Your predictions for the next century or so
Feel free to post your predictions of doom here in this thread. My personal view is this - humanity as a species will continue, but western civilisation will collapse. With fossil fuels running out, it will become too expensive for all but the most vital transport links to run. Without this, the economy will gradually grind to a halt. Food supplies in import-sufficient western countries will be reduced to a trickle, resulting in mass starvation across the western world. This will cut off aid to third world countries, thus tipping them over the edge and causing mass starvation there. The continent of Africa would be thrown into utter chaos as governments fall apart, replaced by the tribal and racial rule of the early 18th century.
Meanwhile, China and India would see mass death as populations starve to death. The world population would be halved by the end of the century. Desperate governments, hungry for resources would start invading their neighbours. America would occupy many of its close neighbours including Canada and Brazil. The rainforests of Brazil would be completely decimated as mining companies search feverishly for resources.
That looming destroyer of the world that is global warming will have made it's attack. World sea levels will have risen by 2 metres as the Arctic is reduced to nothing but a thousand square miles of slush, and Antarctica is quickly going the same way. Millions are displaced as large coastal cities are drowned. In Bangladesh, half the population dies of the disease caused by this flooding, while those that survive are displaced. Countries such as India, already under pressure from food, electricity and water shortages find themselves crippled by the swath of immigrants.
Elsewhere, a few countries that still hold a safe supply of resources find themselves managing to just about limp on. Britain, with its 230 year supply of coal underneath it, finds itself relegated back to the 19th century, unlike the rest of the world. The canals find new industrial use, while steam locomotives that have been mothballed since the 60's find new life.
With the world economy collapsed, governments find it harder to hold onto power. Large countries dissapate, their populations starving and unhappy. The large cities find themselves deserted due to the lack of food, and only those who have the know how to be self-sufficient, or those lucky enough to recieve government aid packages manage to survive.
Close to the end of the century, as the last of the Antarctic ice melts, much of the low-lying parts of the planet are underwater. Vast parts of the world are uninhabited, the few powerful countries in the find themselves back in the 19th century and once again Britain is the only superpower, even in its weakened condition. America, so far from the rest of the world, finds itself running a shell of a country, barely able to do much, cut off from everything. In a last bid of desperation, they threaten the world with nuclear annhilation if they don't get the resources they need to carry on running. From then on, who knows what could happen?
This piece of doom-mongering was brought to you by currywurry, your source for pessimism since November 2004.
Originally Posted by Ranika
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Re: Your predictions for the next century or so
) as they have invested in solar panels and will later aquire the fusion technology. As the world is in a such a sorry state, uniting it into a new working state will be easy.
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