The future of…

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The future of the environment

Man has had an uneasy relationship with his environment. The hunter gatherer world could only support 60 million people, one percent of today's population. Today’s genetic engineering advocates point to the potential to feed 40 billion at some future date. Certainly, we need technology to survive, we just need to try to minimise the environmental damage it does. However, more advanced technologies are mostly cleaner. The early industrial revolution polluted our rivers and the air around us. In recent decades, we have seen these clean up a great deal thanks in part to much cleaner technology. As information technology is one of the biggest drivers today, let's look at some of the interactions by which it will impact on our environment. But with due humility, let's also recognise that the system is so complex that all that can be done here is to tickle the surface, and many of the most important interactions will go un-addressed.

Teletravel

A decade ago, many of us thought that tele-travel would reduce real travel. Since then, we realised that meeting people in far way places via the network will cause you to want to meet up physically once in a while. Many of my friends in chat rooms get together frequently, increasing their real travel. Similarly, doing global business over the net will require the occasional get together for teams. Teleworking works best when people occasionally meet up, but allows people to work much further from the office since they only commute occasionally. Thus, short distance commuting is reduced and long journeys increase. In tourism, visiting a place via the network, even in virtual reality, will have the same effect on travel as watching holiday programmes on TV. Through these mechanisms, tele-travel increases real travel significantly.

However, there is hope. Future telecomms will make use of large screens or personal headsets or one form or another. Meeting someone via the network could become almost as good as physically travelling, in some cases better, since the environment in the computer can be customised at will, and people can make themselves look as they wish, not as they are. A boring meeting in a conference room might become an exciting meeting in a virtual place, with more attractive looking people. We will still have the basic human need of wanting to socialise, but the mechanism might well be affected by this level of technology. People may sometimes use these tools to interact even when they are in the same room, just like playing computer games today.

Physical travel

We expect to see some travel technologies that will greatly reduce the pollution from vehicles over the coming decades. Firstly, electric power, fuel cells, and hybrid powered cars are already on their way. Harmful emissions from many vehicles will be virtually zero. Road traffic information systems will also help. People will know what traffic lies ahead and how long it will take to get to their destination even before they leave. As well as being able to travel by less congested routes, many journeys may be abandoned altogether during heavy traffic, greatly reducing emissions from vehicles stuck in jams. Still further technology will enable cars to drive themselves, at an appropriate distance from the car ahead, in full co-operation with road traffic management systems. This will ensure smoother traffic flow and much better fuel efficiency. Since the driver does not have to drive, stress is reduced and some of the time travelling can be spent learning about the areas being travelled through, which may increase the sense of ownership, involvement and responsibility to the environment.

Public transport will eventually become much more attractive through use of IT (see the future of public transport) and will consequently reduce the number of vehicles on the road.

Today we see speed cameras along our roads that can zoom in on registration plates. If we also had sensors on these that could detect the levels of emissions from cars, people could be contacted automatically when their car needs attention.

More surveillance of cars would allow car sharing too. I won't give lifts to strangers mainly because they are an unknown quantity. If I can guarantee who they are, where they are going, and whether they are known to any database of potential threats, then I might be prepared to offer them a lift. An iris scan system could guarantee their identity, and of course widespread use of surveillance cameras would increase the safety of doing so too. For their part, they could verify that they are hopping into the car of someone with a good driving record who is not registered as an axe-wielding homicidal maniac.

Tourism

Many of the world's tourist attractions are already suffering because of excessive tourism, and some places are already imposing significant financial barriers to entry, while others are closed to the public most of the time. As global wealth increases, we can expect a large rise in tourism, with all the associated problems. Some attractions will be forced to limit physical visits, and it may be that the only way many of us can visit them is in cyberspace, using immersive VR technology. This will not necessarily be a poor substitute. Stonehenge is usually closed to the public, but hardly resembles its original state. In cyberspace, it could be seen as it was intended by its makers. Visitors could see the sun rising through the stones, and take part in a realistic recreation of an appropriate festival, or at least someone's best guess at what that might be. While we will probably still want to visit physically where possible, cyberspace will often offer a very good substitute to crowds, long queues, high fees and of course lengthy travel time.

Network

Networks, and in particular the internet, will allow environmental campaigns to be much better informed and organised, with more co-ordinated action. Companies and governments can be more easily pressurised into behaving properly. By linking people together regardless of geography, people may get to know people from all over the world, increasing the sense of global belonging and global responsibility. Scientists were the first to use networks to allow global working and sharing of information, so this benefit is already firmly with us.

Education

One of the biggest contributors to wealth and quality of life is education. Unfortunately increased wealth often increases environmental impact, via consumption, and while quality of life obviously depends on the qualify of environment, many components of increased quality of life have a negative impact on the environment. Very rich people can afford to pay a premium for environmentally friendly products that may cost more, while very poor people can't. In between, the vast bulk of people will have a much greater impact on the environment without having sufficient resources to look after it as well as they would like. As the third world gradually becomes more wealthy, we will therefore see them impact much more greatly on the environment. This will correlate with their education. The network accelerates this progression. In the global information economy, people with a computer and network access can participate, and many of the valued skills can be learned easily. Satellite systems will cover the whole planet with high quality high speed communications, and some of these may grant free access as they fly over developing countries. Older computers cost very little, and some of these could be powered by clockwork or solar power. This implies that anyone in the remotest village in the developing world can hop onto the information economy and start to earn money. And start consuming. As they gain a little skill, they can buy more equipment, better education and accelerate their progression. We can hardly insist that they consume in an environmentally friendly manner when we haven't done so in our past. But unless they do, we will all suffer.

Refuse disposal

In the far future, packaging will often contain chips in place of today's bar codes. This will make it easier for automatic rubbish sorters to sort out rubbish and enable appropriate treatment, such as reuse, recycling or incineration. IT could also help co-ordinate the collection of sorted waste from people's homes. Many people would co-operate who today just put everything in the same sack because it is too hard to keep track of local council schedules for each type of waste and it's too far to the bottle bank.

Food production

Satellite imaging and positioning allows much more efficient food production, while reducing excessive or unnecessary use of chemicals. It can also monitor pests to help initiate timely and appropriate action. In the future, this will become an increasingly precise art. People that take an increased interest in the production details of their food could effectively outsource their vegetable plot to the farmer's field, who would then grow their food according to their customised regime, under electronic surveillance control if necessary.

Mobile communications networks will allow myriads of insect-like agricultural robots to be controlled on request, for tasks such as pollination, fertilising, and pest control. Some of these robots might interact with real insects, decoying them to other areas, disrupting their reproduction cycles and in many other ways. There is enough address space in IPv6 for every insect and robot to have its own IP address if need be.