Piles of rubbish clutter the streets of the new urban sprawls. In overloaded hospitals, patients lie in corridors, victims of a pandemic. Water prices have rocketed, and temperatures have nosedived with a premature slowing of the Gulf stream.
Welcome to dystopian Britain, a thoroughly miserable snapshot of the country's woes come the middle of the 21st century. While the bleak scenario might seem unlikely at present, Sir David King, the government's chief science adviser, is urging policy-makers not to be complacent. A bleak future will only be avoided if they understand the threats and what new technologies might come to the rescue.
Professor King, a Cambridge chemist, decided more than 18 months ago that government departments needed to ensure their future policies were scientifically better informed. He set up two reviews, which have just been completed. One charted trends likely to affect Britain in the next 50 years or so. The other picked out emerging scientific and technological breakthroughs that will help shape that future.
Some of the threats are familiar. Climate change is expected to bring more extreme weather, with periods of drought and flash floods. Sea levels will creep up, and the Gulf stream, which boosts the climate of north-western Europe by about 9C, may wane. In the near term more renewable energy, flood barriers and high-precision weather forecasting could help. In the more distant future, scientists may modify the weather, for example by deflecting storms to unpopulated areas.
Full article is here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1975784,00.html
