I was going to start today, but Numerian beat me to the punch:

The Rights of Women

Women will have made advancements across the globe – chiefly in those countries where their rights today are heavily restricted, such as in the Middle East. In most countries, women will enjoy the same rights available to a woman in France or Japan or the US today, but in these countries, women will improve their situation only marginally. This will still be a patriarchal world, and wars and insurrections will remain the work of men.

The fundamental right available to most women will be control over reproduction, since access to contraception will be nearly universal. Because of this fundamental development, the main issue facing our species in 2040 will be Peak Population. It will be evident even by 2025 that in most countries humans will not be reproducing enough to prevent a decline in population. Global population will peak around 9 billion and by 2040 will already be in decline, which will be dramatic in countries that cannot or will not induce enough immigration to compensate.

Peak Population will be the result partly of the inability of our species to feed, water, shelter and even clothe itself properly. But the principal motivation will be a paradox: the cost of raising a human to adulthood will be too high for all but the wealthiest families, and consequently women will be averaging less than the 2.1 children necessary to even stabilize population. The largest cost associated with child rearing will be education, since an adult will need at least a college education to survive on its own.

Enormous efforts will be made by governments to stimulate population growth, the major effort being universal education through college paid for by government. This will forestall Peak Population but not avert it, since environmental and other pressures – especially the right of women to have a career – will still work against having more than 2.1 children. Abortion will not be outlawed but it will be viewed socially as irresponsible, and in some areas as morally repugnant.

Environment

Extrapolating from today’s global warming trends, it is possible to forecast a very bleak future for our species and others on the planet. If as looks feasible global warming is accelerating beyond even the pessimistic models, many currently habitable areas will be unlivable around coasts and in deserts. Thousands of other species will disappear, mostly in the insect kingdom, with the more noticeable losses among large mammals. The lost of habitat will be ascribed in part to the human infestation of the planet which will continue to encroach on the remaining open spaces, but desertification of the globe, including the oceans which in vast areas will become too saline to support life, will wipe out thousands of species on its own.

It is possible that global warming will be forestalled if solar energy reaching the earth is throttled back should the sun enter a prolonged “solar minimum”, which may be underway. Even so, human pollution and habitat loss will not prevent continued species extinction and environmental degradation. These developments will feed negatively into the Peak Population phenomenon; the average person will be well aware by 2040 of the shrinking safe areas on the global for humans to live, and will have yet another constraint to consider when bringing children into the world.

Development and Economics

Globalization will have run its course by 2040. Most countries, except for pockets of very poor places, will be economically on the same plane. By 2040, China will be as developed as the US, but what this means is that the standard of living of Americans, as with Australians, British, Swedes, etc., will have been lowered to meet the raised living standards of the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, etc. Income disparity will be universal, with the richest 1% consuming and controlling 90% of the global wealth. In places like the US there will be occasional protests and uprisings, but the wealthy will remain in firm control over political and business institutions, and most importantly media and entertainment, since these will be even more critical levers of control over what is left of the middle class, and the vast underclass that will have enough income to “make do.” Making do on less will be an established if not revered social moré.

Capitalism will be in crisis. The driving force of capitalism is growth – growth in revenue, net income, investment, feeding in turn into growth in earnings per share and the stock price. This wealth machine at its core depends on population growth as a rising number of consumers helps create the growth that defines capitalism, but Peak Population will deprive capitalism of its raison d́ etre. Economic theories will be devised to explain this new world, and they will focus on a theory of Neo-Feudalism, in which economic actors like corporations will define success as maintaining market share. A high premium will therefore be put on innovation and the development of new products with slightly higher margins than existing products. In this way corporations will be able to grab market share from a shrinking population.

Agriculture and Food

A cute little acronym will have become common by 2040 – POW! – referring to the three scourges of the planet: peak Population, Oil, and Water. Acute shortages of the latter two will contribute to Peak Population, as the human species will find itself trapped, unable to feed itself, unable to run its industrialized societies without cheap oil, and therefore unable to sustain population at 9 billion. Environmental degradation will put even more pressure on the human species and contribute in its own way to the POW effect.

It will be a toss-up as to whether water or oil shortages will be more severe, but a lot will depend on where you live. More and more humans will be fighting desertification and will be flocking to any place with stable, fresh water. Such places will be under political stress to keep out newcomers. There will be considerable progress in techniques like desalinization of sea water, so that costs will go down for extraction, but water will be too costly still to waste on open-air irrigation or with extravagant showers and toilets. Access to fresh water lakes and streams will be deemed highly valuable and therefore will be subject to political if not military conflict.

As sweet, cheap crude oil will be disappearing slowly over the next few decades, with the disappearance accelerating over time under Peak Oil, societies everywhere will be forced to shift to expensive alternatives. The French Model will be much admired and discussed, with its reliance on an extensive nuclear power system. The fundamental rights of man will be viewed, at least informally, to include the right to nuclear energy.

Military/War

The global political order will itself evolve into Neo-Feudalism, with power shared unevenly among large population countries such as the US, China, and India, courting small population countries like Saudi Arabia that have access to oil or water. Countries such as Russia, which has a large but already shrinking population but also has access to oil and water, will be in a privileged position. In this world, global cooperation through organizations such as the UN will not be easy, and the UN itself may cease to exist. About the only major advance in global cooperation will be in the tracking of every ounce of spent nuclear fuel, in order to prevent the development of nuclear weapons since so many countries will have nuclear power.

Large scale war will be viewed as a thing of the past. For this reason, the United States will early in the century lose its hegemonic power. Its military will be seen to be bloated and out-dated for the regional conflicts over resources that will define 21st century war. Insurrectionists will have learned the valuable lessons from the Iraq wars on how to stymie a great military power with cheap, home-made incendiary devices exploited through guerilla warfare. No military answer will be available on how to fight those forces willing to use suicide bombers, though over time it will be seen that this technique is counterproductive in extended insurrections that stretch over many years.

The question for China will be whether it learns from the experience of the US and USSR and avoids bankrupting itself with a massive military/industrial complex. The odds of succeeding in this are not high, unfortunately, as long as China remains a controlled economy where the temptation for corruption between the state and the manufacturing sector remains high. Consequently, global power for a time will be bi-polar, shared by China and a descendant US, but eventually India and Russia will take their place in a new version of the 19th century Great Game.

How these nations govern themselves will be of paramount importance, because Neo-Feudalism will be reflected in a tendency toward political disintegration within nation-states, and collapse altogether of the nation-state concept in favor of small regional duchies that align themselves along resource strengths. As an example, the population surrounding the Great Lakes may find common cause in protecting their fresh water resources, and they might establish a collective government that can stand up readily to either Washington or Ottawa. This will be possible because these duchies will have access to armies through their domestic police forces, which are already beginning the process of conversion to paramilitary forces and which eventually will only lack airpower in standing up to national militaries. But again, the lessons on how to defeat massive national armies are already available from the Iraq wars, and Neo-Feudalism will expand because the nation-state will have lost its monopoly on military power.

More soon. Excellent food for thought.