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.