2050: Sooner than you think

Note: I've recently started a Substack, whatever the heck that is, with the intention of broadening the reach of this blog and (hopefully!) increasing the level of interactions. I'll be copying material to both platforms for now. See the Substack version by clicking here. The following was posted there on November 11, 2024.

On this Armistice Day, I’ve been thinking about what the world will look like in 2050. 

My grandmother had uncles who served in the US Civil War; she was born in an era of acetylene lamps and horse-drawn buggies, but lived to watch Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon on her colour TV. (I was there, a young boy fascinated by space and technology). My great-uncle Leo served in the air force in France in WWI; Dad served in WWII, walking from Normandy to Berlin. Living memory, when you include the stories passed down through family, is easily a century. So 2050 is just down the road, and 2100 barely a lifetime away.

Extrapolating from today under a business-as-usual model, in 2050 my children will be thinking about retiring, and their children will be mid-career: hopefully settled with good partners, raising kids if they so desire, pursuing profitable and interesting careers. If all goes well, my grandchildren will be in their mid-80s come 2100.

But the business-as-usual model is probably broken. Ignoring unexpected geopolitical events such as wars (hot or cold) and the attendant economic uncertainties and societal disruptions, there are two drivers which we can confidently predict will play a major role in the world of 2050: there will be a lot more of us on the planet, and it will be a lot hotter than it is today.

Together these two key drivers will put increasing pressure on natural resources: historically, a growing economy has meant growing resource extraction. But we have to stop extracting fossil fuels; and we have probably extracted enough other raw materials such as metals to keep us going with only small make-up amounts needed to account for losses (sunken ships being an example of losses, other than landfills). Decoupling economic growth from natural resource extraction will be critical in feeding and housing the world’s growing population within the constraints of declining availability of cheap resources.

Follow me as I dig out some numbers from reputable sources and look at what they might mean in a range of scenarios.