For those interested, this report plans for 4 different future scenarios (non-exhaustive) as to how the world could evolve over the next 20 years
http://www.scribd.com/doc/57237528/r...opment#page=17
LOCK STEP (Page 18)
? A world of tighter top-down government control and more authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing citizen pushback
CLEVER TOGETHER (Page 26)
? A world in which highly coordinated and successful strategies emerge for addressing both urgent and entrenched worldwide issues
HACK ATTACK (Page 34)
? An economically unstable and shock-prone world in which governments weaken, criminals thrive,and dangerous innovations emerge
SMART SCRAMBLE (Page 42)
? An economically depressed world in which individuals and communities develop localized, makeshift solutions to a growing set of problems
A couple of snippets, this one's from Hack Attack
" The years 2010 to 2020 were dubbed the ?doom decade? for good reason: the 2012 Olympic bombing, which killed 13,000, was followed closely by an earthquake in Indonesia killing 40,000, a tsunami that almost wiped out Nicaragua, and the onset of the West China Famine, caused by a once-in-a-millennium drought linked to climate change."
This is from Lock Step
"In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been anticipating for years finally hit. Unlike 2009?s H1N1, this new influenza strain ? originating from wild geese ? was extremely virulent and deadly. Even the most pandemic-prepared nations were quickly overwhelmed when the virus streaked around the world, infecting nearly 20 percent of the global population and killing 8 million in just seven months, the majority of them healthy young adults. The pandemic also had a deadly effect on economies: international mobility of both people and goods screeched to a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and breaking global supply chains. Even locally, normally bustling shops and office buildings sat
empty for months, devoid of both employees and customers.The pandemic blanketed the planet ? though disproportionate numbers died in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Central America, where the virus spread like wildfire in the absence of official containment protocols. But even in developed countries, containment was a challenge. The United States?s initial policy of ?strongly discouraging? citizens from flying proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the spread of the virus not just within the U.S. but across borders. However, a few countries did fare better ? China in particular.