The 2025 Global Landscape

The National Intelligence Council has released a new report that you can download,  Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World.  If you were to time travel someone from 1960 to 2025, they would think they were on a different planet.  Not because of technology, but because people have changed.  The nations, corporations, institutions (such as churches) that existed following the Second World War II will have completely different names, cultures, and allegiances. 

Brazil, Russia, India, and China (the BRICs) will soon match the traditional Western governments in GDP.  As a result of 1.4 billion additional people by 2025, the demand for food will rise by 50%.  Fresh water will be scarce.

Two correlated key uncertainties are energy and climate change.  Will the world transition to different energy sources or face wars for petroleum?  Will China choke the planet's atmosphere with coal?  What will be the agricultural impact caused by increased temperatures and CO2 levels?  China already exceeds the U.S. in CO2 emissions, despite a smaller GDP. 

Information and technology became portable in the 90s because of the internet.  As we have recently witnessed, finance and wealth have become portable in this decade.  As a consequence, internationalism and globalism will increase.  As a consequence, the United States government will have a diminished global role as China and Russia increase in influence.  Europe's global influence will suffer a significant decline.  Politics will no longer be local.

There will be shortages of everything from water, food, uranium, etc.  Well, not CO2, and also hurricanes.  But no shortage of opportunity.  A dated (1967), but great movie, The Graduate, has Mr. McGuire advising Benjamin, "I just want to say one word to you - just one word."  Then, he advised, "Plastics".  Today, it would be "Energy."