Make America Warm Again

It occurred to me that since our nation’s 300th birthday party is just over 50 years away, it is not too early to speculate about what things might be like in the future. I thought one way to go about this speculation would be to go back 50 years and consider the thinking about the future at that time, and then project forward into 50 years in the future. The issues I considered were the subjects that are very prominent in current concerns and worries: global climate, the economy, science and technology and war. My goal in this exercise in speculation is to encourage others to join in and share ideas and help us all think more clearly about preparing for the future.

So, let’s turn the page back 50 years. The climate was a serious source or worry in the 1970s. I remember that in my hometown, Cleveland, Ohio, where my parents still lived, the blizzard of January 1977 hit. The high winds and rapidly dropping temperatures suddenly swept across Ohio. On Jan. 28, the temperature dropped from 20 degrees to 10 below zero during the day, and wind gusts of 60 mph created huge drifts and zero visibility. Stores, factories and the government facilities were closed. The National Guard was called out to rescue hundreds and carry them to safety.

In the 70s, it was an accepted reality that the world was getting colder. A widely publicized article in “Newsweek” magazine captured the thinking at that time. The story complained about the “most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded … and fundamental changes in the world’s weather” and claimed that “after three quarters of a century of extraordinary mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down … climatologists are pessimistic that political leaders will take any positive action.” The author was right about the lack of political action, since the inclement weather was often temporary and people forgot about temporary shivers and went back to a normal life. In fact that period was followed by a warming trend that continues to this day and there was no political action of any kind.

As many sources of data reveal, there has been a rise in temperature of roughly 0.5 degrees centigrade in the last 50 years. If that trend continues, another increase of 0.5 degrees would be a reasonable assumption of a continuation of the trend with no prediction of a catastrophic result caused by burning fossil fuels.  To the non-expert observer like me, a continuation of the past trend seems reasonable.  But according to the “climate experts,” if greenhouse gasses continue to rise at the present rate, the global temperature will increase by another 2 or even 3 degrees and the result will be “an existential threat to human civilization.” A contrarian view was presented by Steve Koonin, who I have known over the years and I consider to be a reputable scientist. His book “Unsettled” considers multiple climate drivers and presents the case that warming is not necessarily caused by human burning of fossil fuels.

Although I agree with that a large increase in global temperature would be catastrophic, my opinion is that the global climate is so complex that predictions about the future are not credible. What the data has convinced me is that for the last 40 years, the global temperature has shown oscillations of a fraction of a degree every few years. I expect that to continue. It is likely that as warming continues, the available energy in the environment and both the frequency and consequences of extreme weather occurrences will increase. I am certain that there are many coupled nonlinear climate processes with many feedback loops that lead to these oscillations and short term violent weather phenomena. This complexity makes predictions unreliable and calls for the need for more data in order to generate scientifically valid computer simulations. 

So for now, my prediction is there will be a continuation of large oscillations with a slow increase in temperature, and that political leaders will have little effect on the outcome. Nevertheless, politicians will continue to take advantage of the media to modify public opinion in order to impact the investment in sources of energy. For practical reasons, however, the economy will nevertheless continue to rely on fossil fuels for practically everything we do.

There are many politicians using the fear of the “coming climate catastrophe” to strengthen their support. I expect that the combination of fear of the “future disaster” and greed for new sources of political power and profits will lead to many new investments that may impact on the economy over a long period of time, but I don’t expect any big changes based on climate running amok.  The one thing that seems likely is that just as there are many nonlinear variables that are important in climate. This multiplicity of variables is also true with the economy, which is also driven by the nonlinear effects of human behavior including fear and greed that can result in large oscillations. Too much of a good thing is going to always lead to an overreaction followed by a correction, but the economy will eventually smooth out the oscillations and a slow and steady increase in economic health will continue. So in 50 years, because of the flexibility and freedom in our economy as well as checks and balances in our political system, there will be self-corrections and modifications in investments leading to a general improvement in the health, welfare and wealth of the average American.

The sources of energy are liable to follow the market forces that will continue to support investments in fossil fuels without any major changes. I predict there will be increased investments in small modular nuclear reactors for remote applications and to supplement the grid to deal with climate oscillations assuming the problems of nuclear waste disposal will be solved.

But what about the revolutionary changes caused by the deployment of the clean, cheap, safe inexhaustible fusion power sources that have always been “only 20 years in the future”? It is often said that the 20 year prediction will always be true, and I agree with that. There may be a method to use fusion as a method for a safe and low cost way to treat nuclear waste, but this will require a new discovery of a practical, affordable and reliable fusion reactor, and that seems unluckily even though scientists and engineers will claim frequent breakthroughs to keep the continuation of funding. The most likely application of fusion, assuming many of the material survival problems are solved, is likely to be in combination with a growing reliance on small modular nuclear reactors. I, however, see the real 50-year advances from science will not be with things but with people.

In the next 50 years, I believe there will be real changes in the science and technology in regard to the way people think, learn, remember and behave. This will happen because we will learn how to measure in detail how the brain works, create computer simulations of those data and learn how to use electrical neuro technology to enhance the brain features we like and discourage the features that are not so useful. In a previous post about “brain zapping,” I explained that the key will be brain wave entrainment using closed loop feedback control to improve the single most important problem us old folks will face–the deterioration of brain function with age. Rather than advances in use of drugs to deal with neurological problems, I believe that brain treatment and enhancement will be electrical, and productive lifelong learning and contributions to society will dominate health and welfare. We will have to learn to accept a lot of really smart old people making decisions and running things.

The danger in such a successful widespread use of brain enhancement will be the problem of addiction to these methods and misuse that are likely to occur, so we need to prepare for not just the benefits of enhanced brain functions, but the need for controls that will have to be provided by our methods of government. As long as the government is honest, fair and well behaved, the use of brain enhancement should be primarily beneficial … except bad actors may emerge and lead to conflict, and the deployment of brain weapons will be a problem of new and dangerous methods of war.

As I explained in my post, “The Fallacy of the Last Move,” there will always be people who use fear and greed to create an arms race, and this will include brain weapons and counter brain weapons. This could lead to a real, not an artificial catastrophe, and there will need to be societal agreements to limit the undesirable aspects of brain enhancement. I think the benefits to society will be so great that wisdom will emerge and prevent future brain wars.

But I guess there will be other ways to wage wars based on infection of people and computer software. It is likely that there will continue to be both natural variations of airborne viruses and eventually their use in military actions. This will result in the deployment of facility and human sensors along with vaccines to manage the spread of disease. Computer software will continue to be hacked by criminals, but my concern is the self-evolution of computer viruses as a result of automated software created methods. Maybe Hal will tell us, “I am sorry Dave, but I’m afraid I can’t do that.” What do you think? Comment with your predictions for 2076.