Nine Hopeful Predictions For 2010

Futurist Syd Mead Envisions Doha,Qatar. Image credit:Strategic Design

I'm no professional futurist. That's a hopeless career possibility, anyway, since Google has pulled the curtain back on the traditional prognosticator's "MO:" make numerous long-term predictions; seek publicity for only claims that turn out "right;" ignore the wrong ones, and, above all, focus on the scary and fantastic.

What can I foresee for 2010 that is hopeful, plausible, and not romanticized? Read on.Quite likely.

• US Environmental Protection Agency continues to develop and broadly enforce regulations, as had not been done for years.


• The renewable energy industry will learn how to lobby more effectively, diluting some of the policy shaping power of the fossils that have ruled Washington DC since WWII ended.


• A simple majority in Congress, and what remains of the investigative journalism establishment, will admit to an impending climate emergency.


• Electric bills will soar for a variety of reasons: price cap deregulation; costs of health protective particulate, SOX, and mercury controls; and more expensive coal.

• Urban farming and aquaculture will enter a growth phase, with private investors linking up with the pioneers of these movements.


• Large scale projects proposed to subdivide contiguous, oversize suburban homes into multi-family units.


• Oil goes back up over US$85 per barrel and parks there.

• Republicans and "moderate" Democrats in US given a Darwin Award. early Darwin award for exposing other humans to their own ignorance-caused fate.


• Congress passes weak but upgradable climate and energy bill.