By Dick Pelletier
Author
William McGaughey interprets world history as five
civilizations appearing in succession over the last 5,000 years,
each introduced by a new communication technology. In the first
civilization, humans only wrote in graphic form, then about 3,000
BC alphabet writing was devised, and this began the second
civilization. 
This eventually led to the invention of the printing press in
China in 593 AD and the world’s first printed newspaper in Beijing
in 700 AD. These events were the beginning of the third
civilization. The fourth civilization started in the 20th century
with electronic recording and broadcasting, which is now merging
into the fifth civilization which utilizes computer communications
and the Internet, and is still in its infancy today.
Leaving the communications world, futurists ponder where we go
from here. In 1964, Russian astronomer Nikolai
Kardashev introduced a method for categorizing civilization
advances based on energy consumption which he divided into three
stages, Type I, II, and III
civilizations. Type I harnesses all the energy from its planet,
Type II, its sun, and Type III, its
galaxy. Others have since added Type IV, which controls
extra-galactic energy including dark matter that makes up 73% of
the universe.
Today, physicists rate Earth at Type 0.7. Astronomer
Don Goldsmith. reminds us that Earth receives only one
billionth of the suns energy, and that we utilize just one
millionth of that; however with the help of advanced nanotech and
greater-than-human intelligence, many predict we could reach Type I
status by 2100 or before. (cont.)
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By JC Chan
In the next eight seconds 34 babies will be born to the world.
Of these five will be from India and four will be from China. In
ten years China will be the dominant English speaking country in
the world. With world population exploding and shifting so
dramatically, it’s easy to envision a future with billions more
humans inhabiting Earth than do today. But that may not be the
case. 
Consider the scenario presented in the sci-fi film Children
of Men (2006), a bleak vision of Earth in 2027 where humans
have mysteriously lost fertility and the ability to procreate. In
one scene, a scruffy-faced man named Theo, played by Clive Owen,
and a woman named Miriam walk across the dreary rust of an
abandoned school playground. Sitting on the squeaky swing set is
the African woman they are protecting, miraculously nursing in her
hands the first newborn the Earth has seen in over a decade. Miriam
recalls her days as a nurse delivering births. She notes that over
time fewer births were recorded until the day they ceased
altogether.
“As the sound of the playgrounds faded, the despair set in. Very
odd, what happens in a world without children’s voices,” she grimly
states.
The backdrop for the film is a future England that has adopted a
survivalist policy as it attempts to police millions of incoming
immigrants into concentration camps to preserve the little
remaining natural resources they have left. When I first watched
Children of Men, the idea of humanity wiped out by
widespread infertility seemed a little far-fetched. Certainly there
are many other, more viable ways for us to go: nuclear weapons,
terrorism, a nanotechnology nightmare, a super-resistant bacteria
strain, asteroids, global warming.
Growing up in the 90’s, schools and media have always drilled
into my head the post-war baby boom, exponential growth, limited
allocation of resources, and recycling, oh lots of talk about
recycling. (Note: I am an avid recycler.) Still, though we can and
should do something about issues like global warming and runaway
population growth, scenarios like the reality of the 2027 in
Children of Men remind us that there may well be other
formidable challenges on the horizon that may not be so much in our
control.
Case in point, a recent NYTimes Sunday Magazine article
by Russell Shorto entitled “No Babies?” addresses the very
real possibility of population decline. Shorto examines the sleepy
Italian town of Laviano in Southern Italy, a spectacular sight with
magnificent steep slopes and wild poppies adorning medieval
fortress ruins of a fortress, in which a population of 3,000 has
fallen to just 1,600 and still dropping.
This has caused such alarm that the Laviano’s mayor has created
a new fund to give any woman that would rear a child in the
village, a sum of 10,000 euros ($15,000). Though the plan has
resulted in a slight uptick in residents, Laviano is still steadily
losing population. (cont.)
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