PREDICTING GLOBAL TRENDS - predicting the future to create advantage today

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

minimising future risk

creating sustainable advantage

creating opportunity

PREDICTIONS

The future is full of opportunity. Will you be able to recognise it?

This is a series of predictions based on current global trends. These trends involve social, cultural, technological and environmental change.

The world has always moved but now we are entering into a period of extensive change. This specific era of change has evolved from scientific curiosity to develop into scientific mastery. A successful outcome will be dependent on a full understanding of the events unfolding and to unfold, as well as managed communication and strategic development from national and international communities.

These predictions are just that - predictions based on current trends and future developments. As with all insights the course of the world can be altered. Walking along a crowded street, people will invariably alter direction if even slightly to avoid collision with other people or objects. This is because they can see what will happen. Future insight gives this same warning of collision but on a wider scale.

And who will alter the current path of motion?

Governments have a responsibility. Organisations have a responsibility. Individuals have a responsibility to seek success and sustainability. They have the responsibility to ensure the future should not revolve around the demands of extremists or those out to squander the future for short term gain.

The world is changing. The pace of change is increasing. The world is entering a period of significant and fundamental transformation. How will this affect you?

PREDICTIONS / FORECASTS THAT HAVE HAPPENED:

• Developments in East Africa

• Developments unfolding in China

• Continuous oil price increases

• Global economic slowdown

• Food price rises

• Population shift

• Developments unfolding in Russia

• The changing nature of extremism

• Specific extremist attempted attacks

• Changing consumer trends

PREDICTIONS / FORECASTS:

2010 - short term

• a patchy growth of the global economy. The US economy will recover from its 2008 financial setback, as will others along with the reform of the financial markets, but all economies will suffer due to the high cost of oil and the lack of viable alternatives. The first signs of a global economic slow down will be evident.

• sustainably sensitive regions of the world will become seriously at risk.

• global food prices increase due to the drive towards bio-fuels. Bio-fuels cause pollution in temperate climates and deforestation in tropical areas. It continues the use of oil.

• global sustainability will suffer badly due to the food crises. There will be widespread social and economic hardship.

• there will be the beginning of noticeable potable water shortages in previously unaffected areas, undermining agricultural sustainability

• a distinctive change in the US foreign policy.

• the growth of specific R&D, as well as the military and commercial spin-offs.

• Iran continues to fund instability and extremism in the Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq and other areas.

• an increase in global tension based around specific areas of the Middle East.

• terrorists strike at a major western target. This will either financial (2008) or symbolic (2009- 2010), designed to cause a western backlash and so cause further division with the Islamic world.

• regime change in the US, Iraq, Pakistan.

• in a rise of spreading violence, religious extremists will take control of a key country.

• further extremist based violence in east Africa, and spreading, resulting in a further humanitarian disaster.

• the rise of true cyber terrorism.

• more widespread video calling.

• advertising swamps the mobile phone networks.

• mobile phones become incorporated into centres of mobile entertainment including holding much personal data, giving rise to the loss of personal data and identity cloning.

• the rise of corporate espionage as a political weapon to gain commercial advantage. This will be linked closely with the rise in the importance of specific R&D.

• the possibility of an energy crisis brought on by global tension and as a result of a distinct lack of oil alternatives.

• China will continue to acquire further oil supplies in some of the most politically sensitive areas of the world, thereby increasing the probability of these areas remaining unstable and so causing conflict.

• the continuing rise in global warming. This will begin to be felt most in areas such as the US, Africa, Russia, China. The effects will include widespread crop failures - increasing food prices everywhere.

• social change in China will begin to cause political instability.

• there will be the beginnings of mass migration as climate change and economic instability begins to cause disruption.

2017 - medium term

• The global economy will have been in (temporary) decline for several years due to high energy costs and the previous resistance to producing a true "oil alternative". By 2015 the economy is likely to be on the increase once more due to the initial stages of the development of a new energy source.

• the strong likelihood of a severe global energy crisis due to conflict between some oil producers and other areas of the world, as well as the expected results of the severe imbalance between demand and supply.

• global drive towards energy conservation.

• food crop derived bio-fuels discredited.

• oil production will have peaked. This, and the energy crisis, will have produced the final recognition of the need to deviate from the stranglehold of imported oil in order to secure national and international economic stability. The age of oil will be in decline with the viable production of a transport fuel alternative. Oil will continue to be in production yet will command increasing prices. The R&D of several alternatives will eventually produce a single most common non-carbon based transport fuel.

• Widespread fresh water shortages undermining the sustainability and viability of entire regions.

• There will be widespread agreement that the perpetual instability and near crisis management of world politics, commerce and sustainable development cannot and should not continue. There will be a defined move to deal with the root cause of global instability by forging nations together.

• This is the era of the true rise in genetic and bio engineering, especially in terms of agriculture. Information management, surveillance and security will be paramount. In some areas of the world technology will be all encompassing. This will be "ubiquitous computing".

• an era of significant medical and scientific advances with the cures to several previously fatal diseases and disorders, further prolonging life in the developed world, and producing further social changes due to the aging population. Several genetic disorders will be cured.

• massive development of nanotechnology (including molecular), biotechnology, the science of superconductors, materials science such as carbon nanotubes. These will significantly alter the human world in a number of fundamental areas ... and will open up completely new areas including the manipulation of matter. Much of this R&D will be driven from the US. Through this the US will maintain a commercial superiority yet will be the target of those who seek control of the commercial secrets ... as well as those seeking only to destroy. This era of development will be a crucial time that will alter perception and the definition of humanity. This will also create new weapons systems.

• the growing use of fully inclusive "cyber lives" becomes the catalyst for specific social change - and new developments in specifically targeted healthcare.

• the first true controlled and widely available self sustaining hydrogen fusion energy.

• an uneven distribution of wealth giving rise to the dissolution of many societies - and the further rise of culture based and religious extremism, exploited by some extreme states as a means of political control.

• the rise in state funded and covert extremism / terrorism / corporate espionage.

• an increase in migration to the developed world. This will be felt most acutely in the growing centres of population - the cities that will develop far beyond their present limits, pressurising local resources and causing tension. A number of cities will become world financial and trade leaders.

• continuing global warming and climate change with associated impacts. The US will have learned how to minimise the consequences. Large tracts of Africa and China will be devastated through drought and crop failure, resulting is whole scale population shift - and political conflict. Tropical diseases will spread. There will be a series of humanitarian disasters that will affect millions - and affect the global economy. Those with the most sensitive and unsustainable economies will suffer the most through a lack of resilience.

• freshwater resources will decrease to critical levels.

• continuing rise in global political / religious tensions. There will have been the terrorist release of at least one weapon of mass destruction. This will disgust much of the worlds population, even those who previously held extremist views. It will be a turning point. The international community will begin to overcome previous barriers to begin to act cohesively together.

• the rise of a new global political / social movement.

Within a generation - within 20 to 25 years

• growth in the global economy. Global stability based on the growth of several geographical regions of co-operation within which will be a significant level of sharing of resources, skills and information.

• there will be a defined move to forge nations together to create specific regional governments - with a view to lead ultimately to a world government.

• India will surpass China in the race of the Asian Tigers. China will undergo a period of political instability that will eventually result in stability and overall prosperity. India will succeed through the enhancement of economic benefits for all, regardless of caste.

• the establishment of the new global political / social movement.

• the massive wave of migration from the developing to the developed world will have stripped much of the developed world of trained and educated human resources. This wave of migration will cause advantages and disadvantages to the developed world. Within a generation this wave will have largely halted ... but with significant consequences.

• the rise of the "supercity" based on financial might and global influence. Only a few supercities will make this transition. They will have a significant impact.

• tensions and competition within and by the supercities that drives progression.

• the major impact of global warming causing massive economic change and widespread disease, fought against by the just as massive advances in medical science.

• continuing freshwater shortages.

• the decrease in the use of oil and gas.

• the rise in the use of sustainable energy sources reducing atmospheric pollution. Through the technology available significant gains will be made in energy capture and transfer efficiency significantly transforming transport and all other energy use.

• the rise and spread of intelligent computing into daily life.

• road transport vehicles will have the option of being driverless. Air transport will be faster and more comfortable.

• human cloning.

• the beginnings of a non-Earth colony either on the Moon, on Mars or on a space station. This will give rise to the commercial exploitation for minerals and materials, as well as tourism. Together this will further drive the technical capability to explore further from Earth.

• the potential of a severe H5N1 pandemic.

What will this mean for you? How will you be able to create advantage? If you don't do it, who will? And then what will this mean for you?

A significant amount of work is currently being carried out to assess the impacts of the above points - and other points. For a detailed assessment, please contact us.

CATASTROPHE ANALYSIS:

There's something about human nature ... we all think we're safe, don't we? We all have the inherent belief that if bad things happen, they will happen to someone else, and if we are involved in bad events then somehow we will survive unscathed. We all think we're safe, don't we?

The reality is often painfully different.

EVENT ANALYSIS: where Alt3 can help minimise the dangers of a dangerous world. Where Alt3 can help transform the dangers of a dangerous world into opportunities.

Event Analysis is an important element in developing into the future. Understanding the future gives advantage. By their nature, major events, if they are natural or man-made, cause a sudden shift in change that will almost always have wide ranging consequences. Event Analysis allows an understanding of the events and of the consequences - and allows action to take place to minimise harmful effects.

1. BEFORE THE EVENT

There are some things that just can't be predicted, but ... with the depth of knowledge we can lay claim to, most things can be prepared for. Whether this is a super storm, desertification, mass migration, terrorist atrocity, recognition of the probability and preparation are key to minimising potentially disastrous consequences.

Most countries and / or organisations have plans to cope with major events. Yet it is not enough just to have a plan. A plan is only one piece of the jigsaw making up the entire picture of how there is survival and recovery from either an indirect or a direct major event / terrorist attack.

We aren't as safe as we would like to think we are.

2.  AFTER THE EVENT

It is a fact of life that major events take place. They take place frequently - sometimes in places far away, sometimes close to home.

These events happen. The probability is at some point they will affect us all, not just someone else.

It is important to realise they aren't simply "events" to be endured. As the pace of change increases, the frequency of events will increase - it will be important to learn from what happens to ensure the unwanted consequences of future events are minimised.

Work with us in order to minimise the unwanted consequences of future events. Don't think it is someone else's problem. We aren't as safe as we would like to think we are. Make the future a more safe place to be. We'll all have to be there at some point.

Imagine what you can do with insight into the future.

James Stuart: a leading edge independent consultant in global development. This advisory service is designed to give relevant advice, insight and guidance. Would you like to know more?

Find out how we can help you. Contact Alt3: central@alt3.co.uk