FNN Wants Your Thoughts About the Future

I am also excited about our magical future. Actually, you have to call it more of a magical present because the great changes are already happening. Nanotechnology is already changing our lives in incredible ways and we have only scratched the surface of nanotech. The true vision of nanotechnology is building molecular machines. At present, nanotech is all about nanotubes, which are a far cry from machines but still radically changing our future. Nanotubes alone are being used in optics to create invisibility cloaks by changing the index of refraction of light in ways never before possible. They are being used to deliver targeted drugs which will soon help us win the war on cancer. They are being used to engineer new and incredible electronics, create materials that are stronger than anything ever made by mankind and much more.

We are on the threshold of amazing medical advancements. As I just mentioned, nanotech is creating radical advancements in medical technology. Additionally, work with stem cells has begun to pay off. Recently, blind people have been cured of their blindness. Organs are being healed. There is even a Stemulance skin cream to bring about younger skin. Drug advancements, and ways of creating and testing drugs have sped up considerably. Brain mapping with fMRI has radically improved what we know about the brain and our ability to communicate with this amazing organ, even so far as communicating with people in a coma we once thought in a complete vegetative state.

Computers...What to say about computers? First, computers as we knew them are almost gone, replaced by smart phones and smart cars and other smart products. Machines already know more things than any single human. Advancements in making machines able to use this information to make decisions, or be creative have led to amazing abilities. I am often asked about when I think machines will be smarter than humans. The answer is a complex one, and not what you might think. As humans we are always measuring other beings or in this case things, against our own abilities. The fact is that dolphins are smarter about water navigation, and butterflies can fly thousands of miles to the right location without fail with brains the size of a semicolon. Computers are already smarter than humans in their own way. We have already endowed computers with amazing abilities to calculate, to compose, to navigate, to walk, to talk, and even fool people into thinking they are humans in virtual worlds. OK, they didn't fool all the people, but some of them. In a way, this Web site is a computer futurist. It's true that it draws no inference from the stories it contains, but it does paint one picture of the future. Yes, it needs my help to do that, but very few of us act alone. In fact, I consider myself as partnered with my Internet-connected computer. It has truly become a part of my daily life, and who I am to other people. The abilities of computers, both in computing power and in the advancement of AGI (artificial general intelligence) are growing exponentially.

I am happy to say that we are already living in the magic kingdom (sorry Disneyland). It is difficult for people to know everything that is going on around them. We focus on the disasters of our lives, oil spills, mass murders, mine collapses, tsunamis and earthquakes. It is true that these things are also a part of our lives. But, they are only a part. It appears quite evident now that our climate is changing. Our world economies are changing. Our technologies are changing. Our laws and social beliefs are changing. Our life spans are increasing along with our population, and more importantly the distribution of our population. The balance of world power is changing as the BRIC countries grow into their new roles as economic superpowers. But sometimes it can feel like what is new is simply the i(name a device) or 3D-TV. The truth is, the magic is here. Because we tend to mark advancements in terms of decades I can safely say that the advancements of the next decade between 2010 and 2020 will be such a radical shift as to be almost unbelievable today. But these advancements are no longer science fiction. They are already entering our lives and the rest are in laboratories gearing up for production or awaiting government approval.

Feel the magic.

Optimistically, things will adjust and start getting better by the middle of 2009 when we'll be starting climb out of what economists today are calling a deep recession. Home prices will start to recover, but few will be able to pass the stringent underwriting to get a mortgage.

These are interesting times, with an interesting and historic presidential election looming. I'll write more when I think I have something to add to all this.

The economic decline stretches to the people who are going to or have had their homes foreclosed on. This affects more than the immediate family. It affects the entire community. Home prices continue to decline but no one is snatching them up because credit has become so tight. The government is considering new mortgage lending rules that will make it even tougher for people to get a loan.

Add to this the pain at the pump. Yes, I know I'm driving less. When I drive by the Wal-Mart parking lot I wonder if other people are driving less, but I know they are, and they're shopping at Wal-Mart, not because they want to but because they need to stretch every penny. Gas prices where I live went up again this week. The cheapest gas I could find was $4.49.

When you actually get to the store, after spending half your food budget to fill the tank, you find that you don't even cover the bottom of the food basket without spending the rest of the budget. Now, this kind of inflation wouldn't feels so bad if wages were increasing to match, but they aren't. Instead, we hear how 5.5% unemployment isn't so bad historically. Of course, "historically" is a deception because how those numbers are calculated has changed over the years so they don't seem quite so bad. So, for all the unemployed people, it's not so bad. For the employed people, they still have to commute to work, and they aren't getting paid more.

Now, if you're not already in mental recession, if you live almost anywhere in the U.S. you've been affected by some sort of natural disaster this year. The Mid West flooding affected everyone. The salmonella on the tomatoes/jalapeno peppers hurt farmers. The horrible fires in California affected hundreds of thousands. All this in the wake of the horrible natural disasters abroad in Burma and China. If you live in Hawaii you're in the midst of a drought, not only of water but of tourists and airlines willing to fly to Hawaii. Aloha Airlines and ATA went bust this year, further isolating the islands.

Almost like a sad joke, if you read the science section of the newspaper on the way to the sports section, you see where climatologists had an office pool of sorts as to whether the ice at the North Pole would completely melt this Summer. Well, so far it doen't look like it, but it doesn't look good for future years. If you happen to be purchasing a home in Las Vegas you actually have to worry about Lake Meade drying up. Increases in tornadoes, cyclones and hurricanes have become self evident.

Now, if you're not already feeling low, our wonderful government is increasing its spying on domestic (you and me) citizens. Oh yes, the crime bill passed. Now, all those wonderful satellites can be turned against you and me, nearly on a whim. Privacy is a thing of the past. Warrantless searches of laptops continue at the border. RealID cards will be necessary to get onto a plane or into a Federal building. This is not what one might call "the good times." Of course, it's easy to say that government intervention lowers risk. Our lives are not really made better by the lowering of risk. To lower our risk of being victims of crime, such as being annoyed by someone smoking pot, ten percent of the U.S. population is in prison. That means that just about everyone knows someone in prison. This can't be making people feel better.

So, what do we do? Well, I'd love to have a new car, like an electric one, but guess what, electricity rates are due to skyrocket. Oh yes, you thought you were going to save money by switching away from expensive gas. Think again, all the new nuclear reactors (the age's new green power hahahahaha) cost a lot of money to build. The cars themselves are REALLY expensive. What about going solar? Well, I've looked into that. Despite news articles over the last year that tout amazing advances in solar efficiency, and solar cells being printed by inkjet printers and dyes in paint and on window panes, none of those are available to the public. In fact, after a little thought it became apparent to me that power companies certainly don't want individuals creating their own power. In fact, you watch, it's only a matter of time until the government steps in to regulate such folly. There will be "safety" concerns, and "power regulation problems" and all sorts of nonsense as people try to unplug from "the grid."

So where is the cup half full kind of stuff. Let's see. We haven't gone to war with Iran. In most places in the US they still teach science rather than myth in the schools. Oh, I shouldn't have brought up our schools. That's definitely not one of the glass half full topics. The citizens of Zimbabwe have democratically chosen their leader. Um, we'll have a new president in office soon. Oh, lets just admit it it. It's all just a cycle that will right itself soon and we'll be back on top again. All that nasty talk about how China will soon dominate the world economy, pushing the U.S. out of the driver seat is just propaganda. Everything will be just fine. There's water on Mars, and maybe even on the moon. That's gotta be good news. Malaria will be wiped out soon. People will live longer, well at least wealthy people will live longer. We can simply forget population explosion the way we forgot about global warming. We'll just have more neighbors at the 4rth of July BBQ. In fact, a larger population just means a bigger housing market. It means a bigger market for everything. We'll need more oil, more food, more houses, more clothes and definitely more cell phones, bandwidth and video games. We'll have all our new neighbors over to watch the movies we download from Netflix on demand. We'll get crazy and put on our VR helmets and communicate with others with our super-smart avatar. In fact, soon we won't even know when we're talking to a computer and when we're talking to a human because avatars are getting smarter every day. One day, one of those avatars will say, "Hey, I've got an idea." and won't life be jolly then.

Actually, there is only one bit of good news, we can change the future. We are not powerless. There is nothing to fear but fear itself. Armed with a pretty accurate view of now, and a fairly accurate look at the future, we should be able to create a better future. This isn't an amusement park ride, where we're all waiting for the "big drop." just for the thrill of it because we're bored and we're waiting for the system to destroy itself because we feel powerless to do anything about anything.

The sci-fi movies of the early millennium that portray people walking past aware displays that target individuals will not be sci-fi for much longer. Billions are spent on figuring out how to target you as the consumer based on things like your web surfing habits. It's a very short leap to tracking you by RFID.

You don't even have to read the stories, just the headlines, to know that this Summer is cropping up to be a bad weather year for the United States. The hurricane season is 28 days old and the Summer is a week old, yet the storms are ravaging the country and killing people. Also on target for late this Summer is the world's first look at what's under the ice at the North Pole. For the first time in recorded history we may just see a North Pole with no ice. This bodes poorly for Santa.

China, coming on like a blockbuster, is changing world economics as vendors change gears to welcome in the world's newest "Mr. Big." A wealthy China, unfettered by the democratic process and red tape have gigantic plans at building an ultra-modern and powerful country.

Hunger will soon replace all other things that kill humans. That's right, all the disease, and old age, and everything else will be replaced by a World starving to death. This has actually been happening slowly for a long time but recent moves have kicked this move into high gear. World relief agencies can't afford the food to feed the hungry. Developing nations are increasingly led by war lords who are not partial to giving food to the masses. Shipping costs, food prices, desertification, changes in weather patterns destroying crops, and use of arable land for biofuels, are all leading to the world's greatest catastrophe, hunger. Hungry people either lay down and die, or create revolutions. We've already seen numerous food riots around the world.

We can't change the weather. Many climatologists are saying that even reducing the greenhouse gases now may be too little too late. Oil, well dependence on oil may just become a thing of the past (see my post on our new foreign energy dependency, uranium) and we'll slowly phase out gas burning cars. Good for China. I hope the most populous country in the World learns from the mistakes of others and follows a different path to affluence. Hunger, as horrible as it sounds, may be the answer to the other H I was thinking of using, Humanity. Our population explosion is killing the planet faster than anything. I read yesterday that to feed the world's growing population the amount of food from agriculture would have to increase an additional 50% beyond current levels. With fish on the decline, species decimation, price of feed for animals on the way up, and so forth, I just don't see that happening, ever. We may in fact never reach that 9 billion mark. We may simply hit the world's carrying capacity like a brick wall, and that will be that. We're already technically beyond the world's carrying capacity. We've artificially inflated it by using chemical fertilizers to increase food production. Not even GMO is likely to increase food production like fertilizer did.

The world has "issues." What do we do when the world is facing its toughest challenges ever? We focus on Mars, killer asteroids, moon landings, better iPods and a rather mixed up attempt to inflict Western culture in the Middle East in what historians may simply call, "The Last Crusade." We're not paying attention. I can tell because the students at UC Berkeley are protecting a grove of trees planted by the University in 1923. They are so overwhelmed by the magnitude of all that's happening the only thing they can think to do is sit in trees.

Well, the forward thinking, early adopters are simply planning to purchase an electric plug-in vehicle to solve the problems of the world. Well, think for a moment what happens in the heat of Summer in places like New York where the cities can barely handle the load of the air conditioners. What happens when people are all plugging their cars in, EVERYWHERE!?! What are we doing to rebuild the nation's electrical infrastructure to handle this new load? It makes switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs feel a bit silly in comparison.

Every day I read scientific news where major breakthroughs in solar technology has improved solar panel efficiencies, allowed panels to be made on plastic instead of silicon wafers and even painted on the side of my house. Where is it? How can I buy it? Well, where I live you can't.

What happens when the world goes solar? Oops, there's a problem. Where I live it is impossible to get a mortgage if the house is off the grid. Hmmm, seems like something needs fixing, like real estate mortgage lending policy. What about when all these cool new electric cars start hitting the roads, how will people charge up when they hit that 100 mile limit and they are out of juice. They can't walk to the electric charging station with a bucket. Why aren't we building this infrastructure?

I can't be the only one that sees all this and more. Wake up. Let's do something.

The green revolution is consumerism repackaged and I'm not buying it. It's like extortion. With rising gas prices my only alternative, they say, is to ditch my gas guzzler and invest in a newer, greener, vehicle. Well, it occurs to me that hybrids are a scam. Hybrid vehicles barely get better gas mileage than some of the older cars in the 1980's when gas scares hit then. Little Datsun vehicles would get 40 MPG. So, do I really have to go out and spend $25,000 to buy a new hybrid that will get me, oh, say, 45 MPG? It doesn't seem like a good deal. The money I'd save in gas each month would not even make a dent in the $600 car payment I'd have to make each month. Nope, the new consumerism is not for me.

I grew up in the fifties, sixties and seventies when there was great outcry about a move toward nuclear power. In fact, after Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, there have been no nuclear reactors built in the United States. That's been thirty years. But that's all about to change.

Because of America's move toward green technologies, and those would be things that don't spew CO2 and other polutants, somehow, the once ugly nuclear power industry seems green and our increasing needs for electricty are driving demands for new reactors. Aside from the fact that we still haven't figured out to do with the nuclear waste from the existing reactors, we face an even bigger problem, uranium.

Most people don't realize this but America's supply or uranium is similar to our supply of oil, not bad, but not enough. In fact, it won't be long until we're pretty much out of domestic uranium. What you didn't read in the headlines this year was a landmark decision to open up uranium trading with Russia. We are going to begin importing uranium from Russia. It will be small amounts at first, gradually increasing to the point where all limits will be off and we'll then be completely reliant on Russia for our power needs. This won't happen until my grandchildren are middle aged, but it appears inevitable.

We are swapping our dependence on foreign oil for a new dependence on uranium. Hopefully, by the time this becomes critical new energy creation will be in place from solar, hydrogen or other forms and we will no longer be tied to our reliance on nuclear energy in the future. While we have visions of cheaper energy in our future, as nuclear energy is cheaper than coal, uranium is going to become more expensive, particularly after 2015.

You've heard of peak oil? How about peak uranium. That points is expected as early as 2015 when the amount of uranium coming from the world's mines begins to decline, as demand is just starting to take off with new nuclear facilities, not only in the US, but in places like China and India which have massive nuclear power plans. It's something we need to pay attention to rather than watching the man behind the curtain, oil.

Perhaps we need to start creating a new vocabulary to develop a better understanding. This change is not for political reasons, like the way climate change replaced global warming, but for just the opposite reasons. How about lets stop our dependence on foreign energy commodities. Uranium is a little harder to track because you can't buy options in uranium like you can oil. So, it's more difficult for anyone not paying close attention to know exactly what the state of uranium mining is and how it's affecting our lives every day.

Most of California is what we might classify as a desert. It was only by diverting water from the Sierra Nevada mountains that the metropolis of Los Angeles was ever able to exist. Once arid grasslands, the great central valley, now a thriving agricultural community, depends entirely on this same water for irrigation. In fact, the water fight has already begun but it's not man vs. man, it's man vs. fish.

This year there will be no salmon fishing in Northern California. The salmon are nearly gone, and why depends on who you ask. Environmental scientists say that it's because too much fresh water is being drained from the Sacramento River delta, causing confusion for spawning salmon. Other say it was a freak 2005 Ocean condition that caused most of the great herd to starve. The 2002 count of 750,000 fish is down to a projected 58,000 expected to make their way up the river this Summer.

This is simply a first look at problems that humans will be contending with in the years to come. Southern California, already experiencing below average rainfall, is devastated every year by larger and larger fires. Of course, this danger will decrease as the amount of burnable plant life slowly decreases in a pattern of desertification.

The real worry is the snow pack in the Sierra Nevadas. If that declines, as predicted, it's all over for California.

You would think that desalinization plants, and yes I know they are power hungry, would be springing up everywhere. How about one next door to the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant?

The outlook for other places throughout the United States isn't so rosy either. Mass migrations of water-seeking Californians will be hard pressed to find other places in the country that aren't already climate-stressed and protective over its limited resources.

Of course water is just the "tip of the iceberg". With less water is less agriculture. Or, if not less, water will become more expensive (supply and demand) and then that ups the cost of food. Food is already taking a hike because of the rising cost of oil. This affects factors from the cost of living of the farmers to more direct costs such as the gas in the farm equipment and trucks that ship it.

I am not projecting a future water problem for California. I am projecting a worsening of the problem that already exists based on the reports of World scientists, that so far, have been pretty conservative in their predictions. If anything, the problem is worsening faster than expected. All of their predictions come with the plea to change our polluting habits today. Yet, even with all our new awareness, and great plans, and green everything, most of the plans are not due to take effect for another five to ten years. And then, many of those plans are simply smoke and mirrors allowing the worst polluters to simply keep poluting while paying for the privilege by buying carbon credits.

So, if you're thinking, "No problem, we've got this under control and everyone's doing the right thing, and we will simply save the day." Wake up.

I want to bring a little reality to this picture. I am not certain of the actual cost, but I can imagine the millions of dollars it will cost to provide actual geological assessments, drilling, then transporting, the oil from this region. It would create jobs. Of course you'll need a pipeline eventually because who wants to drive trucks into Manitoba, or North Dakota for that matter, in the Winter? Economically, that's great news for the 640,000 people living in North Dakota. It's not such a great thing for the environment. But that isn't even the point. 151 million barrels of oil is the equivalent of 17 days of U.S.-only oil consumption. Lets say that since 1995 we've become slicker at recovering oil from shale fields and we double that, we're looking at five weeks of oil.

Now, imagine those same millions of dollars spent to build solar farms in Arizona and Nevada deserts. If I were a betting man I would bet that you could come up with a 17 day equivalent use of oil in the energy that would be created by those farms spending the same amount of money. Here's the thing though. When those 151 million barrels or 300 million barrels or whatever they pull out is gone, it's gone. The entire infrastructure and all those jobs, and the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of North Dakotans are smashed. But, the solar farms would continue kicking out that same 17 days of power, year after year after year. But, solar farms won't employ that many people. The 900,000 people of Arizona and Nevada combined, might be pissed off to see the home of gila monsters and tarantulas marred with the shiny blight of solar farms. If I were the Senators from these two States, I might just have something to say before we start spending all that money to suck the oil out of the North.

I guarantee it's not the usual list you might expect. There are some incredible new energy technologies in the list. As I understand it, some of the devices defy the laws of modern physics as we know it today. Perhaps the Large Hadron Collider will bring us some more answers along those lines later this year.

In the mean time, this is the definitive list to watch if you're interested in more than oil in your future.