The 2020s: life as we will know it in the next decade

APOCALYPSE DOWN UNDER

Most scientists believe the fivefold increase of natural disasters since the 1970s can be blamed on climate change.

The 2019 apocalypse in Australia started in October and is already the most destructive bushfire disaster on record.

Fires have already killed more than half a billion animals and at least 18 people, and destroyed more than 2,500 buildings in built-up areas along Australia’s east coast. The state of New South Wales has declared its second state of emergency, after two volunteer firefighters died.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison took a Hawaiian holiday while his country burnt and people died.  He is a climate sceptic who once took a piece of coal into parliament and oversaw earlier cuts to firefighting budgets.  A group of think-tanks recently ranked  the nation the worst-performing country on climate change from a list of 57. 

Morrison defended his absence by declaring: “I don’t hold a hose, mate”,  and  comparing himself to a plumber forced to choose between a Friday afternoon job or seeing his family.

The scale of the catastrophe is difficult to internalise. Smoke has drifted more than 4,155km across the Tasman Sea, leaving the pristine icy surfaces of New Zealand’s glaciers coated in a thick brown ash. (New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has declared war on climate change, promising New Zealand will sit “on the right side of history”.)

Environmental activist Greta Thunberg tweeted: “Not even catastrophes like these seem to bring any political action. How is this possible? Because we still fail to make the connection between the climate crisis and increased extreme weather events and nature disasters like the #AustraliaFires. That’s what has to change.”

The fires have burnt more than twice as much land as the 2019 Amazon blazes. 

SPEEDING TOWARDS GREEN

Europe is moving towards making post-car cities a reality. Germany has “cycling autobahns” linking several cities.

In Antwerp, Belgium, cycle highways with several lanes allow for overtaking and come with traffic lights. Why not train for the Tour de France every time you commute?

Britain  is experimenting with track-side solar panels that feed power directly into the rail network, making for more efficient choo-choo trains.

WATCH THAT DACHSHUND!

Who would believe this if it hadn’t been reported in The Economist? Norwegian fishermen noticed a friendly beluga whale frolicking among their boats.

The whale wore a harness with camera mounts inscribed with the words “Equipment of St Petersburg”. LOL. 

The evidence suggests overwhelmingly that Russia is using whales to spy on other countries. What next? Derek the Dachshund secretly chipped with surveillance equipment ’cos mommy has a job in counterintelligence?

This isn’t even the first time animals have been deployed as spooks. The CIA reportedly once experimented with surgically bugged cats, and dolphins served as sentries and minesweepers during the Vietnam War, giving new meaning to Navy SEALs.  (There is no record of a dolphin receiving the Medal of Honor, the highest military accolade in the US.)

 SOMETHING TO CHEW ON

More and more middle-class consumers pour nut milk on their muesli in the morning in the belief that they’re helping the planet. They’re right.

A study published in November by Oxford University and the University of Minnesota estimates that a person who eats 2,300 calories made up  of a typical American diet would knock 30% off their annual greenhouse-gas emissions if he or she became vegetarian.

Strict vegans, who cut out all animal products such as milk and cheese, knock 85% off their carbon footprint.

However, the consumption of meat is increasing globally as standards of living improve in countries such as India and China.

In the decade until 2017, global meat and dairy consumption rose twice as fast as population growth.  There are currently an estimated 23-billion live chickens on the planet.

Unfortunately, improved living standards don’t mean healthier diets. Between 1961 and 2013 the average Chinese person went from eating 4kg of meat a year to 62kg, and China now has the largest overweight population in the world — in a nation of 1.4-billion people, more than 43-million men and 46- million women are classified as overweight.

As The Guardian commented: “China and the US are always competing with each other. In this case China wins.”

MORE FOOD FOR THOUGHT

The Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that by the year 2100, Asia and Africa will be home to a combined population of nine billion, out of the global total of 11 billion.

In Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, agricultural output will need to more than double. Africa already imports more meat than China.

Matters aren’t helped by the knowledge that one-third of the food produced for human consumption is wasted.

Biotechnologies get a bad rap, but let’s hope in this case everybody’s happy: varieties of rice have been developed that enable African and Asian species to be crossed to combine the high yields of Asian rice with the ability of African rice to thrive in harsh environments.

MEDIUM RARE OR MEDIUM AIR?

The first astronauts squeezed their meals from toothpaste, a big yuck, so in the 1960s Nasa started experimenting with the concept that carbon dioxide breathed out by astronauts could be converted into nutrients by micro-organisms called hydrogenotrophs.

Fifty years later a California start-up claims to have used the process to develop a technology that can create “meat” from thin air.  The end product is 80% protein and apparently looks like a pale brown powder and is said to have a “neutral flavour”, so no Michelin stars yet.

In October, astronauts printed meat using a 3D printer in space. This scientific breakthrough could change the way we grow food.

First an  Israeli food-tech start-up loaded a spacecraft with closed vials of cow cells and a nutrient broth.

The vials were transported to the Soyuz MS-15 spacecraft, which took off for the Russian segment of the International Space Station from Kazakhstan.

On the space station, orbiting 400km from Earth, cosmonauts fed them into a 3D printer, which produced thin steaks.

INSECTS GOING FASTER

The world’s first 3D-printed urban diversity habitat, Genesis Eco Screen, has been unveiled.  The 4m x 4m structure is designed for insects and is made from recycled plastic bottles.

More than 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered.The rate of extinction is eight times faster than that of mammals, birds and reptiles.

The first global scientific review of insects says this decline threatens  a “catastrophic collapse of nature’s ecosystems”.

AFRICA LOOKS TO THE SKIES

The average income of people living in Africa is about 5% of the average income of people living in the US. But Sub-Saharan Africa is leapfrogging decades of neglect with new technologies (think the tortoise and the hare).

San Francisco-based start-up Zipline has launched a programme in Ghana for drone delivery of medical supplies. Thirty drones out of four distribution centres distribute vaccines, blood and medications to 2,000 health facilities across the West African nation daily.

In 2016, Rwanda approved a drone-delivery programme on a national scale. Lives were saved in remote, mountainous regions  and blood wastage was minimised.

Rwanda has since passed legislation streamlining the red tape that regulates drones, encouraging companies to use Rwanda as a place to develop the technology.

Experts believe Africa’s drone space could contribute to drone innovation.

DIGITAL TETHERS

We know Facebook snoops on users, or at the very least allows others to do so, but there are more and more ways of collecting data on customers.

Modern cars are smartphones on wheels that collect as much as 25GB  of data per hour.

They know how much we weigh (and how much we’ve gained over the festive season),  how many children we have, who we call and who we text.

Amazon recently launched a whole array of smart versions of home products such as plugs, vacuums, keys, ovens, doorbells, rings, lamps, spectacles and dog collars.

Dog collars? Asked whether keeping tabs on our canine friends was taking it too far, the tech activist Liz O’Sullivan replied:  “Human beings don’t need those collars because we’re already on a digital tether.”

CONNECTIVITY CHANGES BODIES

Texting is so pervasive among pedestrians in South Korea that the country is experimenting with ground-level traffic lights.

Australian medical researchers told the BBC that humans are beginning to develop bony spikes on the back of their heads as aching heads, necks, shoulders and back muscles struggle with the “device dangle” constantly required of our heads.

A leading Australian chiropractor says children as young as seven are developing hunchbacks and abnormally curved spines because of smartphone addiction, Dr James Carter warns he is seeing an epidemic of people developing “text neck”.

Technology is also rewiring our brains. We are continually bugged by cellphone alerts, texts and other interruptions. Endocrinologist Robert Lustig told Business Insider that these interruptions are training our brains to be in a nearly constant state of stress and fear by establishing a stress-fear memory pathway.

This means that the prefrontal cortex, the part of our brain that normally deals with some of our highest-order cognitive functioning, goes completely haywire, and basically shuts down.

HERE COME THE SUNS

Nuclear fusion is the holy grail of scientists and British science writer Chris Woodford explains why:

When scientists “split the atom” in the early 20th century, they used a process called nuclear fission.

Ernest Rutherford, the scientist who led the early experiments, famously said that “anyone who expects a source of power from the transformation of the atom is talking moonshine”. We all know what happened next.

“Nuclear power has proved hugely expensive and politically controversial, caused some catastrophic accidents, polluted seas, and generated horrible amounts of highly dangerous radioactive waste,” says Woodford.

So what if we could develop nuclear power that was much cleaner and safer and could potentially solve our energy needs forever?

Unlike nuclear fission, which entails splitting atoms, during nuclear fusion two atoms are joined together. Scientists have discovered that nuclear fusion is what drives the sun, and the sun drives the Earth.

Scientists are hoping to create “mini suns” that copy what happens inside our sun.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor is a giant fusion reactor being built in Provence, in the south of France. This huge reactor will have more than a million components and involves the participation of 35 countries.

Experiments are scheduled to begin in 2025.

TECH COACHES

Just a spoonful of sugar will make the technology go away. The Mary Poppins of the future will coach parents how to raise phone-free children.

Adults struggle to remember how they lived in the BS (Before Smartphones) age, so this is where cyber Poppins makes her  appearance.

The New York Times reports a new screen-free parenting coach economy has sprung up.

“Is there a ball somewhere? Throw the ball, kick the ball,” parenting coach Rhonda Moskowitz advises her charges. 

Parents are getting together and vowing publicly to deny their offspring phones until they go to high school.  It’s a movement reminiscent of the “virginity pledge” — young people promising to wait until marriage to have sex.

STEP AWAY FROM YOUR  DRONE

In California, robocops have already been deployed with varied success. Officer HP RoboCop (no pension or medical aid required) was apparently off his game when a fight broke out in a parking lot.

A concerned citizen repeatedly pressed Officer HP RoboCop’s emergency-alert button but police never responded. Officer HP RoboCop continued on a preprogrammed route  telling visitors to “please keep the park clean” .

The police force of the future needs some tinkering.

NO SULKING IN THE TRAILER

James Dean has been cast in a new movie more than 50 years after his death.

Technology allows Hollywood to recreate the iconic actor who died in a car crash at the age of 24 in 1955.

The coming movie, titled Finding Jack, will star Dean in the secondary lead role.

Finding Jack directors Anton Ernst and Tati Golykh obtained the rights to use Dean’s image from the late actor’s family.

The plot is set around the abandonment of more than 10,000 military dogs at the end of the Vietnam War.

Actor Chris Evans joined many leading lights in voicing his displeasure.

“Maybe we can get a computer to paint us a new Picasso,” Evans wrote. “Or write a couple new John Lennon tunes.”