What will the world look like in 20 or 30 years? Will standards of living be very different?

[fourikeachairs]

Curious about what people's opinions are on this. Will air travel be much less common for example, do you think?

How are things with food and the global economy going to play out? Or water?

I'm very recently bereaved and it's making me think of my own future a lot, and wondering how things will be in our world. I don't really expect to live a very long life myself because of lots of health issues, but if the global economy gets much harsher in terms of our living conditions I guess my life another decade or so shorter than I was hoping for!

There are a few places I'd really love to travel to if I get the chance. And always thought well there will be time to do that, but if flights become prohibitively expensive over the next ten years or so, maybe travel won't be possible the way it is now.

Anyway, rambling thoughts but would be interested in what others think about where the world is going?

driverless cars.

Western countries having to eat less meat. Or choosing to.

The way it's going there will be no such thing as man or woman. People will just be identifying as whatever takes there fancy and being offended if you don't address them correctly. Freedom of speech will no longer exist.

As for standards of living I suspect there is going to be a much bigger rich vs poor divide. Most of us will be working til we drop dead due to the ever increasing cost of living and I fear the crime rate will get much higher too.

Yes, I definitely eat much less meat than 10 years ago. Which I think is relatively common.

As for standards of living I suspect there is going to be a much bigger rich vs poor divide. Most of us will be working til we drop dead due to the ever increasing cost of living and I fear the crime rate will get much higher too.

I am already concerned about crime. Desperate people will break the law much quicker than comfortable people.

If you're interested you could check out the work of Nate Hagens and The Great Simplification. He explores the future of a world with far less energy, and it's thought provoking stuff.

I agree we will have driverless cars/vans etc. Elderly care will be by computers/robots and people will leave their houses much less

Hopefully a world that's more equitable across the globe. At the moment, even the poorest westerner consumes far more resources than they should.

Hopefully we'll be using energy for essentials rather than luxuries, and will have adjusted to that!

More social media nonsense, entitlement, attention-seeking, idiocy, crap, bollocks, rubbish ... with any luck I will be gone within 30 years <lights a fag and hopes>.

I’m not sure what the point is of these type of posts, it was the same during covid with people saying all sorts of things about what was likely to happen.
There’s lots of info out there about what is happening in the world and the potential consequences, I’d do some research rather than asking on here and getting answers that may not be based on anything or people coming along scaremongering.

I believe that there will be more travel in the future & more leisure time

People wanting to experience zero gravity in space

Hotels in space

Hotels under the sea

Hyperlink travel from one part of the world to another much quicker than today

Also more companies offering off grid retreats away from all technology. Perhaps whole towns or islands that are off grid.

More holidays where there is involvement with the environment like; tree planting, coral colonisation, repairing pathways, counting animals & plants

There are always people that want to travel, myself included

I believe that there will be more travel in the future & more leisure time

This sounds beautiful! In fact your whole post does and I hope it's true. But do you not think there will be any issue over resources?

You have a choice not to engage with posts that make you scared or uncomfortable. Totally down to you.

Doesn’t make me uncomfortable or scared but their are people who read certain posts and it does do both those things. Some people come along and just like to post things for a reaction and it causes upset to people.
I was also pointing out there are better ways to find out what’s happening in the world and the potential consequences out there.
I hope you get something out of the thread but I’ve said my thoughts and will not be posting again.

As the places to live in the world become less due to the climate, earthquakes etc etc we will have more people moving to more habitable areas.

More apartments less houses as we will all need to accommodate extra people in less space.

Less meat being available as it will take away space for housing.

More gm food and lab created meat.

More viruses like Corona as we encroach more and more on rainforests etc.

People having smaller families due to the above.

Alcohol and smoking being banned.

Everyone wants to have a Western standard of living. But the world can’t sustain that. It can’t even sustain that standard of living for the people in the West who currently have it.

The future of climate change isn’t going to be influenced by a few million people in the UK who make the effort to recycle and bike instead of driving. It’s going to be influenced by billions of people in Asia and South America, who don’t give a shiny shit about climate. Because they’re poor, and they don’t want to stay poor. They want to be prosperous and they want their children to be prosperous. Give them the choice between consuming more and killing the planet, or staying poor and not consuming to save the planet - they will pick prosperity every time. Even if it destroys the Earth.

The only way we can win this war to stop climate change is to figure out a way to provide clean energy and Western living standards for everyone in a sustainable way. And if we don’t win the war, then the climate won’t be even half of our problems - because millions if not billions of people will flood out of regions that have become too hot or sunk underwater, and this tide of refugees will submerge the countries which are still habitable.

They’ll be more cyber crime type control and attacks, and as we become less paper driven and more computer driven it’ll create huge problems. But I also like to think people will become more holistic and mindfulness will increase in how people live. I also believe (hope) people will look back and High Street type communities will increase.

World population is projected to grow to around 9.8bn by 2050, so we will have more people on the planet. But climate crises will start to render larger areas uninhabitable and infertile (for food production). I think we're likely to start seeing mass movement of people, driven by climate crises, in the next couple of decades.

In the UK, the gap between rich and poor has been widening for a couple of decades now, and there are no signs of that trend reversing.

Everyone wants to have a Western standard of living. But the world can’t sustain that. It can’t even sustain that standard of living for the people in the West who currently have it.

This is it in a nutshell. Standards of living have to decline, because the planet cannot sustain current levels of consumption, let alone the increases that will come as more nations develop.

This. Between rising sea levels and increasing forest fires and heatwaves, there's going to be a lot more people competing for a lot fewer resources. Disputes over water are already happening in the Western US - I imagine water wars will be a thing in the not-too-distant future.

I think we're likely to start seeing mass movement of people, driven by climate crises, in the next couple of decades.

Yes, I have read this, and that the movement is happening already. But find it difficult to know exactly what that means or what it will look like, as most of us are cushioned from the reality in the west unless we have family or friends who are affected.

Aware I am lucky that this is an abstract thought for me, at this point in time. But surely, mass movement will very quickly lead to widespread political unrest in countries that are currently 'safe', because there will be disagreement as to how the borders are kept?

I just can't imagine what that will look like. Note that I'm not disbelieving it is likely to happen. Unless we can come up with a better solution that can provide enough resources for everyone. What is the best hope?

You’ll all be living in ghettos of your own making.

In three words, hot, overcrowded and unbearable.

I wish more attention was paid to overpopulation. It's virtually taboo. But it's at the heart of so many of our problems. In 1900, there were just over a billion humans on Earth. By 1960 that had trebled to three billion. By 2000 it was six billion. It's now eight billion. And then people wonder why the rainforests are disappearing and fish stocks are dwindling! There is a cure for poverty. It has been tried all over the world, and it always works. It's called family planning. It's also the quickest way to improve the conditions of women.

Over the next 20 or 30 years, two things are going to combine to cause utter chaos: climate change and overpopulation. Africa has the highest birth rate in the world (five children on average). In fact, its birth rate is so high their population is going to double by 2050. When climate change gets worse, that booming young population will head north for Europe, crossing the Mediterranean and landing in Italy, Spain, Greece, etc.

Then there will be rows within the EU. The Mediterranean countries will accuse Germany and Poland of not taking their share. Maybe one of them will elect a party that promises to close its borders and withdraw from the EU. Problem is, there will be no resolution. Governments will come up with all kinds of schemes and policies, but they'll be meaningless when half a million people have landed and another five million are camped along the shores of north Africa, and another twenty million are crossing the Sahara.

Where will you be living, out of curiosity?

I’m guessing that a billion or two people will be on the move due to climate change.
Perhaps a few million each year will come to the UK.