https://www.scenariothinking.org/api.php?action=feedcontributions&user=Swe&feedformat=atomScenarioThinking - User contributions [en]2024-03-28T17:40:59ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.37.0https://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_4:_100,000_Flowers&diff=23037Ci'Num scenario 4: 100,000 Flowers2007-12-16T23:30:17Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Markets'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
A combination of widespread innovation and bottom-up initiatives at local and global scales produces significant changes in energy consumption and production patterns: decentralized energy systems, substitution of products by services, innovative materials in everything from building to clothing to transportation, "cradle-to-cradle" product design, etc. Consumers strongly reward eco-friendly corporations and punish the others, helped by evaluation tools as well as by private and public labeling mechanisms. Networks become the primary infrastructure, and the non-material component of economies becomes the main source of wealth, trade and growth. Markets and co-operative initiatives compete in achieving desirable goals for all. Global initiatives are mainly directed towards free trade and open markets; powerful, pervasive and mostly free communication networks; and education, whose role and process change deeply. Individuals and groups form the fabric of society, lowering levels of solidarity between groups or with disenfranchised individuals. Armed conflicts decrease while global crime becomes a major, almost recognized force. Diversity and autonomy are primary values at the expense of more common values. Technology developments are targeted at human enhancement, peer-to-peer communications, and empowerment. Crises and catastrophes are more difficult to manage but their occurrence does not destabilize the overall system.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario4_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
<br />
"Choke Beijing or choke in Beijing!" That was the initial slogan of the massive, grassroots boycott against the Beijing Olympics which, from the beginning of 2008, spread via the Internet through most of the post-industrial world. China, they claimed, had no respect for human or workers rights; it was dumping its way into others people's jobs; it supported dictatorships in order to secure oil; and it was becoming the biggest CO2 emitter in the world… <br />
<br />
Apparently, the protest had little effect. Only two minor countries officially joined the boycott. The media were there, although its reporters had instructions to look slightly beyond the stadiums. Few large advertisers withdrew their support, and these were quickly replaced by others.<br />
<br />
The show went on, unaware that something deeper had begun.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Incredulity==<br />
<br />
The trouble surrounding the Beijing Olympics illustrated a growing feeling that something was very, very wrong with the world's environment, and that politics and economics were responsible for it. China was only a scapegoat, albeit a large one. When bloggers, followed by the media, pieced the information together, a series of aberrant climate events throughout the globe began to make sense: Saharan heat and drought in Eastern Europe, tropical rains in Britain, roofs around the Gulf of Mexico were blown off by hurricane after hurricane… And the sharp rise in gasoline and electricity prices was taking a toll on everyone's wallet.<br />
<br />
This (and Iraq) was enough to carry a reborn-environmentalist and progressive into the White House in the beginning of 2009. There was hope. Leadership in the U.S., France and Germany, joined by a growing number of prominent corporate leaders, were all focused on the environment. But it quickly became clear that they could not deliver. When tough decisions had to be made, such as taxing polluting activities - intensive agriculture, car use and the like - they showed neither support nor courage. Nobody was ready to make sacrifices for unclear returns and without the assurance of commitment by other communities throughout the world to the same level of effort.<br />
<br />
Sure, funding for environment-oriented R&D - whatever that covered - was more than doubled; and some symbolic projects were launched, such as Toronto's solar farms. But one of the most visible projects, the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games which were touted as the world's first "green games", was quickly exposed as pure "green washing": polluting activity was simply outsourced elsewhere, fuel-powered vehicles were replaced by cars powered by fuel-plant generated electricity, most locals were forbidden to use their cars during the event, etc.<br />
<br />
To cap it all, 2011 saw the majority of emerging countries leave the fledgling "Kyoto II" talks, complaining (with some reason) that post-industrial countries were in fact denying them the right to grow in order to protect their own standards of living.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists, as well as a large part of the public (especially in the North) watched with disbelief as political institutions and large corporations proved unable to stir the world into an even slightly different direction, despite their best intentions. Incredulity grew when scientists in labs and startups started showing significant results in many areas: nanotech crystals for efficient, flexible and cheap solar panels, small-size and safe nuclear plants, cheaper and safer (although neither cheap nor safe yet) hydrogen production and storage, efficient and versatile isolating materials and fabrics, recyclable oil-free plastics, high-yield and low-input genetically modified crops…<br />
<br />
It seems that we ''knew'' how to make the world more sustainable. So, why did we not ''do'' it? And without ever deciding, people started to do it themselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Reboot==<br />
<br />
Blogs and other websites and Internet-based networks triggered the change. Some, perhaps most, initially focused on the most satisfying task: exposing the bad "eco-practice" of others, especially that of corporations or celebrities (XposeThem.org), denouncing SUV drivers by name (SUVthepla.net), etc. Others were sharing advice, best personal practices, practical and consumer tips for "greasy" (green and easy) living.<br />
<br />
Then, an Italian startup created a cute, portable and easy-to-use "Ecogotchis", small, fun personal carbon-footprint calculators that impersonated various animals which choked if you drove, flew or heated your swimming pool too much. These and their many variants - since the design was deliberately open-source - sold by the millions. Thousands of compatible websites recorded Ecogotchi profiles and provided advice and simulations, forums, networking between like-minded owners, etc. Other entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to offer individuals, families and organizations clever and useful ways to reduce their carbon footprint (with instant automated Ecogotchi update): local carbon offset markets in the form of money or community services, open car-sharing mechanisms that paid those who (even very occasionally) took someone else in their car, jobs and places for pooling and sorting recyclable materials…<br />
<br />
All this was nice, although very First World and very middle class. It certainly did not change the situation in China, the Middle East or the Parisian suburbs very much. But it slowly changed public spirit. This was most apparent after the deadly bombings that killed 4000 people at the 2012 London Olympics. Public opinion resoundingly rejected the new batch of security measures which their governments tried to enforce; particularly those that would restrict travel or impose strong controls on the Internet. And things quickly went back to normal, except for the fact that several innovative companies came up with novel ways of organizing teleconferences or virtual workspaces, and to teleparticipate in public events, etc.<br />
<br />
The network that Ecogotchists and others had formed spanned the globe and included more than a hundred million individuals and organisations. It soon found other uses. After massive floods in Bangladesh killed or displaced millions of people, and while governments and international aid agencies were trying to find the money to act in a serious way, a series of grassroots solidarity initiatives on the Net began collecting money, medicines, blankets, food, mobile communicators as well as organizing missions for physicians, technicians, construction workers and teachers. Sure, some of these initiatives were so amateurish that they sometimes made the situation on the ground worse rather than better, and a few others were scams. But it happened, it helped, and people felt rightly proud about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Invention==<br />
<br />
Some of the technologies that were still in the labs in 2010 started hitting the market near 2015. In affluent suburbs, people proudly lined their roofs with stick-them-up solar coatings, wore intelligent fabric T-shirts in their insulated interiors during winter, and boasted about how few things they owned, renting them or hiring specialized help as needed. The cleverest corporations hired the best and most innovative designers to make sustainable living not only "right", but also pleasant, and an object of pride. Recycling centres became destinations; and products would recycle themselves into useful or funny trinkets. "SharedOne" beacons would broadcast the shareable status of any object, from cars to drilling machines, and families would rate each other by how much they shared.<br />
<br />
Innovation was the name of the game. There were several ways of going about it as a company. You could become rich and loathed by coating your innovation with a shiny armour of patents, as BP did with its PersonalHydrogen (TM) system; or you could be loved and not-so-rich by publishing your designs as open-source. A few people managed to be both loved and rich at the same time but eventually, the vast majority would end up one way or the other.<br />
<br />
This was a time when thousands of innovative new products and services were marketed every month, often with good chances of success. People were eager for a "cool & good" novelty, "good" meaning demonstrably beneficial to the environment and to oneself. Biotech firms started selling personal enhancement drugs such as memory, sense or stamina extension, as well as others that would colour your skin or eyes, or make them glow in the dark while improving night vision.<br />
<br />
The great thing about these drugs was that their effects were reversible - or at least, that was the idea. The intense focus on innovation also resulted in an excessive rush to market untested products. In some cases, this resulted in death or permanent injury for thousands of initial users. However, in general, consumer networks and forums quickly revealed product flaws, forced recalls and compensations, and if needed, exposed irresponsible firms to the wrath of their readers. <br />
<br />
Whether in the proprietary or in the open-source universe, however, most innovation happened in a networked way. People tested something very close to their prototype product; others would improve or copy, while still others adapted it to other uses. Networks, both technical and human, became a crucial resource, and Internet neutrality - encompassing by then almost all wired and wireless networks - became a constitutional provision in several countries. Innovation angels, microcredit, local exchange systems and even local currencies, such as Linden dollars or Berliners, flourished and established de facto exchange rates ''via'' internet exchanges. Borders, that would otherwise be closed, easily opened for individuals with ideas, capital or good connections.<br />
<br />
After a slow start in late 2007, the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative, since then renamed "One Communicator Per Child" (OCPC), slowly made progress. By 2018, when the 400 millionth machine was handed to a child in Botswana, it became clear that, in those countries that had not resisted its western-democracy, constructivist-education slant, OCPC was making a difference. A new class of entrepreneurs, citizens and consumers was emerging in the developing world. They were self-taught by working with the machine and with others as much as they had been taught by teachers who lacked sufficient training and resourcs; and they were reasonably fluent in English since local OCPC translations were poor and unable to keep up with the new applications. Sharing a common culture, they were quickly integrated into the global innovation and discussion networks.<br />
<br />
This in turn contributed to faster but still inequitable development in several countries. Birth rates started to decrease slowly. Literacy soared. CO2 emissions were limited by foreign assistance that came with strict conditions, and by customers around the world who could easily check on how the goods they saw in stores were produced. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Self-regulation==<br />
<br />
By 2025, it was estimated that although governments had taken few successful initiatives, CO2 emissions were 30% below their 2010 levels and that the decrease in emissions was accelerating. <br />
<br />
Many people felt that the dynamics that allowed such sweeping changes to take place in the world's production model should also happen elsewhere. Public education systems were slowly deserted in favour of private schools, P2P schools, networked schools, "de-schools" and other means of education. Public transportation systems became at most an information hub and a network of subway tunnels, whereas vehicles, lines, ticketing, etc. were handled by competing companies. Health systems split into myriad of community or specialized schemes and insurance policies. Full retirement pensions almost stopped being an option: only the weakest and the sickest elderly persons could expect support from the large central pension systems. Others have to look for sources elsewhere.<br />
<br />
After a series of dramatic incidents with insufficiently tested products, "Eco-labels" that had flourished since 2008 became "Safer Eco-labels". The tacking of labels to an entity or a product was supposed to be preceded by a more or less thorough evaluation of its environmental soundness, work conditions, and user safety. Not all of the labels themselves were safe, since they were run by private companies which competed for the business. But in general, with help from consumer networks, media and - in the last resort - governments, the system worked.<br />
<br />
In the summer of 2023, a series of dirty nuke and bioterrorist attacks on 4 continents sent a clear message that innovation had also put new, cheap and efficient means of destruction into the hands of groups who either resented the world's changes, or simply wanted to take advantage of it. An intense world chase, involving law enforcement agencies and savvy netheads, quickly unveiled a network of post-terrorist and mafia groups. It soon became clear that, in a world where everything was in constant flux and control mechanisms were foolproof for no more than a week, such groups multiplied and grew. It became evident in some cases, that they even shared training facilities (and maybe more) with some of the private security agencies to which law enforcement had been outsourced in a majority of states and cities. Although they created stronger independent evaluation bodies, governments were no longer in a position to run large police forces by themselves again.<br />
<br />
On a local level, the regulation of most of the urban space was privatized or transferred to communities. This sometimes led to the emergence of barriers or inner-city borders, especially between affluent and poorer communities. Most non-privatized public spaces and services fell into disrepair, sometimes to be replaced by innovative commercial or grassroots substitutes, sometimes not.<br />
<br />
Those who were weak, illiterate, chronically sick, or just plain contemplative found life in such a world increasingly difficult. The most mundane transaction required a choice between dozens of providers, channels and pricing options. You could rarely expect any solidarity mechanism to work for you unless your community decided that you needed to be helped, and – apart from assuming that you ''had'' a community to go to – it came at a price. A number of religious or traditionalist communities thrived by welcoming those who felt ill-at-ease in a world without any fixed reference points.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Acceleration==<br />
<br />
FabLabs - small scale automated workshops capable of manufacturing almost any household or lifestyle product, even some smarter versions, after simply downloading the models - started populating mom & pop stores throughout the world in the 2020s, and by 2028, began to be sold in homes. Among the largest manufacturers, several had failed to adapt and thus went down or were forced to sell themselves at a bargain. Philips and Intel were this year's main casualties.<br />
<br />
Having privatized many of the services they used to run, and with other public services in disarray for lack of funding and/or users, traditional governments undertook drastic reforms. Their role was mostly focused on ensuring the transparency and loyalty of markets and the performance and neutrality of all networks, and the supervision of the labeling industry. They were often in charge of law enforcement and disaster recovery, and more rarely, of education. The intense scrutiny by citizen networks effectively prevented them from extending their role again, or from thinking long-term. Some governments also reinvented themselves as forums for public discussion and collective decision-making while in other places, other mechanisms were considered to be of better service. As supervisors of the "Safer eco-labels" and other labeling activities, governments also determined which of the most challenging human alterations were the purview of labelled firms: Cloning, gene editing, high-level augmentations…<br />
<br />
With public and private funding, the UN was at last tasked with helping to bring Least Advanced Countries into the loop through networking, education and market opening. It was about time. While most of the world thrived, whole countries and entire population groups - even in the richest of countries - were kept or fell into abject poverty. Lagos, Kinshasa, Mexico City and large areas of Los Angeles were under almost official mafia rule. Yet most citizens did not complain: it was unwise to do so and in daily life, any governance was better than none.<br />
<br />
<center>'''*'''<br />
<br />
''' * *'''</center><br />
<br />
By 2030, the world remained animated by a frenzy of innovation with some generally efficient checks and balances to ensure that this frenzied drive did not run amok over too many people. Global warming was happening as planned, and although it was growing fast, the economy was no longer making it worse. Alternative energy sources had reduced the demand on fossil fuels, which had grown decidedly unpopular (and fairly expensive). Water remained a problem, but most countries dealt with it by privatizing their sources, and for those who had the money, it made for more rational use of a resource that had become reasonably expensive.<br />
<br />
Affluent people were now looking at ways to benefit from this world by living much longer, looking much better, improving their mental and physical abilities in significant degrees and breeding the cleverest, most beautiful and healthiest babies available. They also tested amazingly powerful and (supposedly) harmless psychedelic hallucinogens. Education, affluence and working women were bringing down birthrates, although the impact of China's de facto elimination of its one-child policy was slowly bringing world population to an impressive total of 9 billion. Overall, it was a pleasant world. If you could afford it.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_4:_100,000_Flowers&diff=23036Ci'Num scenario 4: 100,000 Flowers2007-12-16T23:10:47Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Markets'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
A combination of widespread innovation and bottom-up initiatives at local and global scales produces significant changes in energy consumption and production patterns: decentralized energy systems, substitution of products by services, innovative materials in everything from building to clothing to transportation, "cradle-to-cradle" product design, etc. Consumers strongly reward eco-friendly corporations and punish the others, helped by evaluation tools as well as by private and public labeling mechanisms. Networks become the primary infrastructure, and the non-material component of economies becomes the main source of wealth, trade and growth. Markets and co-operative initiatives compete in achieving desirable goals for all. Global initiatives are mainly directed towards free trade and open markets; powerful, pervasive and mostly free communication networks; and education, whose role and process change deeply. Individuals and groups form the fabric of society, lowering levels of solidarity between groups or with disenfranchised individuals. Armed conflicts decrease while global crime becomes a major, almost recognized force. Diversity and autonomy are primary values at the expense of more common values. Technology developments are targeted at human enhancement, peer-to-peer communications, and empowerment. Crises and catastrophes are more difficult to manage but their occurrence does not destabilize the overall system.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario4_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
<br />
"Choke Beijing or choke in Beijing!" That was the initial slogan of the massive, grassroots boycott against the Beijing Olympics which, from the beginning of 2008, spread via the Internet through most of the post-industrial world. China, they claimed, had no respect for human or workers rights; it was dumping its way into others people's jobs; it supported dictatorships in order to secure oil; and it was becoming the biggest CO2 emitter in the world… <br />
<br />
Apparently, the protest had little effect. Only two minor countries officially joined the boycott. The media were there, although its reporters had instructions to look slightly beyond the stadiums. Few large advertisers withdrew their support, and these were quickly replaced by others.<br />
<br />
The show went on, unaware that something deeper had begun.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Incredulity==<br />
<br />
The trouble surrounding the Beijing Olympics illustrated a growing feeling that something was very, very wrong with the world's environment, and that politics and economics were responsible for it. China was only a scapegoat, albeit a large one. When bloggers, followed by the media, pieced the information together, a series of aberrant climate events throughout the globe began to make sense: Saharan heat and drought in Eastern Europe, tropical rains in Britain, roofs around the Gulf of Mexico were blown off by hurricane after hurricane… And the sharp rise in gasoline and electricity prices was taking a toll on everyone's wallet.<br />
<br />
This (and Iraq) was enough to carry a reborn-environmentalist and progressive into the White House in the beginning of 2009. There was hope. Leadership in the U.S., France and Germany, joined by a growing number of prominent corporate leaders, were all focused on the environment. But it quickly became clear that they could not deliver. When tough decisions had to be made, such as taxing polluting activities - intensive agriculture, car use and the like - they showed neither support nor courage. Nobody was ready to make sacrifices for unclear returns and without the assurance of commitment by other communities throughout the world to the same level of effort.<br />
<br />
Sure, funding for environment-oriented R&D - whatever that covered - was more than doubled; and some symbolic projects were launched, such as Toronto's solar farms. But one of the most visible projects, the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games which were touted as the world's first "green games", was quickly exposed as pure "green washing": polluting activity was simply outsourced elsewhere, fuel-powered vehicles were replaced by cars powered by fuel-plant generated electricity, most locals were forbidden to use their cars during the event, etc.<br />
<br />
To cap it all, 2011 saw the majority of emerging countries leave the fledgling "Kyoto II" talks, complaining (with some reason) that post-industrial countries were in fact denying them the right to grow in order to protect their own standards of living.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists, as well as a large part of the public (especially in the North) watched with disbelief as political institutions and large corporations proved unable to stir the world into an even slightly different direction, despite their best intentions. Incredulity grew when scientists in labs and startups started showing significant results in many areas: nanotech crystals for efficient, flexible and cheap solar panels, small-size and safe nuclear plants, cheaper and safer (although neither cheap nor safe yet) hydrogen production and storage, efficient and versatile isolating materials and fabrics, recyclable oil-free plastics, high-yield and low-input genetically modified crops…<br />
<br />
It seems that we ''knew'' how to make the world more sustainable. So, why did we not ''do'' it? And without ever deciding, people started to do it themselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Reboot==<br />
<br />
Blogs and other websites and Internet-based networks triggered the change. Some, perhaps most, initially focused on the most satisfying task: exposing the bad "eco-practice" of others, especially that of corporations or celebrities (XposeThem.org), denouncing SUV drivers by name (SUVthepla.net), etc. Others were sharing advice, best personal practices, practical and consumer tips for "greasy" (green and easy) living.<br />
<br />
Then, an Italian startup created a cute, portable and easy-to-use "Ecogotchis", small, fun personal carbon-footprint calculators that impersonated various animals which choked if you drove, flew or heated your swimming pool too much. These and their many variants - since the design was deliberately open-source - sold by the millions. Thousands of compatible websites recorded Ecogotchi profiles and provided advice and simulations, forums, networking between like-minded owners, etc. Other entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to offer individuals, families and organizations clever and useful ways to reduce their carbon footprint (with instant automated Ecogotchi update): local carbon offset markets in the form of money or community services, open car-sharing mechanisms that paid those who (even very occasionally) took someone else in their car, jobs and places for pooling and sorting recyclable materials…<br />
<br />
All this was nice, although very First World and very middle class. It certainly did not change the situation in China, the Middle East or the Parisian suburbs very much. But it slowly changed public spirit. This was most apparent after the deadly bombings that killed 4000 people at the 2012 London Olympics. Public opinion resoundingly rejected the new batch of security measures which their governments tried to enforce; particularly those that would restrict travel or impose strong controls on the Internet. And things quickly went back to normal, except for the fact that several innovative companies came up with novel ways of organizing teleconferences or virtual workspaces, and to teleparticipate in public events, etc.<br />
<br />
The network that Ecogotchists and others had formed spanned the globe and included more than a hundred million individuals and organisations. It soon found other uses. After massive floods in Bangladesh killed or displaced millions of people, and while governments and international aid agencies were trying to find the money to act in a serious way, a series of grassroots solidarity initiatives on the Net began collecting money, medicines, blankets, food, mobile communicators as well as organizing missions for physicians, technicians, construction workers and teachers. Sure, some of these initiatives were so amateurish that they sometimes made the situation on the ground worse rather than better, and a few others were scams. But it happened, it helped, and people felt rightly proud about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Invention==<br />
<br />
Some of the technologies that were still in the labs in 2010 started hitting the market near 2015. In affluent suburbs, people proudly lined their roofs with stick-them-up solar coatings, wore intelligent fabric T-shirts in their insulated interiors during winter, and boasted about how few things they owned, renting them or hiring specialized help as needed. The cleverest corporations hired the best and most innovative designers to make sustainable living not only "right", but also pleasant, and an object of pride. Recycling centres became destinations; and products would recycle themselves into useful or funny trinkets. "SharedOne" beacons would broadcast the shareable status of any object, from cars to drilling machines, and families would rate each other by how much they shared.<br />
<br />
Innovation was the name of the game. There were several ways of going about it as a company. You could become rich and loathed by coating your innovation with a shiny armour of patents, as BP did with its PersonalHydrogen (TM) system; or you could be loved and not-so-rich by publishing your designs as open-source. A few people managed to be both loved and rich at the same time but eventually, the vast majority would end up one way or the other.<br />
<br />
This was a time when thousands of innovative new products and services were marketed every month, often with good chances of success. People were eager for a "cool & good" novelty, "good" meaning demonstrably beneficial to the environment and to oneself. Biotech firms started selling personal enhancement drugs such as memory, sense or stamina extension, as well as others that would colour your skin or eyes, or make them glow in the dark while improving night vision.<br />
<br />
The great thing about these drugs was that their effects were reversible - or at least, that was the idea. The intense focus on innovation also resulted in an excessive rush to market untested products. In some cases, this resulted in death or permanent injury for thousands of initial users. However, in general, consumer networks and forums quickly revealed product flaws, forced recalls and compensations, and if needed, exposed irresponsible firms to the wrath of their readers. <br />
<br />
Whether in the proprietary or in the open-source universe, however, most innovation happened in a networked way. People tested something very close to their prototype product; others would improve or copy, while still others adapted it to other uses. Networks, both technical and human, became a crucial resource, and Internet neutrality - encompassing by then almost all wired and wireless networks - became a constitutional provision in several countries. Innovation angels, microcredit, local exchange systems and even local currencies, such as Linden dollars or Berliners, flourished and established de facto exchange rates ''via'' internet exchanges. Borders, that would otherwise be closed, easily opened for individuals with ideas, capital or good connections.<br />
<br />
After a slow start in late 2007, the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative, since then renamed "One Communicator Per Child" (OCPC), slowly made progress. By 2018, when the 400 millionth machine was handed to a child in Botswana, it became clear that, in those countries that had not resisted its western-democracy, constructivist-education slant, OCPC was making a difference. A new class of entrepreneurs, citizens and consumers was emerging in the developing world. They were self-taught by working with the machine and with others as much as they had been taught by teachers who lacked sufficient training and resourcs; and they were reasonably fluent in English since local OCPC translations were poor and unable to keep up with the new applications. Sharing a common culture, they were quickly integrated into the global innovation and discussion networks.<br />
<br />
This in turn contributed to faster but still inequitable development in several countries. Birth rates started to decrease slowly. Literacy soared. CO2 emissions were limited by foreign assistance that came with strict conditions, and by customers around the world who could easily check on how the goods they saw in stores were produced. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Self-regulation==<br />
<br />
By 2025, it was estimated that although governments had taken few successful initiatives, CO2 emissions were 30% below their 2010 levels and that the decrease in emissions was accelerating. <br />
<br />
Many people felt that the dynamics that allowed such sweeping changes to take place in the world's production model should also happen elsewhere. Public education systems were slowly deserted in favour of private schools, P2P schools, networked schools, "de-schools" and other means of education. Public transportation systems became at most an information hub and a network of subway tunnels, whereas vehicles, lines, ticketing, etc. were handled by competing companies. Health systems split into myriad of community or specialized schemes and insurance policies. Full retirement pensions almost stopped being an option: only the weakest and the sickest elderly persons could expect support from the large central pension systems. Others have to look for sources elsewhere.<br />
<br />
After a series of dramatic incidents with insufficiently tested products, "Eco-labels" that had flourished since 2008 became "Safer Eco-labels". The tacking of labels to an entity or a product was supposed to be preceded by a more or less thorough evaluation of its environmental soundness, work conditions, and user safety. Not all of the labels themselves were safe, since they were run by private companies which competed for the business. But in general, with help from consumer networks, media and - in the last resort - governments, the system worked.<br />
<br />
In the summer of 2023, a series of dirty nuke and bioterrorist attacks on 4 continents sent a clear message that innovation had also put new, cheap and efficient means of destruction into the hands of groups who either resented the world's changes, or simply wanted to take advantage of it. An intense world chase, involving law enforcement agencies and savvy netheads, quickly unveiled a network of post-terrorist and mafia groups. It soon became clear that, in a world where everything was in constant flux and control mechanisms were foolproof for no more than a week, such groups multiplied and grew. It became evident in some cases, that they even shared training facilities (and maybe more) with some of the private security agencies to which law enforcement had been outsourced in a majority of states and cities. Although they created stronger independent evaluation bodies, governments were no longer in a position to run large police forces by themselves again.<br />
<br />
On a local level, the regulation of most of the urban space was privatized or transferred to communities. This sometimes led to the emergence of barriers or inner-city borders, especially between affluent and poorer communities. Most non-privatized public spaces and services fell into disrepair, sometimes to be replaced by innovative commercial or grassroots substitutes, sometimes not.<br />
<br />
Those who were weak, illiterate, chronically sick, or just plain contemplative found life in such a world increasingly difficult. The most mundane transaction required a choice between dozens of providers, channels and pricing options. You could rarely expect any solidarity mechanism to work for you unless your community decided that you needed to be helped, and – apart from assuming that you ''had'' a community to go to – it came at a price. A number of religious or traditionalist communities thrived by welcoming those who felt ill-at-ease in a world without any fixed reference points.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Acceleration==<br />
<br />
FabLabs - small scale automated workshops capable of manufacturing almost any household or lifestyle product, even some smarter versions, after simply downloading the models - started populating mom & pop stores throughout the world in the 2020s, and by 2028, began to be sold in homes. Among the largest manufacturers, several had failed to adapt and thus went down or were forced to sell themselves at a bargain. Philips and Intel were this year's main casualties.<br />
<br />
Having privatized many of the services they used to run, and with other public services in disarray for lack of funding and/or users, traditional governments undertook drastic reforms. Their role was mostly focused on ensuring the transparency and the loyalty of markets and the performance and neutrality of all networks, and the supervision ing the labelling industry. They were often in charge of law enforcement and disaster recovery and more rarely, of education. The intense scrutiny they were subjected to by citizen networks effectively prevented them from extending their role again, or from thinking long-term. Some governments also reinvented themselves as forums for public discussion and collective decision-making, whereas in other places, it was considered there were better mechanisms to do that.<br />
<br />
As supervisors of the "Safer eco-labels" and other labelling activities, governments would also determine which of the most challenging human alterations could only be provided by labelled firms: Cloning, gene editing, high-level augmentations…<br />
<br />
With public and private money, the UN was at last tasked with helping bring Least Advanced Countries into the loop through networking, education and market opening. It was about time. While most of the world thrived, whole countries, but also whole population groups even if the richest of countries, were kept or even fell into abject poverty. Lagos, Kinshasa, Mexico City and whole parts of Los Angeles were under almost official mafia rule. Yet most citizens did not complain, both because it was unwise to do so and because in daily life, any governance was better than no governance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''*'''<br />
<br />
''' * *'''</center><br />
<br />
By 2030, the world was still in a frenzy of innovation, with some generally efficient checks and balances trying to make sure this mad ride did not run over too many people. Global warming was happening as planned, but although it was growing fast, the economy was no longer making it worse. Alternative energy sources had reduced the demand on fossil fuels, which had grown decidedly unpopular (and fairly expensive). Water was still a problem, but most countries dealt with it by privatizing their sources and for those who had the money, it made for more rational use of a resource become reasonably expensive.<br />
<br />
Affluent people were now looking at ways to benefit from this world by living much longer, looking much better, improving their mental and physical abilities in significant degrees and breeding the cleverest, most beautiful and healthiest babies available – while also testing amazingly powerful and (supposedly) harmless psychedelic hallucinogens. Education, affluence and women employment was bringing down birthrates, although the impact of China's de facto abandon of its One-child policy was slowly bringing world population to an impressive 9 billions. Overall, it was a pleasant world. If you could afford it.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_4:_100,000_Flowers&diff=23035Ci'Num scenario 4: 100,000 Flowers2007-12-16T22:42:04Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Markets'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
A combination of widespread innovation and bottom-up initiatives at local and global scales produces significant changes in energy consumption and production patterns: decentralized energy systems, substitution of products by services, innovative materials in everything from building to clothing to transportation, "cradle-to-cradle" product design, etc. Consumers strongly reward eco-friendly corporations and punish the others, helped by evaluation tools as well as by private and public labeling mechanisms. Networks become the primary infrastructure, and the non-material component of economies becomes the main source of wealth, trade and growth. Markets and co-operative initiatives compete in achieving desirable goals for all. Global initiatives are mainly directed towards free trade and open markets; powerful, pervasive and mostly free communication networks; and education, whose role and process change deeply. Individuals and groups form the fabric of society, lowering levels of solidarity between groups or with disenfranchised individuals. Armed conflicts decrease while global crime becomes a major, almost recognized force. Diversity and autonomy are primary values at the expense of more common values. Technology developments are targeted at human enhancement, peer-to-peer communications, and empowerment. Crises and catastrophes are more difficult to manage but their occurrence does not destabilize the overall system.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario4_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
<br />
"Choke Beijing or choke in Beijing!" That was the initial slogan of the massive, grassroots boycott against the Beijing Olympics which, from the beginning of 2008, spread via the Internet through most of the post-industrial world. China, they claimed, had no respect for human or workers rights; it was dumping its way into others people's jobs; it supported dictatorships in order to secure oil; and it was becoming the biggest CO2 emitter in the world… <br />
<br />
Apparently, the protest had little effect. Only two minor countries officially joined the boycott. The media were there, although its reporters had instructions to look slightly beyond the stadiums. Few large advertisers withdrew their support, and these were quickly replaced by others.<br />
<br />
The show went on, unaware that something deeper had begun.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Incredulity==<br />
<br />
The trouble surrounding the Beijing Olympics illustrated a growing feeling that something was very, very wrong with the world's environment, and that politics and economics were responsible for it. China was only a scapegoat, albeit a large one. When bloggers, followed by the media, pieced the information together, a series of aberrant climate events throughout the globe began to make sense: Saharan heat and drought in Eastern Europe, tropical rains in Britain, roofs around the Gulf of Mexico were blown off by hurricane after hurricane… And the sharp rise in gasoline and electricity prices was taking a toll on everyone's wallet.<br />
<br />
This (and Iraq) was enough to carry a reborn-environmentalist and progressive into the White House in the beginning of 2009. There was hope. Leadership in the U.S., France and Germany, joined by a growing number of prominent corporate leaders, were all focused on the environment. But it quickly became clear that they could not deliver. When tough decisions had to be made, such as taxing polluting activities - intensive agriculture, car use and the like - they showed neither support nor courage. Nobody was ready to make sacrifices for unclear returns and without the assurance of commitment by other communities throughout the world to the same level of effort.<br />
<br />
Sure, funding for environment-oriented R&D - whatever that covered - was more than doubled; and some symbolic projects were launched, such as Toronto's solar farms. But one of the most visible projects, the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games which were touted as the world's first "green games", was quickly exposed as pure "green washing": polluting activity was simply outsourced elsewhere, fuel-powered vehicles were replaced by cars powered by fuel-plant generated electricity, most locals were forbidden to use their cars during the event, etc.<br />
<br />
To cap it all, 2011 saw the majority of emerging countries leave the fledgling "Kyoto II" talks, complaining (with some reason) that post-industrial countries were in fact denying them the right to grow in order to protect their own standards of living.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists, as well as a large part of the public (especially in the North) watched with disbelief as political institutions and large corporations proved unable to stir the world into an even slightly different direction, despite their best intentions. Incredulity grew when scientists in labs and startups started showing significant results in many areas: nanotech crystals for efficient, flexible and cheap solar panels, small-size and safe nuclear plants, cheaper and safer (although neither cheap nor safe yet) hydrogen production and storage, efficient and versatile isolating materials and fabrics, recyclable oil-free plastics, high-yield and low-input genetically modified crops…<br />
<br />
It seems that we ''knew'' how to make the world more sustainable. So, why did we not ''do'' it? And without ever deciding, people started to do it themselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Reboot==<br />
<br />
Blogs and other websites and Internet-based networks triggered the change. Some, perhaps most, initially focused on the most satisfying task: exposing the bad "eco-practice" of others, especially that of corporations or celebrities (XposeThem.org), denouncing SUV drivers by name (SUVthepla.net), etc. Others were sharing advice, best personal practices, practical and consumer tips for "greasy" (green and easy) living.<br />
<br />
Then, an Italian startup created a cute, portable and easy-to-use "Ecogotchis", small, fun personal carbon-footprint calculators that impersonated various animals which choked if you drove, flew or heated your swimming pool too much. These and their many variants - since the design was deliberately open-source - sold by the millions. Thousands of compatible websites recorded Ecogotchi profiles and provided advice and simulations, forums, networking between like-minded owners, etc. Other entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to offer individuals, families and organizations clever and useful ways to reduce their carbon footprint (with instant automated Ecogotchi update): local carbon offset markets in the form of money or community services, open car-sharing mechanisms that paid those who (even very occasionally) took someone else in their car, jobs and places for pooling and sorting recyclable materials…<br />
<br />
All this was nice, although very First World and very middle class. It certainly did not change the situation in China, the Middle East or the Parisian suburbs very much. But it slowly changed public spirit. This was most apparent after the deadly bombings that killed 4000 people at the 2012 London Olympics. Public opinion resoundingly rejected the new batch of security measures which their governments tried to enforce; particularly those that would restrict travel or impose strong controls on the Internet. And things quickly went back to normal, except for the fact that several innovative companies came up with novel ways of organizing teleconferences or virtual workspaces, and to teleparticipate in public events, etc.<br />
<br />
The network that Ecogotchists and others had formed spanned the globe and included more than a hundred million individuals and organisations. It soon found other uses. After massive floods in Bangladesh killed or displaced millions of people, and while governments and international aid agencies were trying to find the money to act in a serious way, a series of grassroots solidarity initiatives on the Net began collecting money, medicines, blankets, food, mobile communicators as well as organizing missions for physicians, technicians, construction workers and teachers. Sure, some of these initiatives were so amateurish that they sometimes made the situation on the ground worse rather than better, and a few others were scams. But it happened, it helped, and people felt rightly proud about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Invention==<br />
<br />
Some of the technologies that were still in the labs in 2010 started hitting the market near 2015. In affluent suburbs, people proudly lined their roofs with stick-them-up solar coatings, wore intelligent fabric T-shirts in their insulated interiors during winter, and boasted about how few things they owned, renting them or hiring specialized help as needed. The cleverest corporations hired the best and most innovative designers to make sustainable living not only "right", but also pleasant, and an object of pride. Recycling centres became destinations; and products would recycle themselves into useful or funny trinkets. "SharedOne" beacons would broadcast the shareable status of any object, from cars to drilling machines, and families would rate each other by how much they shared.<br />
<br />
Innovation was the name of the game. There were several ways of going about it as a company. You could become rich and loathed by coating your innovation with a shiny armour of patents, as BP did with its PersonalHydrogen (TM) system; or you could be loved and not-so-rich by publishing your designs as open-source. A few people managed to be both loved and rich at the same time but eventually, the vast majority would end up one way or the other.<br />
<br />
This was a time when thousands of innovative new products and services were marketed every month, often with good chances of success. People were eager for a "cool & good" novelty, "good" meaning demonstrably beneficial to the environment and to oneself. Biotech firms started selling personal enhancement drugs such as memory, sense or stamina extension, as well as others that would colour your skin or eyes, or make them glow in the dark while improving night vision.<br />
<br />
The great thing about these drugs was that their effects were reversible - or at least, that was the idea. The intense focus on innovation also resulted in an excessive rush to market untested products. In some cases, this resulted in death or permanent injury for thousands of initial users. However, in general, consumer networks and forums quickly revealed product flaws, forced recalls and compensations, and if needed, exposed irresponsible firms to the wrath of their readers. <br />
<br />
Whether in the proprietary or in the open-source universe, however, most innovation happened in a networked way. People tested something very close to their prototype product; others would improve or copy, while still others adapted it to other uses. Networks, both technical and human, became a crucial resource, and Internet neutrality - encompassing by then almost all wired and wireless networks - became a constitutional provision in several countries. Innovation angels, microcredit, local exchange systems and even local currencies, such as Linden dollars or Berliners, flourished and established de facto exchange rates ''via'' internet exchanges. Borders, that would otherwise be closed, easily opened for individuals with ideas, capital or good connections.<br />
<br />
After a slow start in late 2007, the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative, since then renamed "One Communicator Per Child" (OCPC), slowly made progress. By 2018, when the 400 millionth machine was handed to a child in Botswana, it became clear that, in those countries that had not resisted its western-democracy, constructivist-education slant, OCPC was making a difference. A new class of entrepreneurs, citizens and consumers was emerging in the developing world. They were self-taught by working with the machine and with others as much as they had been taught by teachers who lacked sufficient training and resourcs; and they were reasonably fluent in English since local OCPC translations were poor and unable to keep up with the new applications. Sharing a common culture, they were quickly integrated into the global innovation and discussion networks.<br />
<br />
This in turn contributed to faster but still inequitable development in several countries. Birth rates started to decrease slowly. Literacy soared. CO2 emissions were limited by foreign assistance that came with strict conditions, and by customers around the world who could easily check on how the goods they saw in stores were produced. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Self-regulation==<br />
<br />
By 2025, it was estimated that although governments had taken few successful initiatives, CO2 emissions were 30% below their 2010 levels and that the decrease in emissions was accelerating. <br />
<br />
Many people felt that the dynamics that allowed such sweeping changes to take place in the world's production model should also happen elsewhere. Public education systems were slowly deserted in favour of private schools, P2P schools, networked schools, "de-schools" and other means of education. Public transportation systems became at most an information hub and a network of subway tunnels, whereas vehicles, lines, ticketing, etc. were handled by competing companies. Health systems split into myriad of community or specialized schemes and insurance policies. Full retirement pensions almost stopped being an option: only the weakest and the sickest elderly persons could expect support from the large central pension systems. Others have to look for sources elsewhere.<br />
<br />
After a series of dramatic incidents with insufficiently tested products, "Eco-labels" that had flourished since 2008 became "Safer Eco-labels". Delivering such labels to an entity or a product was supposed to follow a more or less thorough evaluation of its environmental soundness, worker conditions, and user safety. Not all of these labels were themselves safe, though, since they were run by private companies which competed for the business of labelled firms. But in general, with some help from consumer networks, media and (in the last resort) governments, the system worked.<br />
<br />
In the summer of 2023, a series of dirty nuke and bioterrorist attacks on 4 continents made it clear that innovation had also put new, cheap and efficient means of destruction into the hands of groups who either resented the world's changes, or just wanted to take advantage of it. An intense world chase, combining law enforcement agencies and savvy netheads, quickly unveiled a network of post-terrorist and mafia groups. It soon became clear that, in a world where everything was in constant flux and no control mechanism was foolproof for more than a week, those groups were multiplying and growing. It was even realized that in some cases, they shared training facilities (and maybe more) with some of the private security agencies to which law enforcement had been outsourced in a majority of US states and cities. However, although they did create stronger independent evaluation bodies, governments were no longer in a position where they could go back to running large police forces by themselves.<br />
<br />
On a local level, the regulation of most of the urban space was privatized or transferred to communities, which sometimes led to the emergence of barriers or inner-city border, especially between affluent and poorer communities. Most non-privatized public spaces and services fell into disrepair, sometimes to be replaced by innovative commercial or grassroots substitutes, sometimes not.<br />
<br />
It was getting difficult to be weak, or illiterate, or chronically sick, or just plain contemplative, in such a world. The most mundane transaction required you to choose between dozens of providers, channels and pricing options. You could rarely expect any solidarity mechanism to work for you except if your community decided you needed to be helped, and – besides supposing that you ''had'' a community to go to – came at a price. A number of religious or traditionalist communities thrived by welcoming those who felt ill at ease in a world without any fixed point.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Acceleration==<br />
<br />
By 2028, FabLabs, small scale automated workshops capable of manufacturing almost any household or lifestyle product, even some of smarter ones, after the simple download of its model, which had started populating mom & pop stores throughout the world in the 2020s, began to be sold in homes. Among the largest manufacturers, several those who had failed to adapt went down or were forced to sell themselves at a bargain. Philips and Intel were this year's main casualties.<br />
<br />
Having already privatized many of the services they used to run, with other public services in disarray for lack of funding and/or of users, traditional governments undertook drastic reforms. Their role was mostly focused on ensuring the transparency and the loyalty of markets, ensuring the performance and neutrality of all networks, and supervising the labelling industry. They were often in charge of law enforcement and disaster recovery and more rarely, of education. The intense scrutiny they were subjected to by citizen networks effectively prevented them from extending their role again, or from thinking long-term. Some governments also reinvented themselves as forums for public discussion and collective decision-making, whereas in other places, it was considered there were better mechanisms to do that.<br />
<br />
As supervisors of the "Safer eco-labels" and other labelling activities, governments would also determine which of the most challenging human alterations could only be provided by labelled firms: Cloning, gene editing, high-level augmentations…<br />
<br />
With public and private money, the UN was at last tasked with helping bring Least Advanced Countries into the loop through networking, education and market opening. It was about time. While most of the world thrived, whole countries, but also whole population groups even if the richest of countries, were kept or even fell into abject poverty. Lagos, Kinshasa, Mexico City and whole parts of Los Angeles were under almost official mafia rule. Yet most citizens did not complain, both because it was unwise to do so and because in daily life, any governance was better than no governance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''*'''<br />
<br />
''' * *'''</center><br />
<br />
By 2030, the world was still in a frenzy of innovation, with some generally efficient checks and balances trying to make sure this mad ride did not run over too many people. Global warming was happening as planned, but although it was growing fast, the economy was no longer making it worse. Alternative energy sources had reduced the demand on fossil fuels, which had grown decidedly unpopular (and fairly expensive). Water was still a problem, but most countries dealt with it by privatizing their sources and for those who had the money, it made for more rational use of a resource become reasonably expensive.<br />
<br />
Affluent people were now looking at ways to benefit from this world by living much longer, looking much better, improving their mental and physical abilities in significant degrees and breeding the cleverest, most beautiful and healthiest babies available – while also testing amazingly powerful and (supposedly) harmless psychedelic hallucinogens. Education, affluence and women employment was bringing down birthrates, although the impact of China's de facto abandon of its One-child policy was slowly bringing world population to an impressive 9 billions. Overall, it was a pleasant world. If you could afford it.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_4:_100,000_Flowers&diff=23034Ci'Num scenario 4: 100,000 Flowers2007-12-16T21:57:33Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Markets'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
A combination of widespread innovation and bottom-up initiatives at local and global scales produces significant changes in energy consumption and production patterns: decentralized energy systems, substitution of products by services, innovative materials in everything from building to clothing to transportation, "cradle-to-cradle" product design, etc. Consumers strongly reward eco-friendly corporations and punish the others, helped by evaluation tools as well as by private and public labeling mechanisms. Networks become the primary infrastructure, and the non-material component of economies becomes the main source of wealth, trade and growth. Markets and co-operative initiatives compete in achieving desirable goals for all. Global initiatives are mainly directed towards free trade and open markets; powerful, pervasive and mostly free communication networks; and education, whose role and process change deeply. Individuals and groups form the fabric of society, lowering levels of solidarity between groups or with disenfranchised individuals. Armed conflicts decrease while global crime becomes a major, almost recognized force. Diversity and autonomy are primary values at the expense of more common values. Technology developments are targeted at human enhancement, peer-to-peer communications, and empowerment. Crises and catastrophes are more difficult to manage but their occurrence does not destabilize the overall system.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario4_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
<br />
"Choke Beijing or choke in Beijing!" That was the initial slogan of the massive, grassroots boycott against the Beijing Olympics which, from the beginning of 2008, spread via the Internet through most of the post-industrial world. China, they claimed, had no respect for human or workers rights; it was dumping its way into others people's jobs; it supported dictatorships in order to secure oil; and it was becoming the biggest CO2 emitter in the world… <br />
<br />
Apparently, the protest had little effect. Only two minor countries officially joined the boycott. The media were there, although its reporters had instructions to look slightly beyond the stadiums. Few large advertisers withdrew their support, and these were quickly replaced by others.<br />
<br />
The show went on, unaware that something deeper had begun.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Incredulity==<br />
<br />
The trouble surrounding the Beijing Olympics illustrated a growing feeling that something was very, very wrong with the world's environment, and that politics and economics were responsible for it. China was only a scapegoat, albeit a large one. When bloggers, followed by the media, pieced the information together, a series of aberrant climate events throughout the globe began to make sense: Saharan heat and drought in Eastern Europe, tropical rains in Britain, roofs around the Gulf of Mexico were blown off by hurricane after hurricane… And the sharp rise in gasoline and electricity prices was taking a toll on everyone's wallet.<br />
<br />
This (and Iraq) was enough to carry a reborn-environmentalist and progressive into the White House in the beginning of 2009. There was hope. Leadership in the U.S., France and Germany, joined by a growing number of prominent corporate leaders, were all focused on the environment. But it quickly became clear that they could not deliver. When tough decisions had to be made, such as taxing polluting activities - intensive agriculture, car use and the like - they showed neither support nor courage. Nobody was ready to make sacrifices for unclear returns and without the assurance of commitment by other communities throughout the world to the same level of effort.<br />
<br />
Sure, funding for environment-oriented R&D - whatever that covered - was more than doubled; and some symbolic projects were launched, such as Toronto's solar farms. But one of the most visible projects, the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games which were touted as the world's first "green games", was quickly exposed as pure "green washing": polluting activity was simply outsourced elsewhere, fuel-powered vehicles were replaced by cars powered by fuel-plant generated electricity, most locals were forbidden to use their cars during the event, etc.<br />
<br />
To cap it all, 2011 saw the majority of emerging countries leave the fledgling "Kyoto II" talks, complaining (with some reason) that post-industrial countries were in fact denying them the right to grow in order to protect their own standards of living.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists, as well as a large part of the public (especially in the North) watched with disbelief as political institutions and large corporations proved unable to stir the world into an even slightly different direction, despite their best intentions. Incredulity grew when scientists in labs and startups started showing significant results in many areas: nanotech crystals for efficient, flexible and cheap solar panels, small-size and safe nuclear plants, cheaper and safer (although neither cheap nor safe yet) hydrogen production and storage, efficient and versatile isolating materials and fabrics, recyclable oil-free plastics, high-yield and low-input genetically modified crops…<br />
<br />
It seems that we ''knew'' how to make the world more sustainable. So, why did we not ''do'' it? And without ever deciding, people started to do it themselves.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Reboot==<br />
<br />
Blogs and other websites and Internet-based networks triggered the change. Some, perhaps most, initially focused on the most satisfying task: exposing the bad "eco-practice" of others, especially that of corporations or celebrities (XposeThem.org), denouncing SUV drivers by name (SUVthepla.net), etc. Others were sharing advice, best personal practices, practical and consumer tips for "greasy" (green and easy) living.<br />
<br />
Then, an Italian startup created a cute, portable and easy-to-use "Ecogotchis", small, fun personal carbon-footprint calculators that impersonated various animals which choked if you drove, flew or heated your swimming pool too much. These and their many variants - since the design was deliberately open-source - sold by the millions. Thousands of compatible websites recorded Ecogotchi profiles and provided advice and simulations, forums, networking between like-minded owners, etc. Other entrepreneurs seized the opportunity to offer individuals, families and organizations clever and useful ways to reduce their carbon footprint (with instant automated Ecogotchi update): local carbon offset markets in the form of money or community services, open car-sharing mechanisms that paid those who (even very occasionally) took someone else in their car, jobs and places for pooling and sorting recyclable materials…<br />
<br />
All this was nice, although very First World and very middle class. It certainly did not change the situation in China, the Middle East or the Parisian suburbs very much. But it slowly changed public spirit. This was most apparent after the deadly bombings that killed 4000 people at the 2012 London Olympics, when public opinion clearly rejected the new batch of security measures which their governments tried to enforce; particularly those that would restrict travel or impose strong controls on the Internet. And things quickly went back to normal, except for the fact that several innovative companies came up with novel ways of organizing teleconferences or virtual workspaces, to teleparticipate in public events, etc.<br />
<br />
The network that Ecogotchists and others had formed spanned the globe and included more than a hundred million individuals and organisations. It soon found other uses. After massive floods in Bangladesh killed or displaced millions of people, and while governments and international institutions were trying to find the money to act in a serious way, a series of grassroots solidarity initiatives on the Net undertook to collect money, medicines, blankets, food, mobile communicators as well as organizing missions for physicians, technicians, construction workers or teachers. Sure, some of these initiatives were so amateurish that they sometimes made the situation on the ground worse rather than better, and a few others were scams – But it had happened, it had helped, and people felt rightly proud about it.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Invention==<br />
<br />
Some of the technologies that were still in the labs in 2010 started hitting the market near 2015. In affluent suburbs, people would proudly line up their roofs with sick-them-up solar coatings, wear intelligent fabric T-shirts in their isolated interiors during winter, and boast about how few things they owned (as opposed to renting them or hiring specialized help when needed). The cleverest corporations had hired the best and most innovative designers to make sustainable living not only "right", but pleasant, and also an object of pride. Recycling centres became destinations, other products would recycle themselves into useful or funny trinkets. "SharedOne" beacons would broadcast the shareable status of any object, from cars to drilling machines, and families would rate each other by how much they shared.<br />
<br />
Innovation was the name of the game. There were several ways of going about it as a company. You could become rich and loathed by coating your innovation with a shiny armour of patents, as BP did with its PersonalHydrogen (TM) system; or you could be loved and not-so-rich by publishing your designs as open-source. A few people managed to be both loved and rich at the same time but eventually, the vast majority would end up one way or another.<br />
<br />
This was a time when thousands of new products and services were marketed every month, often with good chances of success. People were eager for "cool & good" novelty, "good" meaning both demonstrably good for the environment, and good for oneself. Biotech firms started selling personal enhancement drugs such as memory, sense or stamina extension, as well as others that would colour your skin or eyes, or make them glow in the dark while improving night vision.<br />
<br />
The great thing about these drugs was hat the effect was reversible. Or at least, that was the idea. The intense focus on innovation also resulted in excessively fast marketing of untested products, which in some cases killed or permanently injured thousands of their early adopters. However, in general, consumer networks and forums would quickly reveal product flaws, force recalls and compensations and if needed, expose irresponsible firms to the wrath of their readers. <br />
<br />
Whether in the proprietary or in the open-source universe, however, most innovation happened in a networked way. People would test something very close from their prototype stage, others would improve or copy, while others still would adapt it to other uses. Networks, both technical and human, became considered a crucial resource, and internet neutrality (the "internet" by then encompassed almost all wired and wireless networks) became constitutional in several countries. Innovation angels, microcredit, local exchange systems and even local currencies such as Linden dollars or Berliners, flourished and established de facto exchange rates ''via'' internet exchanges. Otherwise rather closed borders would easily open for individuals with ideas, capital or good connections.<br />
<br />
After a slow start late 2007, the "One Laptop Per Child" initiative, since then renamed "One Communicator Per Child" (OCPC), had slowly made progress. By 2018, when the 400 millionth machine was handed to a kid in Botswana, it became clear that, in those countries that had not resisted its clearly American-Democracy, Constructivist-Education slant, OCPC was making a difference. A new class of entrepreneurs, citizens and consumers was emerging in the Third World, self-taught by working with the machine and with others as much as they had been taught by often clueless teachers, reasonably fluent in English since local OCPC translations were so bad and unable to keep up with the new applications. Since they shared a common culture, they were quickly integrated into the global innovation and discussion networks.<br />
<br />
This in turn contributed to faster, although still very unegalitarian, development in several countries. Birth rates started decreasing slowly. Literacy soared. CO2 emissions did not rise much because foreign help came under strict conditions, and because customers everywhere around the world had easy means to check on how the products they saw in stores had been produced.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Self-regulation==<br />
<br />
By 2025, it was estimated that although governments had taken few successful initiatives, CO2 emissions were 30% below their 2010 levels and that the decrease in emissions was becoming faster.<br />
<br />
Many people felt that the dynamics that had allowed such sweeping changes in the world's production model should also happen elsewhere. Public education systems were slowly deserted in favour of private schools, P2P schools, networked schools, "de-schools" and other means of education. Public transportation systems became at most an information hub and a network of subway tunnels, whereas vehicles, lines, ticketing, etc. were handled by competing companies. Health systems split into myriad of community or specialized schemes and insurance policies. Full retirement pensions almost stopped being an option: only the weakest and the sickest elderly persons could expect support from the large central pension systems, whereas others would have to look for other resources.<br />
<br />
After a series of dramatic incidents with insufficiently tested products, the hundreds of "Eco-labels" that had flourished since 2008 became "Safer Eco-labels". Delivering such labels to an entity or a product was supposed to follow a more or less thorough evaluation of its environmental soundness, worker conditions, and user safety. Not all of these labels were themselves safe, though, since they were run by private companies which competed for the business of labelled firms. But in general, with some help from consumer networks, media and (in the last resort) governments, the system worked.<br />
<br />
In the summer of 2023, a series of dirty nuke and bioterrorist attacks on 4 continents made it clear that innovation had also put new, cheap and efficient means of destruction into the hands of groups who either resented the world's changes, or just wanted to take advantage of it. An intense world chase, combining law enforcement agencies and savvy netheads, quickly unveiled a network of post-terrorist and mafia groups. It soon became clear that, in a world where everything was in constant flux and no control mechanism was foolproof for more than a week, those groups were multiplying and growing. It was even realized that in some cases, they shared training facilities (and maybe more) with some of the private security agencies to which law enforcement had been outsourced in a majority of US states and cities. However, although they did create stronger independent evaluation bodies, governments were no longer in a position where they could go back to running large police forces by themselves.<br />
<br />
On a local level, the regulation of most of the urban space was privatized or transferred to communities, which sometimes led to the emergence of barriers or inner-city border, especially between affluent and poorer communities. Most non-privatized public spaces and services fell into disrepair, sometimes to be replaced by innovative commercial or grassroots substitutes, sometimes not.<br />
<br />
It was getting difficult to be weak, or illiterate, or chronically sick, or just plain contemplative, in such a world. The most mundane transaction required you to choose between dozens of providers, channels and pricing options. You could rarely expect any solidarity mechanism to work for you except if your community decided you needed to be helped, and – besides supposing that you ''had'' a community to go to – came at a price. A number of religious or traditionalist communities thrived by welcoming those who felt ill at ease in a world without any fixed point.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Acceleration==<br />
<br />
By 2028, FabLabs, small scale automated workshops capable of manufacturing almost any household or lifestyle product, even some of smarter ones, after the simple download of its model, which had started populating mom & pop stores throughout the world in the 2020s, began to be sold in homes. Among the largest manufacturers, several those who had failed to adapt went down or were forced to sell themselves at a bargain. Philips and Intel were this year's main casualties.<br />
<br />
Having already privatized many of the services they used to run, with other public services in disarray for lack of funding and/or of users, traditional governments undertook drastic reforms. Their role was mostly focused on ensuring the transparency and the loyalty of markets, ensuring the performance and neutrality of all networks, and supervising the labelling industry. They were often in charge of law enforcement and disaster recovery and more rarely, of education. The intense scrutiny they were subjected to by citizen networks effectively prevented them from extending their role again, or from thinking long-term. Some governments also reinvented themselves as forums for public discussion and collective decision-making, whereas in other places, it was considered there were better mechanisms to do that.<br />
<br />
As supervisors of the "Safer eco-labels" and other labelling activities, governments would also determine which of the most challenging human alterations could only be provided by labelled firms: Cloning, gene editing, high-level augmentations…<br />
<br />
With public and private money, the UN was at last tasked with helping bring Least Advanced Countries into the loop through networking, education and market opening. It was about time. While most of the world thrived, whole countries, but also whole population groups even if the richest of countries, were kept or even fell into abject poverty. Lagos, Kinshasa, Mexico City and whole parts of Los Angeles were under almost official mafia rule. Yet most citizens did not complain, both because it was unwise to do so and because in daily life, any governance was better than no governance.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''*'''<br />
<br />
''' * *'''</center><br />
<br />
By 2030, the world was still in a frenzy of innovation, with some generally efficient checks and balances trying to make sure this mad ride did not run over too many people. Global warming was happening as planned, but although it was growing fast, the economy was no longer making it worse. Alternative energy sources had reduced the demand on fossil fuels, which had grown decidedly unpopular (and fairly expensive). Water was still a problem, but most countries dealt with it by privatizing their sources and for those who had the money, it made for more rational use of a resource become reasonably expensive.<br />
<br />
Affluent people were now looking at ways to benefit from this world by living much longer, looking much better, improving their mental and physical abilities in significant degrees and breeding the cleverest, most beautiful and healthiest babies available – while also testing amazingly powerful and (supposedly) harmless psychedelic hallucinogens. Education, affluence and women employment was bringing down birthrates, although the impact of China's de facto abandon of its One-child policy was slowly bringing world population to an impressive 9 billions. Overall, it was a pleasant world. If you could afford it.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23033Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T21:15:53Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which influenced societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. Understandably, China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments.But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation, and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes themselves.<br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. <br />
<br />
In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental bias. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about who issued the order and provided the means. The attack in London on the closing eve of the 2012 Olympics killed more than 4,000 people. These games were meant to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event. Rome, a leading proponent of the European ecotax, Delhi,whose government had announced plans to lead a second "green revolution" based on agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and a strong focus on agrofuels, and San Francisco were the other targeted cities.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
The attacks unleashed the usual immediate consequences: stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures that soon became permanent, economic ripples that were worrying in their effects. But, a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge. Instead, they renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into opportunities to "move less, do more", as UN Ambassador Bono suggested. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. To provide alternatives, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote and virtual communications, and installed large teleconferencing facilities in the metropolitan areas of developed and developing countries alike, encouraging people to tele-act as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, and with the development of rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of distance communications slowly picked up in popularity. Virtual universes from different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", and become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
The "Oil Severance Project" was launched. It was managed by an extensively reorganized World Bank and funded through a system of special contributions by developed countries. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil fuels: such as, very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative. It was launched to spur innovative, out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportation that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the requirements of the programme was that results be made public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After difficult discussions, and more than a few resignations among their economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps, created in tandem with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas will remain inhabitable for decades to come.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such turnaround in human affairs required substantial organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN willingly provided its base, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, but expectantly leaner and meaner international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given substantive supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes: "Factor 4" – that takes account of Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060; and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. Perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
To counterbalance these powers and ensure accountability, all internal information and email traffic of the agencies were subject to rigorous public disclosure; and each area of activity had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse in which thousands of lobbyists, interest groups and private citizens participated at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The Doha round of international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included debt forgiveness for most of the Least Advanced Countries, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), and the opening of markets in the North to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was the clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities. It was seen as a way to help developing countries avoid the need to go through resource-intensive industrial phase in their transition, and possibly, relieve migratory pressures on developed countries. This would allow the latter to more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was primarily coordinated on an international basis, according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable properties (resistance, frugality, CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicines, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modeling, etc.. Most of the research was entirely available to the public and was made open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or unconventional (out-of-the-box) thinking. This became worse after the premature deployment of inadequately tested plants which damaged agriculture across an entire Indian state. Ethics and Evaluation Committees were established everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, making it work at the individual level became an issue. National governments were too remote or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another layer of governance soon emerged. It came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family. Thus, an individual could belong to several guilds. A guild had a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds. To be considered a guild, it had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be given some regulatory powers and tax money. Through them, the virtuous mechanisms agreed upon at the global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling activities, etc., and were attached to financial incentives or penalties. While individual accounts were confidential, the accounts of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product with her mobile while shopping in order to check the status of the producer's carbon footprint. Guilds were often in charge of distributing and controlling the accounts, consolidating the data and enforcing the financial mechanisms. The budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
The system achieved spectacular results even though it sometimes took things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 – but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
At the same time, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis. It encompassed a new high-density centre connected by fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes consisting of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green space. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted by violent means with near public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
Most armies were now federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies, which became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces shed light on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life. Due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they inflicted was insufficient to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt. The intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behavior and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered exceptional, nor bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement became lighter after elderly people became commonly active. But the world was designed by old people for old people (who even designed members of their own offspring with embryo selection and gene manipulations); and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments occurred during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions; and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end of the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and extract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23032Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T21:10:45Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which influenced societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. Understandably, China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments.But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation, and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes themselves.<br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. <br />
<br />
In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental bias. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about who issued the order and provided the means. The attack in London on the closing eve of the 2012 Olympics killed more than 4,000 people. These games were meant to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event. Rome, a leading proponent of the European ecotax, Delhi,whose government had announced plans to lead a second "green revolution" based on agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and a strong focus on agrofuels, and San Francisco were the other targeted cities.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
The attacks unleashed the usual immediate consequences: stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures that soon became permanent, economic ripples that were worrying in their effects. But, a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge. Instead, they renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into opportunities to "move less, do more", as UN Ambassador Bono suggested. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. To provide alternatives, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote and virtual communications, and installed large teleconferencing facilities in the metropolitan areas of developed and developing countries alike, encouraging people to tele-act as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, and with the development of rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of distance communications slowly picked up in popularity. Virtual universes from different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", and become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
The "Oil Severance Project" was launched. It was managed by an extensively reorganized World Bank and funded through a system of special contributions by developed countries. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil fuels: such as, very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative. It was launched to spur innovative, out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportation that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the requirements of the programme was that results be made public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After difficult discussions, and more than a few resignations among their economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps, created in tandem with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas will remain inhabitable for decades to come.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such turnaround in human affairs required substantial organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN willingly provided its base, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, but expectantly leaner and meaner international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given substantive supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes: "Factor 4" – that takes account of Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060; and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. Perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
To counterbalance these powers and ensure accountability, all internal information and email traffic of the agencies were subject to rigorous public disclosure; and each area of activity had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse in which thousands of lobbyists, interest groups and private citizens participated at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The Doha round of international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included debt forgiveness for most of the Least Advanced Countries, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), and the opening of markets in the North to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was the clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities. It was seen as a way to help developing countries avoid the need to go through resource-intensive industrial phase in their transition, and possibly, relieve migratory pressures on developed countries. This would allow the latter to more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was primarily coordinated on an international basis, according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable properties (resistance, frugality, CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicines, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modeling, etc.. Most of the research was entirely available to the public and was made open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or unconventional (out-of-the-box) thinking. This became worse after the premature deployment of inadequately tested plants which damaged agriculture across an entire Indian state. Ethics and Evaluation Committees were established everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, making it work at the individual level became an issue. National governments were too remote or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another layer of governance soon emerged. It came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family. Thus, an individual could belong to several guilds. A guild had a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds. To be considered a guild, it had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be given some regulatory powers and tax money. Through them, the virtuous mechanisms agreed upon at the global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling activities, etc., and were attached to financial incentives or penalties. While individual accounts were confidential, the accounts of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product with her mobile while shopping in order to check the status of the producer's carbon footprint. Guilds were often in charge of distributing and controlling the accounts, consolidating the data and enforcing the financial mechanisms. The budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
The system achieved spectacular results even though it sometimes took things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 – but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
At the same time, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis. It encompassed a new high-density centre connected by fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes consisting of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green space. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted by violent means with near public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
Most armies were now federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies, which became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces shed light on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life. Due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they inflicted was insufficient to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt. The intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behavior and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered exceptional, nor bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement became lighter after elderly people became commonly active. But the world was designed by old people for old people (who even designed members of their own offspring with embryo selection and gene manipulations); and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments happened during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end on the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and abstract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23031Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T20:47:06Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which influenced societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. Understandably, China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments.But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation, and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes themselves.<br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. <br />
<br />
In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental bias. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about who issued the order and provided the means. The attack in London on the closing eve of the 2012 Olympics killed more than 4,000 people. These games were meant to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event. Rome, a leading proponent of the European ecotax, Delhi,whose government had announced plans to lead a second "green revolution" based on agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and a strong focus on agrofuels, and San Francisco were the other targeted cities.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
The attacks unleashed the usual immediate consequences: stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures that soon became permanent, economic ripples that were worrying in their effects. But, a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge. Instead, they renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into opportunities to "move less, do more", as UN Ambassador Bono suggested. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. To provide alternatives, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote and virtual communications, and installed large teleconferencing facilities in the metropolitan areas of developed and developing countries alike, encouraging people to tele-act as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, and with the development of rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of distance communications slowly picked up in popularity. Virtual universes from different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", and become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
The "Oil Severance Project" was launched. It was managed by an extensively reorganized World Bank and funded through a system of special contributions by developed countries. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil fuels: such as, very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative. It was launched to spur innovative, out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportation that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the requirements of the programme was that results be made public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After difficult discussions, and more than a few resignations among their economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps, created in tandem with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas will remain inhabitable for decades to come.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such turnaround in human affairs required substantial organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN willingly provided its base, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, but expectantly leaner and meaner international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given substantive supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes: "Factor 4" – that takes account of Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060; and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. Perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
To counterbalance these powers and ensure accountability, all internal information and email traffic of the agencies were subject to rigorous public disclosure; and each area of activity had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse in which thousands of lobbyists, interest groups and private citizens participated at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The Doha round of international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included debt forgiveness for most of the Least Advanced Countries, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), and the opening of markets in the North to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was the clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities. It was seen as a way to help developing countries avoid the need to go through resource-intensive industrial phase in their transition, and possibly, relieve migratory pressures on developed countries. This would allow the latter to more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was primarily coordinated on an international basis, according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable properties (resistance, frugality, CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicines, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modeling, etc.. Most of the research was entirely available to the public and was made open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or unconventional (out-of-the-box) thinking. This became worse after the premature deployment of inadequately tested plants which damaged agriculture across an entire Indian state. Ethics and Evaluation Committees were established everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, making it work at the individual level became an issue. National governments were too remote or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another layer of governance soon emerged. It came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family. Thus, an individual could belong to several guilds. A guild had a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds. To be considered a guild, it had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be given some regulatory powers and tax money. Through them, decisions at the global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling activities, etc., and were attached to financial incentives or penalties. While individual accounts were confidential, the accounts of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product with her mobile while shopping in order to check the status of the producer's carbon footprint. Guilds were often in charge of distributing and controlling the accounts, consolidating the data and enforcing the financial mechanisms. The budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
The system achieved spectacular results even though it sometimes took things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below their 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 –, but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
That same year, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis with a new high-density centre connected via fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes, made up of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green areas. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted it by violent means, with almost public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
By that time, most armies were federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies who became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces provided clear data on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life and, due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they produced was unable to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt, but this intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor had become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behaviour and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered as exceptional, nor as bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement had become lighter after old-age activity became generalized. But the world was designed by old people (who, through embryo selection and other gene manipulations, even designed part of their own young) for old people, and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments happened during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end on the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and abstract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23030Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T17:51:49Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which influenced societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. Understandably, China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments.But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation, and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes themselves.<br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. <br />
<br />
In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental commitment. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about who ordered them and provided the means. The attack in London on the closing eve of the 2012 Olympics killed more than 4,000 people. These games were meant to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event. Rome, a leading proponent of the European ecotax, Delhi,whose government had announced plans to lead a second "green revolution" based on agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and a strong focus on agrofuels, and San Francisco were the other targeted cities.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
The attacks unleashed the usual immediate consequences: stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures that soon became permanent, economic ripples that were worrying in their effects. But, a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge. Instead, they renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into opportunities to "move less, do more", as UN Ambassador Bono suggested. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. To provide alternatives, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote and virtual communications, and installed large teleconferencing facilities in the metropolitan areas of developed and developing countries alike, encouraging people to tele-act as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, and with the development of rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of distance communications slowly picked up in popularity. Virtual universes from different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", and become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
The "Oil Severance Project" was launched. It was managed by an extensively reorganized World Bank and funded through a system of special contributions by developed countries. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil fuels: such as, very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative. It was launched to spur innovative, out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportation that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the requirements of the programme was that results be made public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After difficult discussions, and more than a few resignations among their economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps, created in tandem with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas will remain inhabitable for decades to come.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such turnaround in human affairs required substantial organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN willingly provided its base, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, but expectantly leaner and meaner international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given substantive supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes: "Factor 4" – that takes account of Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060; and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. Perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
To counterbalance these powers and ensure accountability, all internal information and email traffic of the agencies were subject to rigorous public disclosure; and each area of activity had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse in which thousands of lobbyists, interest groups and private citizens participated at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The third Doha round of international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included the abandon of most Least Advanced Countries' debts, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), the opening of northern market to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was a clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities, seen as a way to help developing countries the resource-hungry industrial development phase – and possibly, to relieve migratory pressures, so that developed countries could more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was mostly coordinated internationally according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable characteristics (resistance, frugality) or properties (e.g., CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicine, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modelling… Most of this research was entirely public and open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was a lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or out-of-the-box thinking. This became worse when, after the fast deployment of insufficiently tested plants had wiped out the agriculture of a whole Indian state, Ethics and Evaluation Committees were created everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
To facilitate and equalize international discussions, Esperanto was relaunched and became the UN's official language… for some time, after which it became clear that "International English" would not be displaced anytime soon, especially since electronic translators had become so efficient.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, the issue remained to make it work at an individual level. National governments were either too remote, or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another level of governance soon emerged, which came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family – meaning that an individual could belong to several guilds. It would have a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds – to be considered a guild, you had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be devolved some regulatory power or some tax money. Through them, the virtuous mechanisms decided at global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling behaviours, etc., with financial incentives or penalties attached. While individual accounts were of course protected, those of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product in a shop with her mobile in order to check its producer's current Footprint status. Guilds were often in charge of emitting and controlling the accounts, consolidating data and enforcing financial mechanisms. The devolved budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
Spectacular results were achieved, although the system could sometimes take things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below their 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 –, but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
That same year, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis with a new high-density centre connected via fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes, made up of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green areas. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted it by violent means, with almost public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
By that time, most armies were federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies who became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces provided clear data on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life and, due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they produced was unable to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt, but this intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor had become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behaviour and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered as exceptional, nor as bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement had become lighter after old-age activity became generalized. But the world was designed by old people (who, through embryo selection and other gene manipulations, even designed part of their own young) for old people, and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments happened during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end on the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and abstract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23029Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T17:12:58Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which influenced societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. Understandably, China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments.But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation, and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes themselves.<br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. <br />
<br />
In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental commitment. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about who ordered them and provided the means. The attack in London on the closing eve of the 2012 Olympics killed more than 4,000 people. These games were meant to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event. Rome, a leading proponent of the European ecotax, Delhi,whose government had announced plans to lead a second "green revolution" based on agricultural productivity, environmental sustainability and a strong focus on agrofuels, and San Francisco were the other targeted cities.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
While the usual immediate consequences of such attacks unfolded – stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures than soon became permanent, economic ripple effects… – a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge and renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into an opportunity to "Move less, do more", as UN ambassador Bono put it. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. As a substitute, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote communications and installed life-size teleconferencing rooms in developed and developing country metropolis alike, encouraging people to tele-act rather than move as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, as well as the progress in rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of remote communications slowly picked up. Virtual universes that had spun off in different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", to become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
Managed by a deeply reorganized World Bank and funded through a special contribution by developed countries, the "Oil Severance Project" was launched. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil energy: very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative, looking for out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportations that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the programme's rules was that results should be public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After some tough discussions, and not a few resignations, among its economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength, following an unusually wet rainy season, hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps created along with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas would remain inhabitable for decades.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such a turnaround in human affairs required some organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN was only too happy to provide its basis, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, hopefully leaner and meaner, international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given real supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes, "Factor 4" – taking into account the Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060 – and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. But perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
The counterpart to these powers was extreme accountability. All the agencies' internal information, all their emails, were open to public scrutiny, each of their activities had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse, to which thousands of lobbies, groups and private citizens contributed at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The third Doha cycle on international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included the abandon of most Least Advanced Countries' debts, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), the opening of northern market to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was a clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities, seen as a way to help developing countries the resource-hungry industrial development phase – and possibly, to relieve migratory pressures, so that developed countries could more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was mostly coordinated internationally according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable characteristics (resistance, frugality) or properties (e.g., CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicine, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modelling… Most of this research was entirely public and open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was a lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or out-of-the-box thinking. This became worse when, after the fast deployment of insufficiently tested plants had wiped out the agriculture of a whole Indian state, Ethics and Evaluation Committees were created everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
To facilitate and equalize international discussions, Esperanto was relaunched and became the UN's official language… for some time, after which it became clear that "International English" would not be displaced anytime soon, especially since electronic translators had become so efficient.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, the issue remained to make it work at an individual level. National governments were either too remote, or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another level of governance soon emerged, which came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family – meaning that an individual could belong to several guilds. It would have a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds – to be considered a guild, you had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be devolved some regulatory power or some tax money. Through them, the virtuous mechanisms decided at global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling behaviours, etc., with financial incentives or penalties attached. While individual accounts were of course protected, those of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product in a shop with her mobile in order to check its producer's current Footprint status. Guilds were often in charge of emitting and controlling the accounts, consolidating data and enforcing financial mechanisms. The devolved budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
Spectacular results were achieved, although the system could sometimes take things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below their 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 –, but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
That same year, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis with a new high-density centre connected via fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes, made up of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green areas. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted it by violent means, with almost public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
By that time, most armies were federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies who became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces provided clear data on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life and, due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they produced was unable to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt, but this intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor had become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behaviour and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered as exceptional, nor as bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement had become lighter after old-age activity became generalized. But the world was designed by old people (who, through embryo selection and other gene manipulations, even designed part of their own young) for old people, and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments happened during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end on the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and abstract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23028Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T16:56:23Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which influenced societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. Understandably, China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments.But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation, and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes themselves.<br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices and pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and localised at first, climate events began to form a pattern; for example, near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered droughts and scorching heat. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into mainstream media. Climate specialists made some of their models available to the public for use, and even modification. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked visitors to expose irresponsible environmental behavior; in essence, to name-and-shame anyone - from neighbours to celebrities - forcing many individuals and corporations to issue public statements and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
A progressive candidate took office in the U.S. presidency, and actively drove the second round of Kyoto discussions to conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting five years later to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries - with the exception of China, which still insisted on voluntary action - also agreed to CO2 emission reductions. The terms of the agreement called for developed countries to provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open markets--terms that were mostly met. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.The Doha round of trade negotiations reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests from the West. <br />
<br />
In political circles, "green" became a passport to election. Everyone came up with a new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, air conditioning was subject to restrictions. Public funding for R&D was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficiecy, nutrient-rich genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modeling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All major corporations published environmental commitments and many effectively fulfilled them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, however, experienced more difficulty, and protested that this was another way of pressuring subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everyone welcomed the new environmental commitment. Free market advocates warned that the surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and could produce consequences worse than the problems they were meant to solve. Oil producers, who had been investing heavily in new extraction methods and planned on continued growth in oil demand, began to feel anxious. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were impeded by a general public feeling that the companies were at least ethically - and in some cases, politically - responsible for the state of the planet. And indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in the capital cities of the group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves)that were spearheading the sustainability agenda, there were serious doubts about where the owho made the decision and provided the means of as to where the decision and the means of execution came from.including London on the eve of the 2012 Olympics closure, killing more than 4,000 people… London's Olympics were to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event; Rome, the second targeted city, was a leading proponent of the European ecotax; San Francisco was the third and Delhi the fourth, a few months after the Indian government had announced its plans to lead a second "Green revolution" in the third world, this time mixing agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability – and with a strong focus on agrofuels.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
While the usual immediate consequences of such attacks unfolded – stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures than soon became permanent, economic ripple effects… – a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge and renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into an opportunity to "Move less, do more", as UN ambassador Bono put it. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. As a substitute, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote communications and installed life-size teleconferencing rooms in developed and developing country metropolis alike, encouraging people to tele-act rather than move as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, as well as the progress in rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of remote communications slowly picked up. Virtual universes that had spun off in different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", to become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
Managed by a deeply reorganized World Bank and funded through a special contribution by developed countries, the "Oil Severance Project" was launched. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil energy: very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative, looking for out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportations that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the programme's rules was that results should be public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After some tough discussions, and not a few resignations, among its economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength, following an unusually wet rainy season, hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps created along with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas would remain inhabitable for decades.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such a turnaround in human affairs required some organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN was only too happy to provide its basis, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, hopefully leaner and meaner, international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given real supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes, "Factor 4" – taking into account the Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060 – and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. But perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
The counterpart to these powers was extreme accountability. All the agencies' internal information, all their emails, were open to public scrutiny, each of their activities had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse, to which thousands of lobbies, groups and private citizens contributed at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The third Doha cycle on international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included the abandon of most Least Advanced Countries' debts, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), the opening of northern market to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was a clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities, seen as a way to help developing countries the resource-hungry industrial development phase – and possibly, to relieve migratory pressures, so that developed countries could more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was mostly coordinated internationally according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable characteristics (resistance, frugality) or properties (e.g., CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicine, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modelling… Most of this research was entirely public and open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was a lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or out-of-the-box thinking. This became worse when, after the fast deployment of insufficiently tested plants had wiped out the agriculture of a whole Indian state, Ethics and Evaluation Committees were created everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
To facilitate and equalize international discussions, Esperanto was relaunched and became the UN's official language… for some time, after which it became clear that "International English" would not be displaced anytime soon, especially since electronic translators had become so efficient.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, the issue remained to make it work at an individual level. National governments were either too remote, or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another level of governance soon emerged, which came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family – meaning that an individual could belong to several guilds. It would have a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds – to be considered a guild, you had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be devolved some regulatory power or some tax money. Through them, the virtuous mechanisms decided at global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling behaviours, etc., with financial incentives or penalties attached. While individual accounts were of course protected, those of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product in a shop with her mobile in order to check its producer's current Footprint status. Guilds were often in charge of emitting and controlling the accounts, consolidating data and enforcing financial mechanisms. The devolved budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
Spectacular results were achieved, although the system could sometimes take things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below their 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 –, but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
That same year, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis with a new high-density centre connected via fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes, made up of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green areas. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted it by violent means, with almost public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
By that time, most armies were federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies who became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces provided clear data on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life and, due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they produced was unable to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt, but this intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor had become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behaviour and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered as exceptional, nor as bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement had become lighter after old-age activity became generalized. But the world was designed by old people (who, through embryo selection and other gene manipulations, even designed part of their own young) for old people, and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments happened during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end on the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and abstract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_3:_New_enlightenment&diff=23027Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment2007-12-16T15:40:38Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Imagination'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? - '''Rules / Reason'''<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The Age of Enlightenment saw the birth of reason and progress, which societies to organize themselves around reason and rationality. Nearly 400 years later, a new age is born: the New Enlightenment in which societies organize themselves around the principle of sustainability. Citizens and governments achieve a level of global consciousness that allows them to make a deliberate, common effort to prepare for a better future. Rules and regulations are enforced at local and global scales to reduce emissions and energy consumption. Taxes and other incentives try to orient corporate and consumer behaviors towards sustainability. Major projects with global or regional funding produce huge windfarms or solar plants, and test new technologies on a grand scale. Development becomes a priority, with the aim of helping countries leap-frog over developmental phases that are reliant on resource-intensive, heavy industries. "Guilds" emerge as ways of organizing people on a regional, local or community levels. Strong collective pressure is applied to "deviant" behaviors, be they individual, corporate or national. There is open democratic discussion; but decisions are rigorously enforced. Scientific research and technological innovation is subject to strong ethical oversight and funded according to its contribution to common goals, including the goal to broaden the public domain for sharing knowledge and capabilities.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario3_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The true impact of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was not quite what China expected. China had expected the world to stand in awe of its accomplishments, and it had every reason to. But the world chose to question China about the reports that were brought back by tourists and journalists traveling around the country: reports of polluted rivers, of dangerous chemical factories operating in the midst of newly built cities, of massive expropriations and exploitation; and of the suffocating heat and toxic air that threatened the athletes. <br />
<br />
None of this should have come as a surprise to keen observers. But to billions of people, it was a shocking revelation. And it got them thinking: Is ''this'' what the world is turning into? Which was, of course, what a small group of Chinese intellectuals and entrepreneurs, with connections at the very top of the Communist Party, had in mind.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Consciousness==<br />
<br />
Media, bloggers and common citizens began connecting facts. Oil had passed $ 150 a barrel, pushing gasoline and other prices up, pulling growth down. Seemingly aberrant and local climate events, such as near-tropical rains in Britain while Europe's South-East suffered draughts and scorching heat, began to form a pattern. The web was abuzz. People started collecting, sharing and cross-analyzing data in innovative ways; papers and analyses, some serious, some not, circulated and made their way into traditional media; climate specialists opened up some of their models for public use and even, improvement. One provocative website, SUVtheplanet.org, asked its visitors to expose anyone's, from their neighbour's to celebrities', irresponsible environmental behaviours, forcing many individuals and some corporations to issue public apologies and commitment to better practices.<br />
<br />
Barak Obama was quick to feel the shift in public feeling. He brought AL Gore onboard his campaign trail, switched his pitch from Iraq to environment – and won the November 2008 U.S. presidential election.<br />
<br />
As soon as he took office, Obama boosted the second round of Kyoto discussions, actively driving them to a conclusion at the end of 2009. Europe and all other G8 countries committed to halving their CO2 emissions by 2050, and to meeting again 5 years down the road in order to consider more ambitious goals. For the first time, most emerging economies and developing countries (China being the exception) also agreed to CO2 emission reductions, under the condition that developed countries would provide financial help, technology transfer and more importantly, open up their markets - which they mostly did. The Doha trade negotiation cycle was reopened and made swift progress, despite strong protests in the West. Within one year, 183 countries had signed the Kyoto II protocol.<br />
<br />
In political circles, "Green" had become a passport to election. Everybody came up with their new idea: SUVs were banned from several cities and states, private swimming pools were heavily taxed, garbage recycling was made mandatory, climatization became subject to strict rules. Public R&D funding was reoriented towards sustainability, with a focus on quick and visible results: Renewable energy, energy efficiency, resource-efficient and nutrient genetically modified plants and animals, ecosystem modelling, next-generation nuclear energy, etc.<br />
<br />
Corporations followed suit. All large corporations published environmental commitments and many were serious about fulfilling them. Smaller corporations and developing country firms, though, had more difficulties and often complained this move was another way of putting pressure on subcontractors or of closing the door to smaller competitors.<br />
<br />
Of course, not everybody liked that new environmental bias. Free market advocates warned that this surge in regulatory activity would stifle growth and might produce consequences worse than the problems they were supposed to solve. Oil producers, who had until then been investing heavily in new extraction methods, planning on continued growth of demand, started worrying. Their lobbying efforts against ecotaxes were made difficult by the general feeling that they were at least (and in some cases, politically) morally responsible for the state of the planet – and indeed, California passed an ecotax in 2012, followed by the EU in 2013.<br />
<br />
So when a series of deadly bombs went off almost simultaneously in capitals that were all part of the spearheading group of "enlightened" countries (as they called themselves), including London on the eve of the 2012 Olympics closure, killing more than 4,000 people… well, there were serious doubts as to where the decision and the means of execution came from. London's Olympics were to be the first "carbon-neutral" major sports event; Rome, the second targeted city, was a leading proponent of the European ecotax; San Francisco was the third and Delhi the fourth, a few months after the Indian government had announced its plans to lead a second "Green revolution" in the third world, this time mixing agricultural productivity and environmental sustainability – and with a strong focus on agrofuels.<br />
<br />
==Paradigm Shifts==<br />
<br />
While the usual immediate consequences of such attacks unfolded – stock market crashes, sharp reduction in air travel, security measures than soon became permanent, economic ripple effects… – a most unexpected thing happened: Governments did not budge and renewed their commitments to greener growth.<br />
<br />
Travel restrictions were converted into an opportunity to "Move less, do more", as UN ambassador Bono put it. In spite of intense lobbying by airlines and the aerospace industry, air travel was severely taxed and caps were imposed on air traffic towards several major destinations. As a substitute, governments and foundations encouraged research on "lifelike" remote communications and installed life-size teleconferencing rooms in developed and developing country metropolis alike, encouraging people to tele-act rather than move as much as possible. Results were initially mixed, but with the right financial incentives and penalties in place, as well as the progress in rich sensory interfaces, telework, telepresence and other forms of remote communications slowly picked up. Virtual universes that had spun off in different parts of the world started connecting through a "Metaverse", to become one of the most powerful means of organizing remote interactions and public forums with a real sense of common presence.<br />
<br />
Managed by a deeply reorganized World Bank and funded through a special contribution by developed countries, the "Oil Severance Project" was launched. Its goal was to design and co-finance large-scale projects with the potential to make countries or industries less dependent on fossil energy: very large wind farms or solar panel fields, experimental sea-bottom turbines, ultra-fast train networks. The "New Paradigms in Resource Production and Use" research programme was another major international initiative, looking for out-of-the-box ideas for industrial processes and transportations that would use less energy and resources and produce less emissions and permanent waste. One of the programme's rules was that results should be public and open-source.<br />
<br />
After some tough discussions, and not a few resignations, among its economists, the IMF and the World Bank even adopted the Human Development Index as a key indicator, and started linking all financing activities to total cost calculations, including environmental and social externalities.<br />
<br />
A "Climate Solidarity Fund" was also created in 2013, and came to immediate use when cyclones of unprecedented strength, following an unusually wet rainy season, hit Bangladesh, killing or displacing millions and ruining most of the country's infrastructure. Coordinated by the UN's Fast Response Corps created along with the Fund, public and NGO relief actions worked miracles, although some areas would remain inhabitable for decades.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Organization==<br />
<br />
Such a turnaround in human affairs required some organizing.<br />
<br />
The UN was only too happy to provide its basis, although governments also insisted on creating two separate, hopefully leaner and meaner, international agencies: ClimaPlan, dealing with climate change, NoWaste, dealing with CO2 emissions, pollution and waste, and PowerShift, dealing with renewable energy and energy efficiency. These agencies were given real supranational powers to enforce decisions, and fund large-scale projects. "Oil Severance" was succeeded by two programmes, "Factor 4" – taking into account the Kyoto III discussions, which were looking at a 75% reduction in emissions over 2007 levels by 2060 – and "Emergency Readiness" – designed to forecast, detect and manage extreme climate-related catastrophes and their aftermath. But perhaps the most innovative (and controversial) decision was to give these agencies some supervisory power over national, local or corporate environmental regulations and programmes.<br />
<br />
The counterpart to these powers was extreme accountability. All the agencies' internal information, all their emails, were open to public scrutiny, each of their activities had its own discussion plaza on the Metaverse, to which thousands of lobbies, groups and private citizens contributed at least occasionally.<br />
<br />
The third Doha cycle on international trade finally produced an agreement in 2022, 21 years after its launch. The agreement included the abandon of most Least Advanced Countries' debts, the dismantlement of agricultural subsidies in developed countries (including the EU's Common Agricultural Policy), the opening of northern market to products from the South. Perhaps its most innovative provision was a clear encouragement to "offshoring" of service-related activities, seen as a way to help developing countries the resource-hungry industrial development phase – and possibly, to relieve migratory pressures, so that developed countries could more easily set up immigration quotas based on their needs and common training & co-development programmes.<br />
<br />
R&D was mostly coordinated internationally according to globally defined priorities: genetically modified organisms that displayed desirable characteristics (resistance, frugality) or properties (e.g., CO2 absorption), preventive and proactive medicine, resource efficiency, smart processes and logistics, smart transport systems, rich remote communications, complex system modelling… Most of this research was entirely public and open-source. However, a side effect of globally centralized funding was a lack of diversity and of openness to small projects or out-of-the-box thinking. This became worse when, after the fast deployment of insufficiently tested plants had wiped out the agriculture of a whole Indian state, Ethics and Evaluation Committees were created everywhere and given veto power on research projects as well as on testing and industry transfer.<br />
<br />
To facilitate and equalize international discussions, Esperanto was relaunched and became the UN's official language… for some time, after which it became clear that "International English" would not be displaced anytime soon, especially since electronic translators had become so efficient.<br />
<br />
While the system seemed to organize itself well enough at global and regional levels, the issue remained to make it work at an individual level. National governments were either too remote, or too discredited, or both. In spite of strong opposition by governments, another level of governance soon emerged, which came to be called "guilds". A "guild" could be a commune, a neighbourhood, a parish, a corporation, an association, an organized ethnic minority or even an extended family – meaning that an individual could belong to several guilds. It would have a charter, an organization, leadership, rules for membership, mechanisms for making and enforcing decisions, and relationships to other guilds – to be considered a guild, you had to be recognized by a number of other guilds. Depending on a number of criteria, guilds could be devolved some regulatory power or some tax money. Through them, the virtuous mechanisms decided at global and national levels were adapted to local realities and enforced.<br />
<br />
In many countries, individuals and corporations (at least the mid- to large-size ones) were also given "Carbon Footprint Accounts" that tracked their energy consumption, their direct and indirect carbon emissions, their recycling behaviours, etc., with financial incentives or penalties attached. While individual accounts were of course protected, those of corporations and of public bodies were publicly accessible. A consumer could even scan a product in a shop with her mobile in order to check its producer's current Footprint status. Guilds were often in charge of emitting and controlling the accounts, consolidating data and enforcing financial mechanisms. The devolved budget they received was itself indexed on their collective performance.<br />
<br />
==Overregulation==<br />
<br />
Spectacular results were achieved, although the system could sometimes take things a little too far. Overall, CO2 emissions in 2025 were already 20% below their 2007 levels in Europe, and 15% in the U.S. The economy kept growing – although slower than before 2008 –, but energy sources were moving away from fossil fuels slightly faster than expected.<br />
<br />
That same year, Mexico city – formerly one of the world's most polluted capitals – finalized a 10-year internationally financed pilot project and became the world's first carbon-neutral metropolis with a new high-density centre connected via fast public transport to smaller, dense suburban nodes, made up of energy-positive buildings and surrounded by protected green areas. In the rest of the country, 75% of the land became nature parks. While the American Teleworkers in Mexico Guild hailed the move, peasants resisted it by violent means, with almost public backing from the FreeLife Guild.<br />
<br />
By that time, most armies were federated into multinational forces of different specialties. Their main concern was the small number of "rogue states", usually oil producing autocracies who became havens for mafias and terrorist groups. The 2027 invasion of Azerbaijan by UN forces provided clear data on these unholy alliances. However, terrorist attacks had by then become a fact of life and, due to reasonably effective controls on technologies for weapons of mass destruction, the damage they produced was unable to destabilize the world. A much smaller multinational force was also called upon to contain the Mexican peasant revolt, but this intervention created a certain uneasiness among international public opinion.<br />
<br />
In fact, the most destabilizing factor had become the world's almost excessive stability.<br />
<br />
As an example, the emphasis on healthy living, responsible behaviour and preventive care focused a lot of researchers on mind enhancements, on increasing life expectancies and on detecting all possible anomalies in embryos. In 2030, reaching 120 was no longer considered as exceptional, nor as bad luck. In fact, it was harder to be young. The financial burden of paying for retirement had become lighter after old-age activity became generalized. But the world was designed by old people (who, through embryo selection and other gene manipulations, even designed part of their own young) for old people, and these individuals, being rightly proud of their achievements, were unready to hand the reins to possibly less reasonable generations.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Projection==<br />
<br />
Youth unrest expressed itself in more and more visible ways. One of the most symbolic moments happened during the 20th ECOncert at the Stade de France in August 2030, when the videofeed of Bob Geldof's concert was hacked with images of cigarettes and whisky glasses (both substances having been classified as drugs in most places), of couch potato avatars watching avatars watching an elderly Geldof and other "I'm bored!" messages.<br />
<br />
With that in mind, Toronto, Seoul and Curitiba (Brazil), soon followed by other cities, reorganized in order to reconcile common rules with differentiated lifestyles. Cities would manage a common infrastructure grid and planning agency and devolve neighbourhood matters – under closely supervised rules and indicators – to local guilds. Young people (or those who consider themselves as such) would have their own space, ageless "transhumans" or New Buddhists could live by their own standards, etc. The cities made sure that some common rules were set and followed, provided interfaces and common spaces as well as 3D virtual forums, while guilds ensured individual compliance to common and specific rules.<br />
<br />
Africa also felt the need to make itself heard. The continent had benefited from the changes, but hardly as much as other countries. The world powers' priority was clearly on reducing energy consumption and CO2 emissions and Africa, at its current state of development, was no big player – hence no big problem and no big priority – in that regard. By the end on the 2020s, African countries started to threaten to leave the UN and abstract themselves from common rules, if they were not to benefit from them as much as Asia or South America had done. The issue of economic development remained partially unsolved.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23026Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T15:24:21Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought world attention on China, and in the process, made it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who traveled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and vastly increase the number of conventional cars and trucks on their roads. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with an ever-growing demand that outstripped supply capabilities, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking at $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for political or symbolic gains, such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the incumbency of current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. The high cost of oil effected them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat, passed energy-saving laws, boosted alternative energies – above all nuclear power - and increased funding for research related to energy and other resources. Consumer campaigns flourished against goods from countries with poor or no environmental controls, resulting in trade tariffs or bans.<br />
<br />
All the developing countries felt the pressure, first and foremost, the poorest economies. The impact did not play out as a sudden crisis although some Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly. It appeared more as a lower cap that had been imposed on growth rates which were previously close to double digits. Countries in the process of infrastructure development, based on high long-term growth assumptions, became particularly worried.<br />
<br />
Low-intensity terrorism was already a fact of life, and in the context of new economic tensions, the devastating bombs that ripped through the 2012 London Olympics did not come as a major surprise. Despite stringent security measures, making the olympics "the most watched event in the history of the world", the bombings killed 4000 people. The origins of the groups claiming responsibility were unknown. The technology was clearly more advanced than was used in other attacks. Still, the groups were never heard of again afterwards.<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although it was not noticeable in places like Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities and a number like them in the developed and developing worlds - Mumbai, Sao Paolo - were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and functioning as sources of new ideas and innovations. Inlaid with technology, these cities enabled invention, innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new types of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Primarily service oriented, these cities could afford to be more environmentally conscious. Cars remained dominant but adopted new aspects that modified transport: smaller and smarter urban cars, shared cars, on-demand minibuses, and corporate pickups etc..Travel restrictions, imposed by terrorist activities, failed to have much impact on them as well. Already a tightly formed network, using various means of communication, the cities and their corporate entities also had access to the type of on-demand travel services they required. <br />
<br />
Corporations readily accepted the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet made possible by the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere beyond the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not proceed as smoothly. Shortly after an explicit US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Hugo Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably priced oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change also began to produce devastating consequences that could no longer be denied. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in three years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a government entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, the Phillipines had to agree to new terms for recovery assistance: Its government had to commit to investment in preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property rights agreements. <br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as radar-based defences for climate-related events, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for countries that suffered most from climate change impacts.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer boycotts, pollution and climate problems began to impact heavily on emerging economies. Some continued to grow, albeit in a disjointed and much slower way. Others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which further exacerbated the problems. Foreign investment became more scarce and were weighted with conditions. The largest cities in the developing world plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. New industrial cities built hastily at the turn of the 21st century with little thought to quality and soundness fell into disrepair and quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, signed the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had largely been drafted by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there were more concessions to K2B. Western countries - and some corporations, which were actually signatories - agreed to share their technology and resources with developing countries to mitigate against climate impacts and related social unrest, provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, liberalised foreign investment, protection for intellectual property rights, reduced emigration, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help in return for enacting a "one-child-per-family" policy.<br />
<br />
The expansive new rules were also rigidly enforced by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando unit, funded by seven IT and biotech firms raided a group of patent-infringing industrial complexes in Nairobi, destroying the facilities and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan and supported by several multinational corporations, was tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts taking place over access to resources, especially water. Country borders, public spaces, ICT networks, and transportation systems were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. The Maghreb became the same with respect to the EU, while Russia reasserted a not-so-light control over a large number of former Soviet republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum - having recovered from its earlier financial crisis - became a vocal, effectively networked, savvy opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all attempts at control. Choosing other forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippie communities left cities and committed to traveling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic and religious groups resisted the new world order for various reasons and, sometimes, in violent ways. This opened the door to all kinds of political manipulations and/or suspicions. Thus, when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks assailed Denver, Frankfurt, St Petersburg and Wuhan in 2023, there were very different speculations as to the perpetrators: Who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? The US and Russia, followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only - and somewhat partially - lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance became even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to the post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made great strides, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and private colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The research agenda was mostly defined by four groups: Military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the advent of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill-at-ease with this emerging world came to populate the real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged, by governments since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial uses by the military, law enforcement or nuclear agencies to be employed by the general public. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring were endowed with as many beneficial genetic traits and with as few defects as possible. In fact, prenatal screening for selected potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventive medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy - and extending the "health expectancy" of elderly people in good health - beyond the century; again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generation whose prospects for upward social mobility seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness on two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, where the population was genetically unprepared for germs that once prevailed only in regions several thousand miles southward. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to diagnose the strains, and to mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, saving tens of thousands of lives. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations faced decimation by similar diseases, the same companies failed to show the same level of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies, developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves to be the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using a combination of alternative resources, materials and mechanisms - such as a mix of alternative energy sources, decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building and engineering techniques, new forms of public transport, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks - the cities claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed that the result was partly achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, since the educational system has become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissent. While trying to lend alternative views to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since careless disclosure of scientific research results is an punishable offense) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations tried to contest the discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had filed over the previous decades. But the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. Further, it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was all about, at least officially!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological symptoms. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. However, not all countries were ready for this development: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were expanding, becoming more intertwined, and therefore, somewhat looser in some ways. The US rediscovered its link with South America. The EU – now depleted in its ranks by the exit of some of its eastern member-states, but much more politically unified – recovered its links with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened - but still commanding - China.<br />
<br />
Faced with the prospect of becoming irrelevant, after having been the global overseeer and the last resort for cooperation in a conflict-ridden world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolitan centers that were the states' true ganglion. Even the hacktivists who had kept the Internet more or less open during these years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". The goals and capacity of this new UN were still unclear; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political alliances were vying for power, with economic and military means that were more potent than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a place of well-being.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23025Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T14:31:15Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought world attention on China, and in the process, made it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who traveled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and vastly increase the number of conventional cars and trucks on their roads. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with an ever-growing demand that outstripped supply capabilities, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking at $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for political or symbolic gains, such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the incumbency of current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. The high cost of oil effected them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat, passed energy-saving laws, boosted alternative energies – above all nuclear power - and increased funding for research related to energy and other resources. Consumer campaigns flourished against goods from countries with poor or no environmental controls, resulting in trade tariffs or bans.<br />
<br />
All the developing countries felt the pressure, first and foremost, the poorest economies. The impact did not play out as a sudden crisis although some Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly. It appeared more as a lower cap that had been imposed on growth rates which were previously close to double digits. Countries in the process of infrastructure development, based on high long-term growth assumptions, became particularly worried.<br />
<br />
Low-intensity terrorism was already a fact of life, and in the context of new economic tensions, the devastating bombs that ripped through the 2012 London Olympics did not come as a major surprise. Despite stringent security measures, making the olympics "the most watched event in the history of the world", the bombings killed 4000 people. The origins of the groups claiming responsibility were unknown. The technology was clearly more advanced than was used in other attacks. Still, the groups were never heard of again afterwards.<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although it was not noticeable in places like Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities and a number like them in the developed and developing worlds - Mumbai, Sao Paolo - were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and functioning as sources of new ideas and innovations. Inlaid with technology, these cities enabled invention, innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new types of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Primarily service oriented, these cities could afford to be more environmentally conscious. Cars remained dominant but adopted new aspects that modified transport: smaller and smarter urban cars, shared cars, on-demand minibuses, and corporate pickups etc..Travel restrictions, imposed by terrorist activities, failed to have much impact on them as well. Already a tightly formed network, using various means of communication, the cities and their corporate entities also had access to the type of on-demand travel services they required. <br />
<br />
Corporations readily accepted the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet made possible by the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere beyond the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not proceed as smoothly. Shortly after an explicit US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Hugo Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably priced oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change also began to produce devastating consequences that could no longer be denied. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in three years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a government entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, the Phillipines had to agree to new terms for recovery assistance: Its government had to commit to investment in preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property rights agreements. <br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as radar-based defences for climate-related events, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for countries that suffered most from climate change impacts.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer boycotts, pollution and climate problems began to impact heavily on emerging economies. Some continued to grow, albeit in a disjointed and much slower way. Others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which further exacerbated the problems. Foreign investment became more scarce and were weighted with conditions. The largest cities in the developing world plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. New industrial cities built hastily at the turn of the 21st century with little thought to quality and soundness fell into disrepair and quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, signed the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had largely been drafted by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there were more concessions to K2B. Western countries - and some corporations, which were actually signatories - agreed to share their technology and resources with developing countries to mitigate against climate impacts and related social unrest, provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, liberalised foreign investment, protection for intellectual property rights, reduced emigration, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help in return for enacting a "one-child-per-family" policy.<br />
<br />
The expansive new rules were also rigidly enforced by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando unit, funded by seven IT and biotech firms raided a group of patent-infringing industrial complexes in Nairobi, destroying the facilities and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan and supported by several multinational corporations, was tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts taking place over access to resources, especially water. Country borders, public spaces, ICT networks, and transportation systems were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. The Maghreb became the same with respect to the EU, while Russia reasserted a not-so-light control over a large number of former Soviet republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum - having recovered from its earlier financial crisis - became a vocal, effectively networked, savvy opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all attempts at control. Choosing other forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippie communities left cities and committed to traveling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic and religious groups resisted the new world order for various reasons and, sometimes, in violent ways. This opened the door to all kinds of political manipulations and/or suspicions. Thus, when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks assailed Denver, Frankfurt, St Petersburg and Wuhan in 2023, there were very different speculations as to the perpetrators: Who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? The US and Russia, followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only - and somewhat partially - lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance became even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to the post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made great strides, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and private colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The research agenda was mostly defined by four groups: Military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the advent of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill-at-ease with this emerging world came to populate the real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23024Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T13:53:49Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought world attention on China, and in the process, made it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who traveled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and vastly increase the number of conventional cars and trucks on their roads. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with an ever-growing demand that outstripped supply capabilities, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking at $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for political or symbolic gains, such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the incumbency of current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. The high cost of oil effected them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat, passed energy-saving laws, boosted alternative energies – above all nuclear power - and increased funding for research related to energy and other resources. Consumer campaigns flourished against goods from countries with poor or no environmental controls, resulting in trade tariffs or bans.<br />
<br />
All the developing countries felt the pressure, first and foremost, the poorest economies. The impact did not play out as a sudden crisis although some Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly. It appeared more as a lower cap that had been imposed on growth rates which were previously close to double digits. Countries in the process of infrastructure development, based on high long-term growth assumptions, became particularly worried.<br />
<br />
Low-intensity terrorism was already a fact of life, and in the context of new economic tensions, the devastating bombs that ripped through the 2012 London Olympics did not come as a major surprise. Despite stringent security measures, making the olympics "the most watched event in the history of the world", the bombings killed 4000 people. The origins of the groups claiming responsibility were unknown. The technology was clearly more advanced than was used in other attacks. Still, the groups were never heard of again afterwards.<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although it was not noticeable in places like Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities and a number like them in the developed and developing worlds - Mumbai, Sao Paolo - were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and functioning as sources of new ideas and innovations. Inlaid with technology, these cities enabled invention, innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new types of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Primarily service oriented, these cities could afford to be more environmentally conscious. Cars remained dominant but adopted new aspects that modified transport: smaller and smarter urban cars, shared cars, on-demand minibuses, and corporate pickups etc..Travel restrictions, imposed by terrorist activities, failed to have much impact on them as well. Already a tightly formed network, using various means of communication, the cities and their corporate entities also had access to the type of on-demand travel services they required. <br />
<br />
Corporations readily accepted the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet made possible by the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere beyond the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not proceed as smoothly. Shortly after an explicit US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Hugo Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably priced oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change also began to produce devastating consequences that could no longer be denied. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in three years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a government entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, the Phillipines had to agree to new terms for recovery assistance: Its government had to commit to investment in preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property rights agreements. <br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as radar-based defences for climate-related events, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for countries that suffered most from climate change impacts.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer boycotts, pollution and climate problems began to impact heavily on emerging economies. Some continued to grow, albeit in a disjointed and much slower way. Others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which further exacerbated the problems. Foreign investment became more scarce and were weighted with conditions. The largest cities in the developing world plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the 21st century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23023Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T12:46:27Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought world attention on China, and in the process, made it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who traveled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and vastly increase the number of conventional cars and trucks on their roads. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with an ever-growing demand that outstripped supply capabilities, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking at $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for political or symbolic gains, such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the incumbency of current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. The high cost of oil effected them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat, passed energy-saving laws, boosted alternative energies – above all nuclear power - and increased funding for research related to the production, distribution or efficiency of energy and other resources. Consumer campaigns flourished against goods from countries with poor or no environmental controls, resulting in trade tariffs or bans.<br />
<br />
All the developing countries felt the pressure, first and foremost, the poorest economies. The impact did not play out as a sudden crisis although some Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly. It appeared more as a lower cap that had been imposed on growth rates which were previously close to double digits. Countries in the process of infrastructure development, based on high long-term growth assumptions, began to worry.<br />
<br />
Low-intensity terrorism was already a fact of life, and in the context of new economic tensions, the devastating bombs that ripped through the 2012 London Olympics did not come as a major surprise. Despite stringent security measures, making the olympics "the most watched event in the history of the world", the bombings killed 4000 people. The origins of the groups claiming responsibility were unknown. The technology was clearly more advanced than was used in other attacks. Still, the groups were never heard of again afterwards.<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23022Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T10:20:21Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought world attention on China, and in the process, made it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who traveled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and vastly increase the number of conventional cars and trucks on their roads. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with an ever-growing demand that outstripped supply capabilities, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking at $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for political or symbolic gains, such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the incumbency of current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. The high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for research related to the production, distribution or efficiency of energy and other natural resources. They did not discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls, resulting in environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest, but all developing and emerging economies felt the pressure. The impact did not manifest itself as a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly. It revealed itself more like a much lower cap that had been imposed on their growth rates which had previously been close to double digits. Countries that were in the process of infrastructure development, based on high long-term growth assumptions, began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the devastating bombs that killed 4000 people during the 2012 London Olympics, despite stringent security measures--making it "the most watched event in the history of the world"-- did not come as a major surprise. The origins of the groups that claimed the attacks were unknown. The technology was clearly more advanced than that used in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world. and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23021Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T09:59:40Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought world attention on China, and in the process, made it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who traveled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and vastly increase the number of conventional cars and trucks on their roads. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with an ever-growing demand that outstripped supply capabilities, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking at $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for political or symbolic gains, such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the incumbency of current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. The high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23020Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T09:15:25Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought the world's eyes on China, making it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who travelled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a conservative to the presidency of the United States in 2008 was part of the aftershock. The candidate won by striking fear into the hearts of the electorate about the impending threat from Asia and the need to defend the American Way of Life. <br />
<br />
Unexpectedly, the candidate also played the sustainability card. Increasingly, erratic and extreme weather events were making climate change a palpable reality for voters. The candidate made it clear that no matter what the U.S. did to address the problem, it would make no difference for the planet if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians continued to build coal-fired plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and pollute the air with increasing numbers of conventional cars and trucks. <br />
<br />
The Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not only by the U.S., but also by all major emerging economies who saw it as a brake on their development efforts in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do much about reversing global warming, or to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing demand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23019Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T08:45:15Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics brought the world's eyes on China, making it a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but, also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. Global public opinion was incensed by the country's environmental and political conditions: the capital's foul air and reports of of worse situations inland by tourists and journalists who travelled within the country; and by news--despite official best efforts at Internet censorship--of social protests that were violently suppressed. <br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a Republican as President of the United State in November, 2008, was part of the aftershock. The successful candidate won by defending the American Way of Life against the threatening giant from the East, although how he would do so remained unclear.<br />
<br />
More unexpectedly (for a Republican), the president-to-be also played the sustainability card. More and more erratic and extreme climate events was making climate change a palpable reality in the voters' minds; But the candidate made it clear that whatever (unspecified) efforts the U.S. made, if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians had it into their minds to built coal plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and buy big cars, it would make no difference for the planet.<br />
<br />
With that agenda, the Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not by the U.S., but by all major emerging economies who felt they were being asked to slow down their path to wealth in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do anything at all against global warming, nor to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing demand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23018Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T08:27:55Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands dominating the array of consumer goods in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-quality hi-tech products, and athletes able to reap medals in almost any category of competition. The new superpower proudly displayed its muscles. It even took advantage of the event's global platform to announce it was abandoning its 1-child-per-family policy in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit future problems related to an ageing population. <br />
<br />
The unequivocal success of the Beijing Olympics made China a country to be feared rather than loved. People were impressed and also stunned by the sight of a vast new metropolis in which little of old Beijing remained standing. The shock of capital's foul air and reports of worse situations inland, by tourists and journalists who travelled within the country, reported far worse situations in inland cities. The violent squashing of social protests before or during the Olympics, reported despite the police's best efforts at Internet censorship, incensed global public opinion.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a Republican as President of the United State in November, 2008, was part of the aftershock. The successful candidate won by defending the American Way of Life against the threatening giant from the East, although how he would do so remained unclear.<br />
<br />
More unexpectedly (for a Republican), the president-to-be also played the sustainability card. More and more erratic and extreme climate events was making climate change a palpable reality in the voters' minds; But the candidate made it clear that whatever (unspecified) efforts the U.S. made, if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians had it into their minds to built coal plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and buy big cars, it would make no difference for the planet.<br />
<br />
With that agenda, the Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not by the U.S., but by all major emerging economies who felt they were being asked to slow down their path to wealth in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do anything at all against global warming, nor to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing demand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23017Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T07:44:44Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast, unequally shared, and mostly targeted towards security and to surface symptoms of sustainability. The public is incensed by enemies inside and outside the country, and strong opposition movements emerge. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for an emergent counter-culture. The groups anticipate bringing major changes to the state of the world while trying to implement technology, in the meantime, at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands of everything in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-level quality tech products, and (perhaps doped, but undetectably so) sportsman able to reap medals in almost any discipline… The new superpower was proudly showing its muscles. It event took advantage of the event's dynamics to announce it was abandoning its 1-Child per family policy, in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit its future aging problem.<br />
<br />
This huge success made China feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but also stunned by seeing how little of old Beijing remained standing. The death of two marathon runners was attributed to the capital's foul air, whereas tourists and journalists who travelled within the country reported far worse situations in inland cities. The violent squashing of social protests before or during the Olympics, reported despite the police's best efforts at Internet censorship, incensed global public opinion.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a Republican as President of the United State in November, 2008, was part of the aftershock. The successful candidate won by defending the American Way of Life against the threatening giant from the East, although how he would do so remained unclear.<br />
<br />
More unexpectedly (for a Republican), the president-to-be also played the sustainability card. More and more erratic and extreme climate events was making climate change a palpable reality in the voters' minds; But the candidate made it clear that whatever (unspecified) efforts the U.S. made, if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians had it into their minds to built coal plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and buy big cars, it would make no difference for the planet.<br />
<br />
With that agenda, the Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not by the U.S., but by all major emerging economies who felt they were being asked to slow down their path to wealth in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do anything at all against global warming, nor to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing demand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23016Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T07:20:47Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. This causes the markets to behave erratically and produces inflation and increased savings. Technological developments are fast but mostly targeted towards security and sustainability, and unequally shared. Public spirit is incensed, both against exterior enemies, as within countries, with strong opposition movements. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for the emergence of counter-cultures, hoping to bring about major changes in the state of the world and, meanwhile, trying to implement them at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands of everything in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-level quality tech products, and (perhaps doped, but undetectably so) sportsman able to reap medals in almost any discipline… The new superpower was proudly showing its muscles. It event took advantage of the event's dynamics to announce it was abandoning its 1-Child per family policy, in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit its future aging problem.<br />
<br />
This huge success made China feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but also stunned by seeing how little of old Beijing remained standing. The death of two marathon runners was attributed to the capital's foul air, whereas tourists and journalists who travelled within the country reported far worse situations in inland cities. The violent squashing of social protests before or during the Olympics, reported despite the police's best efforts at Internet censorship, incensed global public opinion.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a Republican as President of the United State in November, 2008, was part of the aftershock. The successful candidate won by defending the American Way of Life against the threatening giant from the East, although how he would do so remained unclear.<br />
<br />
More unexpectedly (for a Republican), the president-to-be also played the sustainability card. More and more erratic and extreme climate events was making climate change a palpable reality in the voters' minds; But the candidate made it clear that whatever (unspecified) efforts the U.S. made, if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians had it into their minds to built coal plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and buy big cars, it would make no difference for the planet.<br />
<br />
With that agenda, the Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not by the U.S., but by all major emerging economies who felt they were being asked to slow down their path to wealth in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do anything at all against global warming, nor to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing demand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_2:_Long_war(s)&diff=23015Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)2007-12-16T07:11:18Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''Yes'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? - '''Resources'''<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
The way around climate change and resource shortages is found in simultaneously modernizing rich countries, decelerating the growth of emerging economies-- especially in Asia--and essentially closing off the path of least developed nations to industrial growth. This is achieved by a de facto alliance of governments and large firms in the North that amasses global natural resources and distributes them in an "ordered" way, giving priority to its member countries and their spheres of influence. This creates a permanent state of low-intensity conflict, mostly economic and sometimes military, primarily involving minor countries and using terrorism as a constant threat. Nation-states regain strength as the need grows for internal and external security. International trade is slightly reduced and becomes a political weapon along with the economy in general. producing erratic movements, inflation and high savings. Technological developments are fast but mostly targeted towards security and sustainability, and unequally shared. Public spirit is incensed, both against exterior enemies, as within countries, with strong opposition movements. Technology also becomes the tool of choice for the emergence of counter-cultures, hoping to bring about major changes in the state of the world and, meanwhile, trying to implement them at local, community- or project-based levels.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario2_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
The 2008 Beijing Olympics sent a shockwave through the world. Visitors and watchers expected a post-communist developing country and discovered huge, clean, modern and secure cities, top-notch facilities and organization, international brands of everything in huge shopping malls, Chinese brands producing world-level quality tech products, and (perhaps doped, but undetectably so) sportsman able to reap medals in almost any discipline… The new superpower was proudly showing its muscles. It event took advantage of the event's dynamics to announce it was abandoning its 1-Child per family policy, in order to stimulate long-term growth and limit its future aging problem.<br />
<br />
This huge success made China feared rather than loved. People were impressed, but also stunned by seeing how little of old Beijing remained standing. The death of two marathon runners was attributed to the capital's foul air, whereas tourists and journalists who travelled within the country reported far worse situations in inland cities. The violent squashing of social protests before or during the Olympics, reported despite the police's best efforts at Internet censorship, incensed global public opinion.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Wake-up Call==<br />
<br />
In a way, the surprise election of a Republican as President of the United State in November, 2008, was part of the aftershock. The successful candidate won by defending the American Way of Life against the threatening giant from the East, although how he would do so remained unclear.<br />
<br />
More unexpectedly (for a Republican), the president-to-be also played the sustainability card. More and more erratic and extreme climate events was making climate change a palpable reality in the voters' minds; But the candidate made it clear that whatever (unspecified) efforts the U.S. made, if 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians had it into their minds to built coal plants, manufacture chemicals without environmental protections and buy big cars, it would make no difference for the planet.<br />
<br />
With that agenda, the Kyoto II discussions soon ground to a halt, boycotted not by the U.S., but by all major emerging economies who felt they were being asked to slow down their path to wealth in order to allow post-industrial countries to preserve their living standards.<br />
<br />
Environmentalists and scientists were disheartened. There seemed little hope, at least on the political front, to do anything at all against global warming, nor to prepare a smooth transition away from exhaustible and pollutant energy sources.<br />
<br />
The answer came from the economic front. Confronted with ever-growing demand, oil producers let prices rise to $150 a barrel, sometimes peaking up to $200, all the while using their economic power to bargain for other political or symbolic gains such as hosting UN meetings, or guaranteeing the stability of their current rulers.<br />
<br />
Industrialized countries did not respond as expected. It seemed the high cost of oil hurt them somewhat less than it did emerging economies, whose competitiveness was reduced. They let inflation rise somewhat. They passed some energy-saving laws, boosted alternative sources of energy – renewables, but above all current and future-generation nuclear power -, and increased funding for all research related to energy (and other resources) production, distribution or efficiency. And they did not (to say the least) discourage the growing number of consumer campaigns against goods coming from countries with little or no safety or environmental controls (such as China or India…), resulting in several environmentally-motivated trade tariffs or outright bans.<br />
<br />
The first countries to be hurt were the poorest of all, but all third-world and emerging economies felt the pressure. It was not like a sudden crisis, although several Asian stock-markets slumped rather rapidly, but more like if a much lower cap had been imposed on growth rates that had previously been close to double digits. Countries who had been building up their infrastructure based on high long-term growth assumptions began to worry.<br />
<br />
In this context, the horrible bombings that took place during the 2012 London Olympics, killing 4,000 people despite the stringent security measures that had made people joke about it being "the most watched event in the history of the world" did not come as a huge surprise – except, perhaps, for the intelligence community. The groups that claimed the attacks was of unknown origin, the technology was clearly more advanced than in other recent events ("low-intensity" terrorism having become a fact of life in much of he world), and they were never heard of again afterwards…<br />
<br />
==Tension==<br />
<br />
By 2015, tension ran high throughout the world, although you wouldn't notice it if you lived in Amsterdam, Sidney or NYC. These cities, as well as other metropolises in the developed and event, sometimes, the developing world (Delhi, Sao Paulo…), were thriving. They were the centres of corporate power, they networked with the world to move goods, people and money, and they were the places whence new ideas came and were tested. Technology infused cities, allowing them and their entrepreneurs to invent innovative services, new public spaces, original art forms and new kinds of real-virtual relationships – while closely monitoring all spaces for security.<br />
<br />
Since these cities' activity was mostly based on services, they could easily afford to become environmentally conscious. Cars remained the dominant means of transportation, but urban cars became smaller and smarter. New means of public transportation, like shared cars, on-demand minibuses, corporate pickups, emerged.<br />
<br />
Even the major restrictions on international travel that followed the London Olympics bombing did not hurt major cities very much. These metropolises already formed a tight network, using many means of communication. Corporations were learning to use teleconferencing and virtual spaces much more and could always reserve a seat in small, on-demand, highly exclusive business travel airlines when they really needed it.<br />
<br />
Corporations neither really minded the general move towards ever-tighter control of the Internet that the London bombings finally made possible, since loud opposition by greying netheads was no longer considered legitimate.<br />
<br />
Elsewhere, outside the confines of the world's 200 richest conurbations, things did not go as smoothly. Shortly after an explicitly US-staged coup replaced Venezuela's Huge Chavez by a friendlier, Harvard-educated ruler in 2016, Russia took armed control of Azerbaijan's oilfields; while the EU, more carefully but just as decisively, provided the necessary help to the groups who finally toppled the waning mullah power in Iran. OPEC's power was more or less destroyed. Two markets for oil coexisted: bilateral secured long-term agreements provided major economies with reasonably prices oil, while international markets for fossil fuels remained outrageously expensive.<br />
<br />
Climate change was also beginning to produce devastating consequences. In 2016, after the Philippines was devastated by its third level 5 typhoon in 3 years, the EU and a group of corporations jointly organized a major recovery effort which made history for two reasons. First, it was the first time a governmental entity officially mounted a major operation of this kind in conjunction with private corporations. Second, there were counterparts of the Philippine side: Its government had to commit to investing on preventive measures (and European technology) against future catastrophes, but also to open its markets wider to European products, to commit to cleaner and softer growth and to enforce intellectual property treaties.<br />
<br />
Having invested heavily in energy technologies as well as in climate-related catastrophe detection and recovery, the West began using its technology as a bargaining tool for those countries who suffered most from climate changes.<br />
<br />
High energy costs, consumer defiance and boycott campaigns, pollution and climate problems, began to weigh ever more heavily on emerging economies. Some of them continued to grow in a hectic and altogether much slower way; others went into decline amidst social unrest and political instability, which in turn deepened the problems. Foreign investment into these economies became scarcer and came with conditions. The largest third world metropolises plunged into anarchy, while their population kept growing. Several of China's new industrial cities built at the turn of the XXIst century fell into disrepair and, due to the low quality of construction, quickly degraded.<br />
<br />
==Powerplay==<br />
<br />
As a consequence, in 2019, Brazil, China and India, soon followed by most of the developing world, agreed to sign the "Kyoto IIb" (K2B) agreement, which had been largely prepared by experts from the post-industrial world. According to K2B, all countries committed to sharp reductions in energy consumption and CO2/particle emissions. But there was more to K2B. Western countries and corporations, several of which were actually signatories, agreed to share their technology and resources to help developing countries reach their goals and protect themselves against the consequences of climate changes (and related social unrest), provided these countries signed on to a sweeping reform agenda: market openness, foreign investment deregulation, intellectual property protection, emigration reduction, police and judicial cooperation… Several countries also traded higher western help against the enactment of a "One-child per family" policy.<br />
<br />
The (rather leonine) new rules of the game were also strongly enforced, by whatever means made sense. In 2022, an armed commando funded by 7 IT and biotech firms raided Nairobi (Kenya), destroying three patent-infringing industrial complex and holding the government hostage until it formally committed to the K2B agenda. A UN special force, funded by America, the EU and Japan, with the help of several multinational corporations, was also tasked with settling the growing number of border conflicts that took place over access to resources, especially water. Borders, public spaces, networks, transports, were all under strict surveillance.<br />
<br />
Under K2B, the major industrial countries began to organize their spheres of influence. Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries became ''de facto'' US protectorates. So did Maghreb in relation with the EU, while Russia reasserted not-so-light handed control over a large number of former USSR republics.<br />
<br />
The birth of this new, ''de facto'' world order of course met with strong resistance. While the World Economic Forum supported it, the World Social Forum (after recovering from the crisis that travel costs and restrictions had plunged it into, due to the difficulty of organizing large-scale global events) became a vocal, efficiently networked and educated opponent. It could use the semi-clandestine "free networks" that kept emerging over the Internet, despite all the attempts at control. Choosing alternative forms of opposition, alternative, neo-hippies communities left cities and committed to travelling the world on foot, horse or bike.<br />
<br />
Many other political, economic or religious groups refused the new world order, for a variety of reasons and sometimes in very violent ways. This opened the way to all kinds of manipulations and/or suspicions. So when a devastating series of "dirty nuke" attacks on Denver, Frankfurt and the St Petersburg and Wuhan happened in 2023, there were very different speculations as to who was the real perpetrator: who stood to gain from a continuous state of fear? Anyway, the US and Russia, soon followed by most EU countries, declared a state of "limited emergency" which was only (sometimes partially) lifted around 2027-2030. Surveillance was made even more ubiquitous and permanent. Illegal immigration became a highly punishable crime.<br />
<br />
It was harder and harder to migrate from the developing world to post-industrialized world. Those who were given a chance to study or work for some time in the North started forming a new, "globalized class", whose ties with international business and government communities were sometimes stronger than with their fellow countrymen.<br />
<br />
==Reorganization==<br />
<br />
During that period, science and technology made huge progress, although mostly in the close confines of laboratories and confidential colloquia, subject to strong security and secrecy rules. The researcher's agenda was mostly defined by four groups: military and law enforcement agencies, energy agencies and corporations, health agencies, and nano-bio-IT multinational corporations.<br />
<br />
IT managed to rather smartly combine increased security with innovative capabilities. Pervasive sensors, actuators and interactive interfaces of all kinds provided a ubiquitous grid of information closely related to physical and relational spaces, allowing the spawn of many innovative commercial services as well as ever tighter surveillance and control. Many of those who felt ill at ease in the world as it was becoming, came to populate these real-virtual social spaces of free expression and behaviour. These spaces were tolerated, sometimes even encouraged by governments, since they were also very easy to monitor.<br />
<br />
Nanotech, biotech and neuroscience products slowly trickled down from their initial military, law enforcement or nuclear plants uses, to civilian uses. Corporations would subsidize employees willing to gain new capacities through implants or highly selective drugs. Those who could afford it could make sure their offspring was endowed with as many genetic chances and as little defects as possible; in fact, prenatal detection of several potential problems became compulsory in several countries. New drugs and preventative medicine played a major role in raising life expectancy (or rather, "health expectancy", for these old people were in excellent health) well beyond the century, again, for those who could afford the full treatment. The idea of a fixed retirement age became ''passé'' in ruling circles, sometimes to the dismay of the younger generations whose prospects of rising to the top of the social ladder seemed indefinitely delayed.<br />
<br />
The biotech industry actually showed its preparedness in two dramatic occasions. One was the first major bioterrorist attack that took place in Shanghai in 2026; the other was the successive outbreak of tropical diseases in southern Europe, whose population was genetically unprepared to fight germs that used to belong several thousand miles southwards. In both cases, pharmaceutical firms were able to finalize, mass-produce and distribute antidotes in a matter of days, probably saving tens of thousands of people. Some observers noted, however, that when poorer populations were decimated by quite similar diseases, the same companies did not show the same kind of diligence.<br />
<br />
Taking advantage of superior technologies developed by the corporations they were associated with, Toronto and Stuttgart declared themselves the world's first "100% sustainable cities" in 2022. Using several alternative energy sources combined through decentralized distribution mechanisms, efficient materials, building techniques or engines, new forms of public or semi-public transportation, sequestration and recycling facilities as well as pervasive control networks, they claimed they were able to produce more energy than they used, and that they released no CO2 and practically no hazardous waste, either in the air or in the ground.<br />
<br />
That claim was, however, contested by a group of researchers who showed how such a result was, in part, achieved by outsourcing polluting activities to other parts of the world. In fact, several public universities (usually the poorer ones, in an educational system that had become highly competitive) had become a networked locus of intellectual dissidence. While trying to contribute alternative voices to scientific and political discussions in the North, they also (prudently, since the careless disclosing of scientific research results could get you into jail) networked with colleagues in the South in order to facilitate the circulation of knowledge.<br />
<br />
==Openings==<br />
<br />
Around 2025, these initiatives started to bear fruits. In a visibly coordinated manner, researchers in India, China and Chile produced interesting breakthroughs in renewable energies as well as high-yield, low-input genetically modified crops and livestock. India immediately announced its intention to lead a "3rd Green Revolution" and to share it with other emerging countries. Western corporations did try to contest these discoveries, claiming that they infringed on the thousands of patents that they had been filing over the previous decades, but the move was well prepared in legal and diplomatic terms. And it was difficult to argue that this was not what Kyoto IIb was (at least officially) all about!<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the first generation of "enhanced" soldiers, policemen, firemen and top executives of 2025-2025 started showing odd pathological patterns. Biotech and health-oriented nanotech in the North became even more state-controlled and subject to prior testing, and some information was allowed to circulate more freely. Not all countries were ready for that, though: the authorization of private-purpose human gene editing by the US, Japan and Korea in 2027 met with fear and awe in the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
The geospheres of influence were becoming larger, more intertwined and therefore, somewhat looser. The US rediscovered its link with South America, the EU – now depleted from some of its eastern member-states, and much more politically unified – with Africa, while Japan renewed its ties with Southeast Asia despite grumblings from a weakened (but still mighty) China.<br />
<br />
Faces with the prospect of becoming irrelevant after a period where is had become both the global watchdog and the last forum for cooperation in a conflicting world, the UN decided to reinvent itself. It created an official Corporate Chamber and another for regions and cities. States protested, but they were quickly shut down by the firms and the metropolises who were their real nervous system. Even the hacktivists that had kept the Internet more or less open during all those years were given official UN recognition as members of the "Civil Society". What this new UN would be able to do, no-one really knew; but it certainly reflected what the world had become in a more faithful way.<br />
<br />
<br />
<center>'''***'''</center><br />
<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world economy was closer to sustainability than it had been for a century. It was also slowly moving away from a situation of permanent conflict and major existential risks. But there were still dangers. Sustainability had been achieved first by maintaining billions of people in poverty, and then only, and only partially, by technical and organizational progress. Larger than ever economic and political ensembles were vying for power, with economic and military means larger than those of any individual country except the USA. Corporations had become an almost autonomous power, even able to muster military force. Biotech had generated the means to produce cheap and very lethal weapons. The younger generations in the North and (even more) in the South were growing restless at the sight of a world ruled by a powerful caste of older and older people.<br />
<br />
The world had succeeded in wrestling itself away from global environmental collapse. It now had to build itself as a pleasant place to be.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
==Amplify, comment and contribute!==<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23014Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-16T06:44:41Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, resistance-enhancing synthetic drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet extensively to interact with other experts elsewhere in the world, but they had difficulties reaching sizeable markets, preventing them from making a difference with their discoveries. <br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely. However, they could not rid themselves of an emotional distance, and tended to give priority to links in their proximity. The age of Promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists which, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions, and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not yet taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone further,though, because of economic constraints and out of economic necessity, which saw millions of unemployed inventing local jobs: on-demand taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
Many local centers of authority, which emerged when the world was coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. Regions in Europe as well as North American states and provinces reached quasi-independent status. Cities, like Barcelona, practically seceded. Internal passports were created in some countries, and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union though that was limited.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. In one of this period's rare major international initiatives, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania, and made habitable. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of the histories of Australia's or of the American West. <br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic. They were areas of religious, ethnic, cultural or of some other distinction, which formed their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions, and used the Altronet to effectively operate as coherent entities. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a significant role in facilitating the emergence of a new federation of organizations. It was used by local currencies and exchange systems for inter-system trade and compensation. Some community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged as the "Metaverse", then later merged with the Altronet. Some prominent trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited with preventing many conflicts. Some believe that it will help build intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23013Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T19:43:26Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, resistance-enhancing synthetic drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet extensively to interact with other experts elsewhere in the world, but they had difficulties reaching sizeable markets, preventing them from making a difference with their discoveries. <br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely. However, they could not rid themselves of an emotional distance, and tended to give priority to links in their proximity. The age of Promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists which, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions, and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not yet taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone further,though, because of economic constraints and out of economic necessity, which saw millions of unemployed inventing local jobs: on-demand taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
Many local centers of authority, which emerged when the world was coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. Regions in Europe as well as North American states and provinces reached quasi-independent status. Cities, like Barcelona, practically seceded. Internal passports were created in some countries, and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union though that was limited.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. In one of this period's rare major international initiatives, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania, and made habitable. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of the histories of Australia's or of the American West. <br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic. They were areas of religious, ethnic, cultural or of some other distinction, which formed their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions, and used the Altronet to effectively operate as coherent entities. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a significant role in facilitating the emergence of a new federation of organizations. It was used by local currencies and exchange systems for inter-system trade and compensation. Some community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged as the "Metaverse", then later merged with the Altronet. Some prominent trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited with preventing many conflicts. Some believe that it will intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23005Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T18:20:31Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, resistance-enhancing synthetic drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet extensively to interact with other experts elsewhere in the world, but they had difficulties reaching sizeable markets, preventing them from making a difference with their discoveries. <br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely. However, they could not rid themselves of an emotional distance, and tended to give priority to links in their proximity. The age of Promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists which, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions, and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not yet taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone further,though, because of economic constraints and out of economic necessity, which saw millions of unemployed inventing local jobs: on-demand taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
Many local centers of authority, which emerged when the world was coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. Regions in Europe as well as North American states and provinces reached quasi-independent status. Cities, like Barcelona, practically seceded. Internal passports were created in some countries, and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. In one of this period's rare major international initiatives, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania, and made habitable. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of the histories of Australia's or of the American West. <br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic. They were religious, ethnic, cultural or of some other distinction, which formed their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing a new federation of organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23004Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T18:09:00Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, resistance-enhancing synthetic drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet extensively to interact with other experts elsewhere in the world, but they had difficulties reaching sizeable markets, preventing them from making a difference with their discoveries. <br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely. However, they could not rid themselves of an emotional distance, and tended to give priority to links in their proximity. The age of Promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists which, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions, and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone further,though, because of economic constraints and out of economic necessity, which saw millions of unemployed inventing local jobs: on-demand taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
Many local centers of stability that emerged in the period when from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23003Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T18:04:18Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, resistance-enhancing synthetic drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet extensively to interact with other experts elsewhere in the world, but they had difficulties reaching sizeable markets, preventing them from making a difference with their discoveries. <br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely. However, they could not rid themselves of an emotional distance, and tended to give priority to links in their proximity. The age of Promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists which, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions, and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone further,though, because of economic constraints and out of economic necessity, which saw millions of unemployed inventing local jobs: on-demand taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23002Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T17:54:29Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, resistance-enhancing synthetic drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet extensively to interact with other experts elsewhere in the world, but they had difficulties reaching sizeable markets, preventing them from making a difference with their discoveries. <br />
<br />
Still, people learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not rid themselves of an emotional distance, and tended to give priority to links in their proximity. The age of Promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23001Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T17:40:43Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, new discoveries in traditional medicines, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=23000Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T17:36:52Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials, giving material expression to the values of their time. Compensating for the lack of funding and international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22999Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T17:26:39Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture; and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled materials to the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22998Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T17:21:45Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
no**[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, the situation did not escalate to nuclear or biological warfare. <br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH showed what it cost to continue operations as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers, when they were subcontracting to western firms, and its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its version of GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fears and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brand of "generic" IT equipment. India's generic and cheap "intelligent" drugs also came to the aid of Eastern Europe was it was struck by a wave of new vector-borne diseases, brought north from tropical climes by global warming. <br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. There was a resurgence of local culture, and historical events, personalities, artifacts, works of art and places gained new authority as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22997Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T17:02:38Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
no **[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions. Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices gained increasing favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability, conflict escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism became all but extinct, due to border closures and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22996Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T14:07:40Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of southern Europe; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. The airwaves bombarded us with images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions: Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices rose in favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space -- and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs. Governments of fragile states inevitably gave way to warring factions and pockets of religious, tribal or ethnic warfare. Despite the instability escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism became all but extinct, due to border closures and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22995Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T13:55:35Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions: Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, communities, and countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade became half of what it was 10 years earlier. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. Currency alienation set in as local exchange practices rose in favor. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries exited the union, the EU gave up all pretence of being more than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses and opt-outs on most occasions, and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism became all but extinct, due to border closures and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22994Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T13:30:17Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions: Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps at the heart of Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never fully ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt duty-bound to protect the free flow of ideas that was a significant part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted official and not-so-official attacks, and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22993Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T13:21:33Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
Al Gore won the 2012 presidential election in the U.S. It led to little of substantive achievement. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling in the western world, forcing radical changes and raising social tensions: Full retirement age moved up or altogether disappeared in some countries, and family members were strongly encouraged--and sometimes mandated-- to rely on one another for their social safety net. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honored. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Borders were closed more tightly than ever in the West and Asia, effectively consigning economic migrants and the growing number of refugees, displaced by ecological catastrophes and local conflicts over natural resources, to a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements, dictated by the need for securing markets and energy sources.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and in some cases, on even core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22992Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T13:00:35Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
While some found his "I told you so" attitude annoying, Al Gore, nevertheless, won the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22991Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T12:52:40Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services. It effectively prevented any kind of timely response. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of more attacks, obstructive security measures -- making plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and air traffic restrictions. Several major airlines filed for bankruptcy. Public confidence shattered: savings soared, and consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing a ''de facto'' tripartite regime --U.S., China, and Russia-- to control most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
While some found his "I told you so" attitude annoying, Al Gore nevertheless won difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22990Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T12:39:26Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, and China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down despite upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that: terrorist incidents that jolted the public to a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technologies. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services, effectively preventing any kind of timely reaction. <br />
<br />
The events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of other attacks, obstructive security measures -- that made plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and of course, air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt anyway, several major airlines filed for bankruptcy--although not Airbus. Public confidence was shattered: savings soared, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally took over regulatory control of the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22989Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T12:14:15Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that, the public was jolted to a new high in domestic insecurity and there was massive deployment of new security and surveillance technology. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing sheer havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services, effectively preventing any kind of timely reaction. <br />
<br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of other attacks, obstructive security measures -- that made plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and of course, air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt anyway, several major airlines filed for bankruptcy--although not Airbus. Public confidence was shattered: savings soared, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally succeeded in assuming regulatory control of the Internet, last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22988Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T12:05:01Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that, a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new security and surveillance technology. Three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks took place just before the final days of the London Olympics, unleashing sheer havoc. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences turned on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. They happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and GPS services, effectively preventing any kind of timely reaction. <br />
<br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled. Air travel nearly grounded, hit hard by fears of other attacks, obstructive security measures -- that made plane travel increasingly inefficient and burdensome -- fuel prices, and of course, air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt anyway, several major airlines filed for bankruptcy--although not Airbus. Public confidence was shattered: savings soared, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies finally succeeded in assuming regulatory control of the Internet, last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22987Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T11:47:58Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that, a new level of fear about domestic security and massive deployment of new three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks unleashed havoc just before the London Olympics. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences on, creating mass panic. The second, an biological attack during a gymnastics competition. Each happened simultaneously with a synchronized attack on the city's central ICT networks, disabling communications, surveillance nodes, detection sensors and Global Positioning Services, effectively preventing any kind of timely reaction. Needless to say, these attacks provoked massive deployment of new security and surveillance technology.<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22986Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T11:37:26Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along China's dynamic Pearl River Delta faced mass evacuation from disastrous spring floods caused by melting glaciers in the north. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations- governments, aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with problems in their own backyards that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to assist and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
Adding to all that, three of the most deadly and cunning terrorist attacks unleashed havoc just before the London Olympics. First at Wembley stadium where safety systems were highjacked, all doors closed and electric fences on, creating unprecedented mass panic. The second,an biological attack during the gymnastics competition. Meanwhile, a distributed denial of service attack disabled the city's communication networks, surveillance nodes and sensors as well as all geo-located information services, effectively preventing all kind of timely reaction. These attacks provoked massive deployment of security and surveillance technology,<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22985Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-15T11:18:04Z<p>Swe: </p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That common feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on unusual climate event-- meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But these signal events happened sporadically, far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see a pattern forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban air-conditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a stream of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some said it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and a spreading desert in Africa, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our equanimity. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned about things getting worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In Asia, large swaths of the southeast were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. Communities along the Yantze were The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations-the aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with climate problems buffeting their own backyards, that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to lend assistance and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
This was only the beginning of the even morethat more comfort and consciousness – or perhaps thanks to – the massive deployment of security and surveillance technology, three deadly and cunning terrorist attacks created havoc just before the last day of London's Olympics. First, Wembley stadium's safety system was highjacked during the football final, and use to create panic while all doors were closed, electric fences were on and contradictory announcements were made. The second attack was biological, in the closed stadium where gymnastics took place. Meanwhile, a distributed denial of service attack disabled the city's communication networks, surveillance nodes and sensors as well as all geo-located information services, effectively preventing all kind of timely reaction.<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22984Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-14T14:24:10Z<p>Swe: /* Rupture */</p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That shared feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on extreme climate events, meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But most of these signal events happened far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see the pattern that was forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban airconditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with the steady drum-beat of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some say it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and desertification, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our sense of well-being. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned that it will be worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In southeast Asia, large swaths of the region were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters. But most of the leaders and organizations-the aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with climate problems buffeting their own backyards, that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination to lend assistance and demonstrate our global solidarity. <br />
<br />
This was only the beginning of the even morethat more comfort and consciousness – or perhaps thanks to – the massive deployment of security and surveillance technology, three deadly and cunning terrorist attacks created havoc just before the last day of London's Olympics. First, Wembley stadium's safety system was highjacked during the football final, and use to create panic while all doors were closed, electric fences were on and contradictory announcements were made. The second attack was biological, in the closed stadium where gymnastics took place. Meanwhile, a distributed denial of service attack disabled the city's communication networks, surveillance nodes and sensors as well as all geo-located information services, effectively preventing all kind of timely reaction.<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22983Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-14T14:20:32Z<p>Swe: /* Rupture */</p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That shared feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on extreme climate events, meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But most of these signal events happened far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see the pattern that was forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries claimed for their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban airconditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with the steady drum-beat of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; of millions more -- some say it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and desertification, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our sense of well-being. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned that it will be worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In southeast Asia, large swaths of the region were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters; but most of the leaders and organizations-the aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with climate problems buffeting their own backyards, that there was no real response, no display of grit and determination that we were all in this together and on of media, NGOs and military assistance, solidarity was truly minimal.<br />
and this was only the beginning. even morethat more comfort and consciousness – or perhaps thanks to – the massive deployment of security and surveillance technology, three deadly and cunning terrorist attacks created havoc just before the last day of London's Olympics. First, Wembley stadium's safety system was highjacked during the football final, and use to create panic while all doors were closed, electric fences were on and contradictory announcements were made. The second attack was biological, in the closed stadium where gymnastics took place. Meanwhile, a distributed denial of service attack disabled the city's communication networks, surveillance nodes and sensors as well as all geo-located information services, effectively preventing all kind of timely reaction.<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22982Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-14T14:09:43Z<p>Swe: /* Rupture */</p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
| rowspan="4" width="10%" valign="top" style="border:2px solid #FDBD24;" bgcolor="#FFFF99"|<br />
<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That shared feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on extreme climate events, meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But most of these signal events happened far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see the pattern that was forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries wanted in their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban airconditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a steady drum of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; and of millions more -- some say it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures. We watched images of millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and desertification, other reports of climate problems began to puncture our sense of well-being. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned that it will be worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In southeast Asia, large swaths of the region were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. The world attempted to mobilize to deal with these disasters; but most of the leaders and organizations-the aid agencies, the NGOs- were so caught up with climate problems buffeting their own backyards, that there was no real initial mobilization of media, NGOs and military assistance, solidarity was truly minimal.<br />
and this was only the beginning. even morethat more comfort and consciousness – or perhaps thanks to – the massive deployment of security and surveillance technology, three deadly and cunning terrorist attacks created havoc just before the last day of London's Olympics. First, Wembley stadium's safety system was highjacked during the football final, and use to create panic while all doors were closed, electric fences were on and contradictory announcements were made. The second attack was biological, in the closed stadium where gymnastics took place. Meanwhile, a distributed denial of service attack disabled the city's communication networks, surveillance nodes and sensors as well as all geo-located information services, effectively preventing all kind of timely reaction.<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swehttps://www.scenariothinking.org/index.php?title=Ci%27Num_scenario_1:_Collapse&diff=22981Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse2007-12-14T14:05:26Z<p>Swe: /* Rupture */</p>
<hr />
<div><small>[[Main_Page|Scenariothinking.org]] > [[Cinum|Ci'Num 07 Homepage]] > The 2030 Scenarios</small><br />
{| width="100%" cellspacing="8" align="center"<br />
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<div align="left"><br />
<center><span style="color:#FF7723;">'''Contribute to Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios'''</span></center><br><br />
<small><br />
*[[What_is_Scenario_Thinking%3F|What is Scenario Thinking? >>]]<br><br />
*[[CiNum_2030_scenarios|The mechanics and roots of Ci'Num's 2030 scenarios]]<br />
*[[Ci'Num 2030 scenario characteristics|Ci'Num 2030 detailed scenario characteristics >>]]<br />
*The 4 scenarios:<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 1: Collapse|Collapse]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 2: Long war(s)|Long war(s)]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 3: New enlightenment|New enlightenment]]<br />
**[[Ci'Num scenario 4: Hundred Flowers|Hundred Flowers]]<br />
</small></div><br />
|}<br />
<br><br />
=Position in the [[CiNum_2030_scenarios|scenario tree]]=<br />
* Will we have the global organizational capacity to address the overshoot? - '''No'''<br />
* What is the primary constraint of human activities? [irrelevant]<br />
* What are the main mechanisms for organizing large scale systems? [irrelevant]<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Initial Description=<br />
<br />
Despite having the necessary technologies at hand, we have collectively done little to reduce global warming and to plan for shortages in fossil energies, fresh water, arable land, etc. Crises occur in growing frequency and seriousness, severely damaging the world economy and producing human catastrophes, both natural and man-made, especially in developing countries. Hundreds of millions of refugees roam Asia and Africa, and migratory pressure on the North becomes insupportable. Borders close, local conflicts multiply and threaten to expand, mobility decreases, economies and societies retract and relocalize. Public spirit is low, spontaneously erupting in local conflicts. Alliances shift and solidarity can no longer be extended globally as each group fights for its own survival. Technology is used mostly to plan for and cope with current or coming difficulties, and to provide alternatives or escapes from an uninspiring daily life. Alternatives are found in frugal, hyperlocal community-building as well as in semi-autonomous, encrypted and somehow tolerated virtual networks.<br />
<br><br />
<br />
=Timeline=<br />
<br />
<small>''(click image to see it full-size)''</small><br />
<br />
[[Image:CiNum_Scenario1_Timeline.PNG|800px]]<br />
<br />
=Full scenario=<br />
<br />
In retrospect, these seem like quiet, easy times, although of course they weren't. Everything seemed to work. As a symbol, the 2008 Beijing Olympics were an unprecedented success: Spectacular (205 records beaten!), grandiose, popular (4.5 billion viewers, all screentypes considered), safe and ''very'' profitable! China did justice to its new status as a world giant. Sure, doping was rampant, and athletes and spectators alike came back to their own polluted cities, feeling certain that no metropolis could be worse than Beijing. Al Gore was touring the world with yet another frightening movie, but what did it matter? We had fun; money, information and images flowed; innovation sprouted all over the place. The system worked.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Race to the top==<br />
<br />
That shared feeling was expressed in the election of a right-wing conservative to the U.S. presidency in November, 2008. Americans and others felt they needed leadership for growth and safety; not abstract, forward-looking, planetary principles. "Clean" growth was fine, as long as it was fast growth. Fractured discussions to do something about climate--which ultimately should have led to a second Kyoto round by 2009--were soon abandoned when it became clear that neither Russia, nor the U.S. would sign, and China, in a bid to grow, announced it was officially moving away from its "one child" policy.<br />
<br />
Certainly, we were aware of the pending crises, but only intellectually. TV news reported on extreme climate events, meters of rain in Britain while Eastern and Southern Europe suffered drought and scorching heat. But most of these signal events happened far away and were gone in a few weeks. It was hard to see the pattern that was forming, no matter how many blogs, prophets, reports and rockstars drove it in your face.<br />
<br />
And it was just too great a time. You were into Web 2.0, 3.0, mobile or ubicomp, and busy with your own inventions and ideas. You could invent all you wanted and implement it, get it funded ''and'' millions of users in a matter of weeks. With people interacting, cooperating, building things together online, it seemed as if our original vision for the web and its promise were coming true-- and this time, with viable business models! Biotech, neuroscience and nanotech were making fast progress. They yielded new cures and diagnoses, better GMOs, spectacular new materials and, perhaps, some less publicized drugs and methods that mostly soldiers, movie stars and aspiring champions took. New products came on the market constantly; and consumers liked them, emerging countries contributed to growing the market and keeping prices down. And their populations got access to western affluence and people felt optimistic.<br />
<br />
So we grew. India vowed that its Delhi Commonwealth Games would be even grander than Beijing's, to which China responded by pumping more money into the Shanghai World Expo. The price of oil hit $150, then $200, and that hurt, although not so much: There was plenty of money, and besides, careful planners knew there were a few weeks each year when prices went sharply down inspite of upward trends.<br />
<br />
In many ways, we felt that global warming and the shortage of exhaustible resources --oil,water, etc.,-- would simply disappear as problems. We would discover inexhaustible sources of energy. We would suddenly be able to control climate or recapture the CO2. We bought green cars; we recycled garbage; we gladly paid taxes for our carbon footprint--our fuel and air travel; we video-conferenced and worked from home most Fridays. We did enough, even to justify our opposition to the wind turbine that would have ruined the view from our country house.<br />
<br />
These were fun times, really. Until it hit us.<br />
<br />
==Rupture==<br />
<br />
In 2015, a naval skirmish, between China and the U.S. over two supertankers that both countries wanted in their own ports, pulled our attention to the drastically depleted state of oil inventories. The incident triggered a chain of events that sent oil prices soaring through the roof; grounded 40% of the fleet at UPS and Delta Airlines; forced major industrial plants to shut down pending a resumption of regular oil supplies; and led whole cities to ban airconditioning despite the scorching summers. <br />
<br />
Then, the unrelenting news stories. What began as a trickle started to gain momentum with a steady drum of reports about waves of African refugees heading for the beaches of Italy and Spain; and of millions more -- some say it could go as high as 250 million--displaced by water shortages, erupting violence over water rights, and crop failures--millions of internally displaced people looking for food, water and safety. And even as our attention was riveted by this human face of drought and desertification, other reports of climate change problems began to puncture our sense of well-being. There were massive floodings in Shanghai, Tokyo, New York. Experts warned that it will be worse when sea levels rise to 2 meters. In southeast Asia, large swaths of the region were battered by an unusually destructive rainy season. Floods in the Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta killed and displaced millions of Bengalis and effectively destroyed most of Bangladesh's infrastructure. The world attempted to mobilize but most of the leaders and organizations-the aid agencies, NGOs- were so caught up with climate problems buffeting their own countries, that, initial mobilization of media, NGOs and military assistance, solidarity was truly minimal.<br />
and this was only the beginning. even morethat more comfort and consciousness – or perhaps thanks to – the massive deployment of security and surveillance technology, three deadly and cunning terrorist attacks created havoc just before the last day of London's Olympics. First, Wembley stadium's safety system was highjacked during the football final, and use to create panic while all doors were closed, electric fences were on and contradictory announcements were made. The second attack was biological, in the closed stadium where gymnastics took place. Meanwhile, a distributed denial of service attack disabled the city's communication networks, surveillance nodes and sensors as well as all geo-located information services, effectively preventing all kind of timely reaction.<br />
<br />
At the end of August, an <br />
These events had devastating ripple effects. Stock markets tumbled, of course. Air travel was hit hard, first by fear of other attacks and by security measures that made boarding planes a living hell and created total unpredictability in schedules, second by the price of fuel and last, by government air traffic restrictions. Heavy in debt due to their liberal purchase of new aircraft, several airlines filed for bankruptcy. Airbus only survived this blow by operating some of its own airplanes while finally agreeing for a 30% Russian investment. Public trust was shattered, savings went up, consumption, construction and investment plummeted. Security agencies at last succeeded in regulating the Internet, allowing national – and ''de facto'' U.S. – control over most of what circulated on the Net. In 2013, the world economy decreased by 2% and international trade by 22%.<br />
<br />
==Downwards==<br />
<br />
With his sometimes annoying "I told you so" attitude, Al Gore had no difficulty in winning the November 2012 presidential election in the U.S. He had more trouble in achieving anything of substance. Everybody was scrambling for his or her survival. Pension systems where crumbling down all over the western world, forcing radical changes in pension schemes: Full retirement age moved up to 70, sometimes 75; in some countries, the very idea of "full retirement" disappeared; family solidarity was strongly encouraged and sometimes made mandatory. Seizing the occasion, 40 "Least advanced countries" officially and simultaneously let it be understood that their foreign debt would not be honoured. Insurance companies revised their policies to exclude most climate-related risks. Border were closed tighter than ever in the West and Asia, effectively maintaining economic migrants and the growing number of refugees displaced by ecological catastrophes or local conflicts over natural resources in a permanent no-man's land.<br />
<br />
Diplomatic relationships chilled notably among most countries. Multilateral diplomacy was entirely replaced by bilateral agreements dictated by the need for securing markets and energy supply channels.<br />
<br />
Faced with tough and unforeseen budget problems, countries cut down on all non-essential spending, and even on some core activities such as education or R&D. Corporations did the same. Venture capital disappeared, except perhaps in the core of the Silicon Valley. R&D and innovation became almost clandestine activities, although they never ceased to take place.<br />
<br />
A few hacktivists felt it their duty to protect the free flow of ideas that was such an important part of the pre-2012 era. On top of the physical and heavily controlled Internet, they set up an encrypted, dynamic virtual network which came to be called the Altronet. The Altronet successfully resisted a number of official and not-so-official attacks and then almost seemed to be left alone, perhaps because authorities and bad guys alike knew that it filled a gap and that they could use it for their own purposes as well. By 2020, most Internet users were ''de facto'' Altronet users.<br />
<br />
<br />
==Relocalization==<br />
<br />
Despite the Altronet, by 2020-2025, globalization was a thing of the past. Individuals, corporations, local communities, countries were all left to fend for themselves. International trade was half of what it was 10 years ago. Some financial markets chose to disconnect from real-time global trading networks. China, India and many developing countries reinstated "One-child" policies. After the UK, Spain and most Scandinavian countries had left it, the EU gave up all pretence of being anything else than an economic space – and even then, countries took to invoking safeguard clauses on all occasions and negotiated their own bilateral agreements. Local conflicts multiplied over access to water, trade routes, pipelines or even trade tariffs, although none have (yet) escalated to nuclear or biological warfare. On the other hand, terrorism was all but extinct, due to border closure and perhaps more importantly, to the departure of all western forces from the Middle East, Afghanistan and Pakistan. After striking a deal with the Palestinians, even Israel was left alone to manage its enormous economic problems.<br />
<br />
The only thing on which developed countries could still agree was the protection of key infrastructures such as the Suez and Panama canals, network nodes and root servers, root identity providers, GPS satellites and, when they could, intercontinental pipelines.<br />
<br />
Local communities slowly learned to cope with the new situation. Local currencies emerged, facilitated by electronic networks, contactless cards and simple, open software. After Nike, Sony and LVMH had shown what it cost to still operate as centralized multinationals, firms like Coca Cola, McDonald's, Siemens, Toyota and HSBC reinvented themselves as loose networks of local companies. Using knowledge accumulated by its engineers when they were subcontracting to western firms, plus its own brand of inventiveness, India launched and exported its own, GMO-based "2nd Green Revolution", despite well-grounded fear and protests over health and environmental risks. Many countries developed their own brands of "generic" IT equipments. India's generic or cheap "intelligent" drugs also came in handy when Eastern Europe was struck by a wave of tropical diseases, brought north by global warming and against which the local population had no natural defences.<br />
<br />
Local values emerged or were rediscovered. Historical events, personalities, artefacts, works of art and places were revisited as the foundations of a new future. Designers, artists, fashion designers, learned to use these symbols in combination with recycled material to incarnate the values of their time. To compensate for the lack of funding and of international coordination, researchers and innovators built interdisciplinary local clusters, microfunding mechanisms and ultra-short innovation cycle mechanisms, yielding significant results in a number of areas: very low-powered IT, intelligent recycling, biomass and other renewable energy sources, revisitation of traditional medicine, resistant and frugal GMOs and genetically engineered livestock, advanced warning and crisis-management systems, polyresistance-enhancing drugs, etc. Of course, scientists and innovators used the Altronet heavily to interact with other people in the world, but their endeavours had difficulties reaching large enough markets, preventing some of their findings from making the difference they could have made.<br />
<br />
People learned to do a lot of things together remotely; however, they could not remove a sense of emotional remoteness, and tended to give priority to their proximity links. The age of promethean science and technology was long gone. Science and technology had to be modest, problem-oriented, sensitive to the urgency of current problems and the fragility of local ecological, economic and political systems. Cloning, human enhancement and most nanotechnologies were mostly banned, although not everywhere. In fact, some mistrust could be felt about those technologists who, it was sometimes said, "led us to where we are".<br />
<br />
<br />
==Territorialization==<br />
<br />
By 2030, the world population was slightly under 8 billion, close to the bottom estimate of the UN's 2006 forecasts. Climate change had ruined the lives of hundred of millions and energy remained a major constraint, despite the halving of growth rates compared to the pre-2012 era. In fact, faced with constant emergencies, public entities and corporations had not taken many conscious steps to change their ways of producing and of doing business.<br />
<br />
Individuals had gone a longer way, though, both out of economic constraints and because the millions of unemployed invented a number of local jobs: on-demand local taxis (often 2-wheeled), selective garbage collection, recycling management, repair-it-alls, etc. These individuals came to form an important part of the social fabric.<br />
<br />
The many local equilibriums that originated from coping with the new, post-globalization situation, felt a strong need to define (and defend) the territories in which they operated. They wanted to assert and live by their newfound values, to define who was local and who was foreign, to protect their fragile activities from competition. After Catalonia, many European regions, as well as North American states or provinces, reached quasi-independent status. Cities like Barcelona also all but seceded. Internal passports were created within several countries and of course (as early as 2020), reinstated within the European Union.<br />
<br />
Climate and conflict refugees also needed their territories. Through one of this period's rare major international initiative, they were directed towards three new "Refustans", bought from Russia, Australia and Tanzania and then viabilized. The story of these new countries remains to be written, but their initial years were clearly reminiscent of Australia's of the American West's histories.<br />
<br />
"Territories" were not just geographic, though. Religious, ethnical, cultural and other kinds of communities also ended up forming their own borders, defining citizenship, forging rules and institutions and using the Altronet to effectively work as coherent territories. The quasi-independent State of California was the first to recognize their existence by revising its constitution to become a "State of Communities".<br />
<br />
The Altronet played a large role in allowing new federated organizations to emerge. Local currencies and exchange systems use it for inter-system trade and compensation; several community disputes were settled on the Altroverse, the open-source federation of virtual universes that first emerged in the 2015s as the "Metaverse", and merged with the Altronet some years later. Some real popular trials were conducted in this 3D space, with judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In fact, the Altronet is generally credited for preventing many conflicts since it emerged, although of course, it has also helped spread forms of – less lethal – cyberwar. Some believe that the Altronet is the mechanism that will effectively bind these multiple and intertwined communities into a new, more open international community.<br />
<br />
=Amplify, comment and contribute!=<br />
<br />
You can do that, either by editing the above text, or by providing comments and ideas below.</div>Swe