Barnatt - 25 Things You Need to Know About the Future

Christopher Barnatt has been working as a futurist for over twenty years. He is currently Associate Professor of Computing & Future Studies in Nottingham University Business School, and the author of ExplainingTheFuture.com, ExplainingComputers.com and their associated YouTube channels. Christopher has written six previous books and numerous articles on future studies and computing, and makes regular lecturing and media appearances. You can follow him online at twitter.com/ChrisBarnatt.

By the same author:

A Brief Guide to Cloud Computing

Cyber Business: Mindsets for a Wired Age

Challenging Reality: In Search of the Future Organization

Valueware: Technology, Humanity and Organization

Management Strategy & Information Technology

The Computers in Business Blueprint

Constable & Robinson Ltd
5556 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com

First published in the UK by Constable,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012

Copyright Christopher Barnatt, 2012

The right of Christopher Barnatt to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-84901-6971
eISBN 978-1-78033-5094

Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

Printed and bound in the UK

Disclaimer
While every effort has been made to ensure that the content in this book is as accurate as possible, no warranty or fitness is implied. The information is provided on an as is basis, and the author and the publisher take no responsibility for any loss or damages arising from its use. All trademarks included in this book are appropriately capitalized and no attempt is made or implied to supersede the rights of their respective owners.

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To Mum & Dad. To Mark.
And to the Future.

While writing this book I have been on quite a journey. I would therefore like to thank those people who have been along for the ride. For a start my thanks go to Leo Hollis at Constable & Robinson for asking me to write another book and coming up with the title, as well as Howard Watson for his copy-editing, and Nicola Jeanes for guiding these pages through the editorial and production processes. More broadly, I would also like to thank Sue Tempest, Ken Starkey, Steve Diacon, George Kuk, Sally Hopkinson, Teresa Bee, Andrea OMahony and many others in the University of Nottingham for their support over the past few months, years and even decades. None of us know where higher education is headed. However, thus far, our travels through the land of academia have largely been fruitful and fun.

Moving from the Ivory Tower to lifes more brutal practicalities, I would like to thank Ian Beckingham for his surgical skill and Nicholas Browne for being an excellent GP. As detailed in Part V, there may be a medical revolution on the horizon. But today we are still very dependent on those who have mastered existing technologies and methods.

Finally, I would like to thank Mark Daintree for his friendship beyond the call of duty, as well as my parents for their support and guidance for over 40 years. To everybody I offer my best wishes as I unleash another tome on to an unsuspecting world. Little bits of you all have worked their way into some of these pages and most certainly in a positive manner.

How will we live in the future? And what will the human race become? These fundamental questions are important to us all. Some of the future possibilities now on the horizon may also startle, frighten and amaze.

By 2030 many parents may be able to choose the sex, hair colour and other characteristics of their children. Bioplastic bottles could also be growing on trees, while 200 million intelligent robots may be at our beck and call. 3D printers will probably also be widely used to manufacture all manner of products and even replacement human organs just as easily as we currently print out photos. Much of our food may also be farmed in skyscrapers, people could live to 150 or more, and our computers may be controlled by thought alone. As we shall see across the following 25 chapters, the potential scientific advancements on the horizon are nothing short of astonishing.

While technology may soon allow us to do many incredible things, there is also a distinct possibility that shortages of oil, fresh water and other natural resources will start to constrain our lifestyles. In little more than a decade we may therefore descend into a spiral of industrial decline. Like it or not, we are entering an age of unparalleled technological possibility just at the moment when the cupboard of Planet Earth is starting to run bare.

Perhaps more than at any other time in history, the future of advanced human civilization now hangs in the balance. Without a crystal ball it is impossible to predict precisely what lies ahead. However, by studying known challenges, next-generation technologies and current trends, we can gain some insight into a range of possible futures. We can then act to make our most favoured vision of tomorrow a reality. Or in other words, we can use future gazing as a tool for future shaping.

This book is a toolkit for anybody wishing to future gaze and future shape. In some respects it is therefore a manifesto for understanding and changing the world! At one level, the intention is to examine in isolation 25 things that may determine what we can and cannot achieve in the next few decades. However, more fundamentally, this book also demonstrates how many future challenges and technologies will interrelate. From bioprinting to resource depletion, solar energy to space travel, climate change to vertical farming, and nuclear fusion to electric cars, 25 Things You Need to Know About the Future will provide you with a routemap to the possible world of tomorrow.

Seeing the Forest for the Trees

One of the greatest dangers for future gazers is getting so close to a particular interesting tree that we fail to notice the wider forest in which it is trying to grow. To try to help us avoid this, the 25 chapters of this book are grouped into five parts. Each of these parts then has a single overarching theme.

Part I concerns the Earth and its resources, and has as its theme The End of the Age of Plenty. Like it or not, our civilization now faces the enormous challenge of continuing to expand in the face of diminishing natural resources. Some people see this as a cause for great concern. However, for future shapers, the end of the Age of Plenty is a call to arms that will drive radical innovation.

Part II turns to manufacturing and farming in order to identify The Next Industrial Wave. From the bronze age to the iron age to the steam age and beyond, time and again our dominant means of making things have determined how we live. Part II therefore examines key manufacturing developments including nanotechnology, 3D printing and synthetic biology.

Future energy and transportation are the subjects of Part III, and are grouped together under the heading of Fuelling the Third Millennium. Nobody knows precisely how long fossil fuels will last, let alone how long it will be considered appropriate to keep on burning them. However, we can be certain that fossil fuels will not be the bedrock of future civilization the way they have been for the last two centuries. Part III subsequently focuses on alternative forms of power. It also discusses how space travel may be developed to allow resources to be obtained from beyond our first planet.