THE WORLD WE MADE

In the International Futures Forum, we occasionally use an imaginative technique to look back on how we have actually solved a pressing challenge. Our normal way of thinking is to look forward and think of all the reasons why certain strategies will not work, which leaves us with a sense of powerlessness. The rules for this game are to assume that you have in fact resolved the challenge and then describe how you actually did it without mentioning the obstacles in the foreground 'the difficulty was…etc'. This is what leading environmentalist Jonathon Porritt does in his new book, which is the story of a teacher, Alex McKay, looking back at the age of 50 from 2050 and describing how our major social and environmental challenges were met, bringing the world back from the brink of collapse. This is a hugely ambitious intellectual undertaking, and Jonathon covers a vast range of interconnected issues with humour and aplomb.

A chart at the beginning of the book conveys some idea of a potential and plausible trajectory of events: we have water riots in the Middle East in 2017, cyber terrorist attacks on nuclear reactors in 2019, Internet wars during the 2020s, the Kiev Treaty on nuclear decommissioning in 2022, the great famine of 2025, the first commercial flights with 100% biofuels in the same year (I did wonder about that one), the European energy super grid in 2031, final evacuation of New Orleans in 2035, reconciliation between China and Tibet in 2041, and the worst year on record for climate change and disasters in 2045. As some wit put it, prophecy is uncertain, especially about the future, or, to quote John Kenneth Galbraith: there are only two kinds of economists: those who don't know, and those who don't know they don't know. However, Jonathon does his best to make an educated guess based on current projections, while recognising that unforeseen events may shape our future more than we can indeed know.

The 50 or so entries at different points in the book cover agriculture, food and water, biodiversity and the natural world, climate change, economics and finance, energy, health and education, politics and security, society and cities, technology and manufacturing, travel and transport - pretty comprehensive, as you can see. There are also numerous explanatory boxes and diagrams in a different style reproducing informal handwriting as well as some remarkable two-page photographs to illustrate potential breakthroughs in solar energy, transport, waste recycling and biomimicry, among other themes. The writing is both informal and informative, informed by a balance of idealism and realism, enthusiasm for some forms of technical progress and scepticism about others.

Here I pick out and comment on the few entries. On the population question, it is assumed that the 2050 figure will be 8.6 billion, which is on the low side and due to the success of a number of measures, including the projected revision of Catholic teaching by the Pope in 2016. The role of the Gates Foundation is also acknowledged in providing women with access to contraception. I was less sure about the projections for urban slums. I don't think the 2015 figure is as high as 2.5 billion (more like 1.3 billion according to The Planet of Slums), while the projection of 2.7 billion for 2050 may be nearer the mark. Jonathon times the introduction of an international financial transaction tax for 2014 and projects that it will be earning €40 billion a year by 2020. He sees a proportion of this going into a UNESCO global recovery programme and his vision is that every child on earth is attending primary school by 2035, with 70% staying on for secondary education. This would be an impressive achievement indeed.

Part of his vision for global healthcare is individual genome mapping, showing what conditions we are likely to be susceptible to and corresponding advances in drugs to target individuals more specifically. He does not neglect lifestyle changes, but the sheer cost of these high-tech interventions may drive governments more towards prevention and promotion of healthy lifestyles. He projects the replacement of GNP by a well-being index, the mandatory reduction of weekly working hours to about 25 by 2045 and the obligation on governments to guarantee a minimum amount of adequately remunerated work, arising partly from riots resulting from high youth unemployment in the early 2020s. He also sees an international movement mobilised by Avaaz and called Enough, putting immense pressure on governments to reform. By 2022, the world woke up to how little it had done on reducing carbon emissions over the previous 25 years and various botched efforts at geo-engineering (these are in fact already going on) were dealt with by the UN Security Council. Students in 2050 are largely designing their own e-learning programmes and every student takes part in various community projects.

The book provides a useful glossary of resources for readers who would like to take further action or research additional information. Jonathon provides his own contextualisation at the end of the book, commenting that the changes he envisages are unlikely to come about before 2050, even if many of his environmental colleagues regard this as far too late. On the one hand, he admits to feeling very angry much of the time about the lack of progress on critical issues while at the same time being excited about the prospects for us learning to live sustainably. Alex puts this down partly to the Internet and its connectivity, but also to policies encouraging the growth of empathy and continuing innovation both in thinking and technology. The great merit of this stimulating book is in compelling the reader to consider various potential developments and ask what role they can play in helping bring these about, given that the window of opportunity for doing so will not remain open for ever.