Earlier this month, I blogged on looking to the future and offered the second installment of a series I wrote for the Defense Media Network. That post in talked about how the National Intelligence Council’s capstone publication, Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds peered into the future. I suggested that you don’t have to be as prescient as the late Tom Clancy to have a clearer window on the future. You need only mine the world-class work the of the sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies comprising the National Intelligence Council.
Among the projections of the Megatrends that will impact the world in the ensuing decades: Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds lists these four:
- Individual Empowerment: Individual empowerment will accelerate owing to poverty reduction, growth of the global middle class, greater educational attainment, widespread use of new communications and manufacturing technologies, and health care advances.
- Diffusion of Power: By 2030 there will not be any hegemonic power. Rather, power will shift to networks and coalitions in a multipolar world. Multipolarity is a trend that is closely related to individual empowerment.
- Demographic Patterns: The demographic arc of instability will narrow. Economic growth might well decline in “aging” countries. Up to 60 percent of the world’s population will live in urbanized areas and that migration will increase.
- Food, Water, and Energy: Demand for these resources will grow substantially owing to an increase in the global population. Importantly, tackling problems pertaining to one commodity will be linked to supply and demand for the others.
These trends, which are virtually certain, exist today, but GT2030 suggests that during the next 15-20 years they will gain much greater momentum, becoming the governing trends that change our world and shape it as we move toward 2030 – and beyond.
Read more about Global Trends 2030: Alternative Worlds and the MEGATRENDS impacting our world on the Defense Media Network Website Read this third article of the series here:
http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/stories/global-trends-2030-future-thinking-about-megatrends/
