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Predicting 2088

Prediction made in June 1998

Humans: The Most Serious Threat to Life on Earth

Two trends make the future less rosy than the past: more consumption of resources and more people. ... The question is whether people, societies, and government can move toward sustainability. This will require adopting two principles. The first is the "responsibility principle" which is that the rights to use environmental resources carry attendant responsibilities to use them sustainably. The second, the "precautionary principle" states that in the face of uncertainty concerning environmental resources and impacts--err on the side of caution.

Knowing the principles is the first step, but implementing them through education is what must be done. Education can modify our biological behaviors and control greed but the question is whether social evolution can move the human race to live within biological as well as social limits. For example, parenting is still the only job that does not require any qualifications or any test of ability or means. How un-thinking can we be? We need to evolve socially so that all children are wanted and all parents are adequate providers and educators. Without social evolution, disease, war, and famine will continue to control human destiny in much of the world. My hope is that social evolution may have progressed enough in the next 90 years that humans do not breed too much, use too much, degrade earth's life support system or kill other species.

University of Washington Zoology Professor P. Dee Boersma 

Click here for the original prediction.

Perhaps this prediction belongs somewhere else.   Boersma does not make any specific prediction so my children won't be able to say "told you so" in 2088.   However, I've left it in as an example of the conventional wisdom of the present time.  Use resources "sustainably" and follow the "precautionary principle."  Am I the only person who finds these two principles totally devoid of meaning?  

Jim Thornton 8 April 2004

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Last modified: February 05, 2006