Lavinia reviewed On the Future by Martin Rees
Review of 'On the Future' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
Scientists, says Martin Rees, are rotten forecasters, almost as bad as economists. But there are some things that we can predict. By mid-century, the United Nations’ 2019 Revision of World Population Prospects predicts, there will be 9.7 billion people on Earth. Although, with improved, low-till agriculture, water conservation, lifestyle changes and perhaps improved GM crops, it will be possible to sustainably feed 9.7 billion, our collective footprint to our planet will be heavier. Moreover, if humanity’s collective impact on nature push too hard against what Johan Rockstrom calls ‘planetary boundaries’ the “resultant ‘ecological shock could irreversible impoverish our biosphere.”
Our world becomes warmer. As the famous Keeling curve shows, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuel. Our world becomes warmer. This is not controversial and we can safely predict that regional disruptions to weather patterns within the next two decades …
Scientists, says Martin Rees, are rotten forecasters, almost as bad as economists. But there are some things that we can predict. By mid-century, the United Nations’ 2019 Revision of World Population Prospects predicts, there will be 9.7 billion people on Earth. Although, with improved, low-till agriculture, water conservation, lifestyle changes and perhaps improved GM crops, it will be possible to sustainably feed 9.7 billion, our collective footprint to our planet will be heavier. Moreover, if humanity’s collective impact on nature push too hard against what Johan Rockstrom calls ‘planetary boundaries’ the “resultant ‘ecological shock could irreversible impoverish our biosphere.”
Our world becomes warmer. As the famous Keeling curve shows, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is rising, mainly due to the burning of fossil fuel. Our world becomes warmer. This is not controversial and we can safely predict that regional disruptions to weather patterns within the next two decades will aggravate pressure on food and water resources and will engender migration. Furthermore, under “business as usual” says Martin Rees, “we can’t rule out, later in the century really catastrophic warming, tipping points triggering long-term trends like the melting of Greenland’s ice cap.”
Martin Rees also discusses novel technologies which can empower individuals and change society, but they have a dark side too. Advances in microbiology for example, offer prospects of containing pandemics, but at the same time it will be easier to make more virulent viruses, like the influenza virus. The CRISPR/Cas9 techniques are hugely promising but they raise ethical concerns. Cyber-technology already poses a challenge to governments and businesses. As cyber-security comes to the forefront of international concern and the question will be how to strike the right balance between privacy, freedom and security.
“Amplifying our human intelligence with artificial intelligence has the potential of helping civilization flourish like never before – as long as we manage to keep the technology beneficial,” said Max Tegmark, President of the Future of Life Institute. Martin Rees discusses the benefits and the risks of Artificial Intelligence. A super-intelligence would be extremely powerful, and at least in some scenarios it will be able to take what it wants. We would then have a future that will depend on the preference of this A.I. What this future will look like? It remains to be seen but we shouldn’t be confident that we will be able to be in control.
We need more technology, not less, to face the challenges of the future, says Martin Rees. But like many of us, he is also anxious, that it’s advancing so fast that we may not be able to cope with it. On the Future: Prospects for Humanity is an insightful overview of what is like to happen in the next 50 years on Earth and in space.