doctor and World Bank advisor.

5. We are eating much less meat. Rather like our grandparents, we will treat meat as a treat rather than a staple, writes Tim Benton, Professor of Population Ecology at the University of Leeds, UK.

6. Today’s Syrian refugees, 2030’s CEOs.Highly educated Syrian refugees will have come of age by 2030, making the case for the economic integration of those who have been forced to flee conflict.

7. The values that built the West will have been tested to breaking point. We forget the checks and balances that bolster our democracies at our peril, writes Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.

8. “By the 2030s, we'll be ready to move humans toward the Red Planet.” What’s more, once we get there, we’ll probably discover evidence of alien life

Don't you remember our great baseball player Yogi Berra? He said (among other things...) "Prediction is hard... Especially about the future!"

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All products will have become services. “I don't own anything. I don't own a car. I don't own a house. I don't own any appliances or any clothes,”

Quote from: ersi on 2014-01-26, 17:02:18

You must be heavily a city person. You think when the worst stench and dirt from the cities is reducing, that the world is doing okay?

Far from it. We might well be fucked if we (or perhaps more to the point, the Americans and the Chinese) don't change things around significantly. That's an entirely different question.

Quote from: ersi on 2014-01-26, 17:02:18

I was born and grew up deep in the countryside. I have had little phases here and there, but basically I live at the same spot where I was born. The forests have been drastically reduced here in the past 20 years.

So did I. The forests there have drastically increased over the past century, and I'm not talking production forests. Of course, that's not a global or even national phenomenon.

Quote from: ersi on 2014-01-26, 17:02:18

The urban effects on the countryside are global now. Maybe I am expressing myself too crudely, but I haven't seen any reliable measures of reduced pollution in the world. It's only increasing. Oil, plastics, and other poisons are not being given up - quite to the contrary. At the same time, there's a trend to present this or that pretty spot or project as "the way of the future", but it should be evident that those are just PR and marketing. All pretty spots in the world are monetised for tourism - and thus polluted.

The Pacific has been largely fished empty by industrial fishing boats. Jellyfish are overtaking the seas, and the amount of trash out there is humongous. Still a different question.