Non Partisan. Did you like that? Well I truly will try.
The future is hard to determine, as we all know, and it becomes even harder when you take into account what the government might do to help. So I will try to first give the scenario where nothing is done till imminent disaster is near.
The next 100 years will bring us a warming globe, shrinking resources and a growing population. What lies ahead for the United States? Well, we will have an aging population and a major crisis. So will Europe and Japan. China and other third world countries in Asia will improve, becoming developed if you care to call it that. Africa will continue to be stuck in a visious cycle of death and despair for their millions.
Rising temperatures Scenario A:
The temperatures of the globe will continue to rise due to globabl warming. "A Day To Remember" won't happen, but rising seas will. Seas will rise as much as 5 feet, causing the destruction of the low lying islands, including many of those in the pacific and the carribean sea. The United States will eventually save New York for example by the use of barriers and flood gates such as in rome, but pooer areas in texas and florida will find coasts moving in. The rest of the world will not fare so well. Millions will die in the poor islands of maylasia (this hits home with the recent tsunami) and indonesia, as well as in the small chain islands in the pacific. Hawaii will be protected again by barriers and the like for tourism, but it won't help and tourism to Hawaii will cese. The carribean, or many of the islands, will disapear beneath the sea. This will cause an influx of millions of people into the United States and southern america (we will allow our compadres from the islands, or at least many of them into our country). Essentially, global warming will be bad but we will survive. It would have been much cheaper and more effective to have delt with the problem earlier on, but its too late for that. Trillions are being poured into reversing globabl warming because the future of antartica looks bleak.
Rising temperatures scenario b:
Global warming will be found to not truly exsist or Global Warming doesn't cause any major problems
Rising temperatures scenario c:
The United States will get a president one year who cares about the environment and or believes we have a crisis coming. The United States, along with the EU and Japan will spend trillions of dollars finding solutions to global warming, and we will crack down on CO emmisions. It will be effective to a degree, the United States will be safe but low lying islands in the pacific will still disapear.
Oil Crisis scenario a:
The united states will continue to spend the worlds oil resources at an ever increasing rate. This, compounded will exponentially larger (as in HUGE) oil use by India and China will over power the decrease in oil use by the rest of the world. The price of oil will head towoards $100 and above per barrel. Industry suffers, we enter a continuing recession as the prices continue to increse. Once it reaches the 200, 300, 400, 500 dollar marks, the United States, China, India and Japan decide its time to determine a valid alternative. Trillions of dollars are spent and we will develop an alternative, though it will not be cheap. Energy prices will remain high due to the lateness of the alternative, the constant recession state will remain for many years until the use of oil finnaly peaks and falls as the alternatives get better and become better implemented. The GDP of the country will have suffered $50 trillion dollars or more from the rising price of oil.
Oil Crisis scenario b:
The The united states will continue to spend the worlds oil resources at an ever increasing rate. This, compounded will exponentially larger (as in HUGE) oil use by India and China will over power the decrease in oil use by the rest of the world. The price of oil will head towoards $100, however either the federal government or the industry sees a potential problem or an economically more viable solution. These things combine to develop rapid alternative energy sources earlier not economically feasable. The use of oil by the United States declines lineraly, though energy prices remain quite high due to the economic feasilbility of the alt. energy sources. The federal government spends trillions developing over 30 years, comes up with a solution and energy prices fall. This will cost the nation $10 trillion or less total.
oil crisis scenario c:
We find tons more oil than we had expected or the entire continent of asia falls off the planet and there is no oil crisis.
Part B should include medicare/social security and some other scenarios.
