Global Trends 2025: Update

I thought I would provide an addendum to the post on Global Trends 2025, since I found a little additional related information.

First, here is the transcript of Thomas Fingar's speech, so you can read it for yourself.

Next, another National Intelligence Council Report, that outlines Six Technologies With Potential Impacts to U.S. Interests out to 2025:

- Biogerontechnology
- Energy Storage Materials
- Biofuels and Bio-Based Chemicals
- Clean Coal Technologies
- Service Robotics
- The Internet of Things

Several of these technologies could have direct effects on two of the main concerns of my blog - demographics and energy. These effects may not always be in our best interest.

Some highlights:

Biogerontechnology offers the means to accomplish control over and improvement in the human condition, and promises improvements in lifespan.

Nations will be challenged as a result of changing demographic structures, new psychologies, activity patterns of aging yet healthy citizens, and the resulting requirement to formulate new national economic and social policies .

Energy Storage technologies have the potential to disrupt the way energy is stored and distributed for use in transportation and portable devices.

Biofuels and bio-based chemicals production technologies have the only potential near-term capability to provide alternatives to conventional gasoline and diesel-fuel and petrochemical feedstocks.

A large-scale move to energy-efficient biofuels could increase US energy security and ease international competition for world oil supplies and reserves.

Clean coal technologies and an array of related technologies offer the potential to improve electrical generation efficiency, lower emissions of harmful pollutants, and provide fuels and chemical feedstocks from available coal resources.

The development and implementation of robots for elder-care applications, and the development of human-augmentation technologies, mean that robots could be working alongside humans in looking after and rehabilitating people. A change in domestic and social responsibilities and a change in domestic employment requirements could adversely affect lower income service-oriented workers.

Check out the link for the full report. Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World can be found here.



Other Global Trends Posts:
Global Trends 2025
Global Trends Update
Global Trends Update II
Globalization and the Crash of '08
Demographics of Discord
Timing is Everything
Winners and Losers in a Post-Petroleum World
Scarcity in the Midst of Plenty
Final Thoughts