Focusing on the future.
The year is 2013. We have mobile phones, rapid transit, electricity, fuel, a whole host of antibiotics, the internet, and the radio. The last century saw a boom in industrial and mechanical innovation and a surge in digital dependence.
But what now? What lies ahead for humanity in the future? While it may be impossible to know for sure, we can at least make simple predictions for how things will turn out. Below, I have written what I think we need to do, and what we’ll see.
In 1964, Soviet astronomer Nikolai Kardashev proposed a scale that measured a civilization’s technological advancement based on its energy production and dependence. It has three categories: Types I, II and III.
NOTE that the Earth, Sun and Milky Way are not drawn to scale. Duh.
Simply put, a Type I civilization harnesses the full potential of its home planet. Type II uses the energy of its nearest star, and Type III of its galaxy.
We are Type 0. We aren't utilizing the full potential of our planet yet; most of our energy comes from dead plants and fossil fuels. This is harmful to our planet and inefficient. We can do better.
And here’s how we can get there in the next 100-200 years. (At least, I think so.)
Global Citizenship
Imagine a place where we’re brought together in language (English is the world’s second language), economy (a global currency), and government. A place where interracial breeding has helped end racism. A place where we can completely ignore differences and focus on the betterment of humanity.
With widespread development in agriculture, information technology, science, and finance, many countries will have similar economies. I’m no economist, but I believe that the EU’s euro has offered the idea of a global currency.
English as the language of business has helped encourage youth to learn the communal language that connects us all. Even better, we may live to see the United Nations become just that, the United Nations. Let’s tackle our problems together as people of the Earth. Starting with the energy crisis. Towards a united future.
Renewable Energy and Nuclear Power
Renewable energy is energy that comes from resources that are continually replenished. In essence, energy that can never really be used up. This includes wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal heat.
Unlike fossil fuels, renewable energy and nuclear power resources have a considerably smaller impact on the environment, are safe (including nuclear!), and (apart from nuclear) are rather easy to generate.
Fossil fuels, as the term suggests, are incredibly old. Most oil and coal deposits are well over 150 million years old. At the rate we are drilling,we’ll soon deplete these deposits and enter an energy crisis. While that may take decades (some sources point to 2088), the impact on the environment will be disastrous.
In other words, we need to dedicate the next 100 years to improving the efficiency of solar panels, windmills and hydro turbines. I recently read that scientists have built a solar panel that is 47% efficient! Plus, a 15 year old girl from Canada recently built a flashlight that user Peltier tiles to convert heat energy to electricity.
Let’s build wind and solar farms, and begin dedicating large bodies of water to hydroelectric production. What about electric cars with solar roof panels. During winter, there can be charging stations located throughout cities to charge car batteries.
AND it’s all solar energy too.
Right now, 16 percent of global energy consumption comes from renewable sources. If 2088 is the expiry date for fossil fuels, we’ll need to push that percentage up. Governments need to work together to encourage their citizens, industries and scientists to switch to more Eco-friendly options.
Lets say goodbye to oil, coal and gas, and hello to fresher air, unlimited energy (pretty much!) and long term economic gain. Towards a cleaner future.
Public Transportation is Key
By 2100, the Earth’s population is projected to be at 11 billion. Imagine all the cars. To ensure that we don’t completely cover our planet by widening roads, lets look more closely at strengthening transit. By transit, I mean light rail.
People complain about buses. They say the wait is too long, that the buses are too crowded, that the trips are long. The problem is all of those things are directly related to each other, and that fixing any one of them can cause problems. For example, if we were to increase the bus’ speed, trip times would decrease and buses would arrive at stops much sooner. That would fix the wait times. With the buses moving faster, time slots can now become available to introduce more buses/routes to ease with congestion. But to do that, we’ll need to increase speed limits, putting the lives of pedestrians and other vehicle drivers at risk.
However, trains can be built so that they are faster, safer, and more efficient. The best example for this would be Elon Musk’s Hyperloop. While it can’t be considered a train (no tracks), the system runs in a tube that works just like a monorail, ferrying people from one place to another. Besides, it can reach ridiculously high speeds. There have also been proposals to build a vactrain, a train that runs in an evacuated tube. Technically, it can reach 6000-8000 km/h.
Imagine waking up in San Francisco, catching the train to go to work in Toronto, and returning back home once the day is done. Towards an efficient future.
Lets Fight Disease
To be frank, infections will exist as long as there a people to be infected. What we can do, however, is reduce the impact of these disease, and even eradicate the more harmful ones.
In 2011, Carl Haub estimated that around 107 billion people have lived on this Earth. Baruch Blumberg, a Nobel laureate in virology deemed that half of all the human deaths since human existence (about 50 billion people) can be attributed to malaria. That’s shocking.
Bill Gates has gained immense praise for his campaign to end malaria. A virus that hails from a female mosquito, this disease has proven difficult to cure and contain for thousands of years. But scientists are working on genetically modifying the pesky insects to simply cease sensing humans. Will it work? I don’t know, but I’ll be hopeful. Towards a healthy future.
Hope helps. I hope that we’ll be living in much better conditions that we do now. Nobody can guarantee a Type I civilization, but we sure can work towards it. What I’ve put together above are simply my opinions on how we can get there. It’s not finished, and never will be. Some things are better left discovered.
Got an opinion? Hit me up on twitter @geoffmomin. I’ll hear you out.
G.
