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Scenario 4: "A Darker Age"

Low Economic Growth & Low Social Cohesion

Scenario
> Eco-Efficiency Revolution
> Full Speed Ahead
> Soft Landing
> A Darker Age

The following scenario depicts hypothetical events based on social and environmental research and expert opinion. This scenario should not be construed in any way as a prediction of future events. For more information on how this and other scenarios at this site were constructed, please refer to our "Environmental Scenarios Project".

Looking back to 2020, it's not too hard to see how the world reverted to such a dark period. Some of us can remember back to the turn of the millennium, when irrationally exuberant economic optimism prevailed. Despite a few early trouble signals, the Internet-stoked stock market kept rising. People were growing richer and richer. Eventually everybody, climbed on the bandwagon. People were spending anticipated stock market gains for ever bigger houses and sport utility vehicles.

Strong signals warning of significant trouble began early in the 00's. Energy demand increased unabated, so oil prices continued to soar. China, already a grain-importing nation, stepped up imports. Farm prices rose steadily. Spot food shortages were occurring in unexpected places in the developed world. Other dynamics were at work. It turned out that the Asian financial crisis of the late 90's had only been superficially resolved. Apparent institutional reforms in Asian finance and government proved to be illusory. Asia's economic problems had returned, significantly reducing their demand for U.S. products. Prosperity in the United States was not as solid and guaranteed as many thought. India, the so called "back office of America," was rapidly becoming the front office as well. Highly skilled Baby Boom workers began to retire in droves. Dot-coms were just not doing that well anymore. They weren't creating sufficient efficiency gains in actual production of goods. And in retrospect, the most ominous threat was Russia. The great Motherland never recovered economically after the collapse of communism. Owing to the lack of real, economic opportunity, the "Russian Mafia" continued to grow. Their criminal activities became a measurable drain on a number of the world's largest economies. The illegal drug trade increased. Biological weaponry and nuclear warheads of the former Soviet Union continued to disappear, leading to great political and strategic uncertainty. These myriad factors led to some savvy investors pulling out of the market. Big institutional investors followed suit. In 2005, the financial bubble finally burst.

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Stock markets around the world crashed, immediately setting off a chain reaction of negative economic and social events. Because of the massive nature of the economic decline, nations immediately started blaming one another and closing their borders. All the old barriers to trade made a comeback as countries circled their wagons in isolationism. The net effect was to prevent any type of economic recovery. The slowdown eroded the economic status of the U.S. middle class. What made it harder in the United States was that this economic distress coincided with the beginning of Baby Boomer retirement. The United States was left with a boom of seniors who could no longer contribute to the economy and were becoming a drain on the social and medical resources of the country just when times were bad. Of course the slowdown was far more painful and disruptive in the developing world, throwing a very large number of people back into the grinding poverty from which they had only recently emerged. The population growth rate in the developing world, which had finally started to decline, rose again as the prosperity that led to declining birth rates disappeared.

Internationally and domestically the gap between rich and poor was growing. Large numbers of the newly desperate were trying to emigrate to the United States, where the economy seemed better.

Other social consequences of the worldwide economic slowdown were considerable. The poor began to rage against the rich, creating a general atmosphere of blame and intolerance. People's sense of community narrowed greatly to focus only on their own clubs, churches or neighborhoods. Gated communities for those who remained wealthy multiplied. The Western world withdrew its relatively recent commitment to fight AIDS in Africa. As a generation of Africa's best died, the disease spread faster in Asia and was more and more evident in immigrants to the United States.

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The environment didn't fare too well during these dark days. Population growth in the poorest parts of the world led to increased deforestation and soil erosion, problems that had once been on the verge of being solved. People lost any will to deal with climate change. Many of the alternative and energy efficient technologies that were nearing implementation were delayed until well over the horizon. The Kyoto Protocol was voted down once and for all. By 2010, climate change related disasters became more recognizable and common. Storm surges flooding Island Nations led to environmental refugees landing on our shores. Droughts and floods worsened leading to further hardships and more environmental refugees.

This was even a period when hard-won progress on such basic environmental improvements as air and water quality was lost. No funding was available to repair the aging water infrastructure of the nation's oldest and largest cities. Inner cities, which had been on the verge of revival, crumbled again. Cities were once again abandoned. The nation lacked the will to shut down the last of the coal burning power plants. In fact, a few moth-balled coal-fired plants were brought back into production to avoid importing oil.

Examples of specific health, environmental, and social impacts likely to be associated with this scenario are listed below.

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Water

Chemicals

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Sprawl

Biotechnology and Nanotechnology

Climate

Prepared by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in conjunction with the Institute for Alternative Futures. For additional information contact Anita Street at 202.564.3626, street.anita@epa.gov.

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