The Future

[Dave]

The world of 2030: U.S. declines; food, water may be scarce
Yahoo, The Ticket, 12/10/2012, Oliver Knox. White House Correspondent

news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/world-2030-u-declines-food-water-may-scarce-162757458--politics.html

Sorry, everyone, but flying cars don't appear in the "Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds" report that the director of national intelligence's office made public on Monday.

Instead, the National Intelligence Council paints the picture of a world in which the U.S. is no longer the unquestionably dominant global player; individuals and small groups may carry out devastating cyber or bioterror attacks; oh, and food and water may be running short in some places.

"We do not seek to predict the future—which would be an impossible feat—but instead provide a framework for thinking about possible futures and their implications," the report cautioned.

Other ideas the futurists reported: Global population will reach "somewhere close to 8.3 billion people," and food and water may be running scarce in some areas, especially regions like Africa and the Middle East.

"Climate change will worsen the outlook for the availability of these critical resources," the report said. "Climate change analysis suggests that the severity of existing weather patterns will intensify, with wet areas getting wetter, and dry and arid areas becoming more so."We are not necessarily headed into a world of scarcities, but policymakers and their private sector partners will need to be proactive to avoid such a future."

What about America in 2030? The report predicts that the U.S. "most likely will remain 'first among equals' among the other great powers." But "with the rapid rise of other countries, the 'unipolar moment' is over and Pax Americana—the era of American ascendancy in international politics that began in 1945—is fast winding down."

Also, "Asia will have surpassed North America and Europe combined in terms of global power, based upon GDP [Gross Domestic Product], population size, military spending and technological investment," the report said.

It also suggests that Islamist extremism may be a thing of the past in 2030. But that doesn't mean small groups won't try to wreak havoc.

"With more widespread access to lethal and disruptive technologies, individuals who are experts in such niche areas as cyber systems might sell their services to the highest bidder, including terrorists who would focus less on causing mass casualties and more on creating widespread economic and financial disruptions," said the report.

Four "megatrends" shaping the world were cited: growing individual empowerment; diffusion of power; major shifts in demographics; and rising demand for food, water and energy.

The report also sees the potential for "black swan" shocks to the system. These include: a severe pandemic; faster-than-forecast climate change; the collapse of the European Union; the collapse of China (or its embrace of democracy); and a reformed Iran that abandons its suspected nuclear weapons program. They also include a conflict using nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, or a large-scale cyber-attack; solar geomagnetic storms that may knock out satellites and the electric grid; or a sudden retreat of the U.S. from global affairs.

[Dave]

Europe in 2050: a survivor's guide to climate change

New Scientist, Magazine issue 2893, November 28 2012, Michael Marshall
www.newscientist.com/article/mg21628934.600-europe-in-2050-a-survivors-guide-to-climate-change.html


Europe is now in a race against the climate. With little hope of a global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions, temperature rises of 3 or 4 °C above preindustrial levels are likely before 2100. That means countries have just decades to prepare.

Now a report by the European Environment Agency (EEA) outlines how the climate has already changed across the continent, and what will happen next. For the first time, we have a reasonably clear picture. From reshaping cities to defending coastlines, how will countries need to change to survive?

Extremes of temperature are becoming more common, so all of Europe will have to deal with more frequent and severe heatwaves. Parts of the south will see the biggest increase ...

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[Dave]

Why America is a lot like Detroit

Detroit was just an average American city until Henry Ford developed the assembly line.
The auto industry was born and Detroit would never be the same.
Spin off industries and subsidiaries populated the Detroit skyline.
Jobs, jobs, and more jobs – income – wealth – and the rise of the middle class
Workers became organized and the UAW was born
Wages increased, benefits increased, employment for the tenured became secure
Life was good – the very model of prosperity –

Prosperity is follow by inflation – is followed by higher wages and benefits for the UAW
The price of cars and trucks go up to pay for the new benefit packages.

Prosperity is follow by inflation – is followed by higher wages and benefits for the UAW
The price of cars and trucks go up to pay for the new benefit packages.

Prosperity is follow by inflation – is followed by organized UAW STRIKES for higher wages and benefits for the UAW
The price of cars and trucks go up to pay for the new benefit packages.

Inflation – followed by the UAW demanding higher wages and benefits – followed by higher prices.

Sooner or later – cars and truck have become so expensive that people are buying imports.

To save money and trim their operating cost – early in the 1970s, Detroit diminishes their engineering staff – and now US autos are more expensive and less dependable than the imports.

And still the UAW demands more and more benefits

Auto industry manufacturing plants begin to move away from Detroit in search of a cheaper operational location. Over time, US Brand Autos are being made in Canada and Mexico.

As anchor facilities leave Detroit, supporting industries also close.

The workforce moves away from Detroit to follow the jobs.

Detroit’s tax base is totally destroyed – the anchor facilities have left, the supporting facilities have left or died, the wage earners have also left and there is no one left to pay Detroit’s taxes.

Today, 50% of Detroit’s houses sit empty, for sale, or repossessed.

Today, 75% of Detroit lives on an entitlement check from the Federal Government

Today, Detroit is one of America’s murder capitals and has become a very unsafe community.

What will happen on the streets of Detroit when those Federal Entitlement checks stop coming in the mail?

America was the model of prosperity – which yields inflation
My parents bought their home in 1963 for $7,500.00 – I remember the payments being $50 a month
Also in 1963, there was no Welfare, Medicare, or Medicaid; only Social Security
America was the wealthiest nation on Earth – America could do anything even plan to go to the moon

That America is gone!

Here we are 50 years later and American cannot even get itself into orbit let alone the moon
Welfare, Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security support 50% of the American population
Our manufacturing economy has left for cheaper operational localities
Many of our rich – the job creators of this country – are leaving
Our government must borrow trillions of dollars every year to pay these entitlements
We cannot afford to repair our infrastructure

AND – What will happen nationwide the first day those entitlement checks don’t arrive on time.

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[Virginia]

Today CNN was talking about a story that the fed gov will raise the retirement age to 70. Those people who are 55 now will not be affected.

I saw a story some time ago that with the womens emancipation from having children by using birth control and able to work out of the home, this gave big business the idea that they can raise prices because now you had 2 incomes in one family instead of one. as wages go up so does the prices.

But remember the old saying "What goes up---comes down".

[Dave]

Water wars loom as the US runs dry

New Scientist, magazine issue 2904, 13 Feburary 2013, Sara Reardon and Hal Hodson

www.newscientist.com/article/mg21729043.900-water-wars-loom-as-the-us-runs-dry.html?


THE blizzards that hit the north-east US may have dominated the headlines last weekend, but across much of the country the most widespread drought in more than half a century is still biting – especially along the nation's iconic waterways (see diagram).

Last week, lakes Michigan and Huron hit their lowest levels on record. In Illinois, the US Army Corps of Engineers has been dredging the Mississippi and blasting away rock formations on the riverbed in a bid to maintain the 3-metre depth that barges need to ferry exports to the coast.

Growing urban water demands have long clashed with the needs of agriculture and navigation, and climate change is expected to ratchet up the tension, causing wilder swings between drought and flood even in regions that may not get drier overall. Water shortages are only likely to intensify, setting states at one another's throats. "There isn't and never will be enough water," says Douglas Kenney, a specialist in water-resources law at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

The US's "water wars" are being fought in the courtroom, rather than on the battlefield (see "map"), but only lawyers stand to gain if states and water districts sue to maximise their share of this precious resource. Can science and technology come to the rescue, in the form of "smart" water distribution and better modelling of supply and demand?

Previous big droughts of the 1930s and 50s saw conflicts settled by huge engineering projects like the Hoover dam on the border of Arizona and Nevada. Engineering solutions are still being considered in some places. Dredging the St Lawrence river to open shipping channels from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic has contributed to the lakes' lowering levels, and now the International Joint Commission, which manages waters shared by the US and Canada, is putting together a recommendation on how to improve things. This could include weirs and gates to control how much water drains away.

Elsewhere, budgetary constraints and concerns about the environmental impacts of big engineering projects have taken such options off the table. The stalled Lewis and Clark Regional Water System is a case in point. In 1989, leaders from 20 cities in Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota proposed a system of pipelines that would draw water from the Missouri-Elk Point aquifer in South Dakota. Nine of the cities involved have little hope of ever getting the promised boost to their water supplies, now that federal funds, which covered 80 per cent of the $550-million price tag, have dried up. "We have no way forward," says project director Troy Larson.

So states will have to produce better estimates of future supply and demand – and work out how to conserve what nature provides. Leading the way is the US Bureau of Reclamation's Colorado River Basin Water Supply and Demand Study, which has modelled a watershed that supplies some 40 million people across seven western states. It suggests an annual average mismatch of supply and demand of about 4 trillion litres by 2060.

[Virginia]

Did you hear an asteroid is going to pass close to earth. They say it will not crash into earth but could destroy some satallites causing tv and cell phones to go down.

On the subject of water---did HAARP move clouds the wrong way?

[Dave]

Georgia pols ramp up campaign to shift Tennessee border, siphon water
supply

FoxNews.com, Published February 14, 2013, By Barnini Chakraborty
Read more: www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/14/water-wars-georgia-wants-slice-tennessee-river/#ixzz2KvCTPTb3



Georgia residents are thirsty for Tennessee water. And state lawmakers are willing to try and move the border in order to get it.

Lawmakers in Atlanta, at the start of a new legislative session, are quickly moving to renew efforts to tap into Tennessee’s water supply by contesting the state’s border with its northern neighbor. The Georgia House of Representatives voted 171-2 this week to adopt a resolution seeking a thin strip of land leading to the Tennessee River.

That would give drought-parched Georgia a slice of the water rights. Tennessee lawmakers say Georgia can keep dreaming -- and they are ready to do whatever it takes to protect their water from Peach State poachers.