[Comment: I had a harder time blending these three trends together, and the result doesn't seem to gel as well as the first scenario. Perhaps the communications technology trend is too specific compared to the other, more general and global, trends. Within it I seem to have ended up with conflicting trends of some people wanting their own lands, and others not feeling attached to geography at all. Maybe it's a generational thing.]

[ Scenario 1 | Scenario 2 ]

Introduction

This scenario was created using the Hawaii Research Center method of scenario building, and is set in the year 2025. The following three trends were used:

• Increasingly miniaturised and personalised communication devices
• Nations fragmenting into smaller regional areas/cultures
• Global temperatures rise

Scenario Description

Despite the claims of many that global warming would not be a major problem, events seem to have proved them wrong. Industrialised nations were largely unwilling to enforce anything but the weakest measures on pollution, and were definitely unwilling to subsidise environment-friendly development of poorer countries. Population and economic growth has proved disastrous for the environment with climatic effects being felt increasingly over recent years. While unusual weather patterns at the end of the twentieth century could have statistically been a mere blip, it now seems they were a precursor of more unstable weather preceding what seems to be a rise in global temperature. The lowest lands are having increasing troubles with flooding, and many ecologically sensitive wetlands have been wiped out. Fresh water aquifers, already severely depleted in developing countries, have become infiltrated by salt water, rendering them useless. Many crops have failed in warmer countries, with starvation the all-too frequent result, along with lack of income due to the inability to export.

The feeling that governments aren't doing enough to solve the situation (whether there is more they can do or not is irrelevant) has increased the determination of many groups to separate themselves from the nation and go their own way. Many areas around the world are demanding independence (particularly if they have land or water that's so far surviving the climate change), and dispersed ethnic groups demanding their own land. Some of this is peaceful, gradual and democratic with regional pride and culture a positive force. Other factions are taking matters further with the number of small conflicts around the world increasing. Demonstrations are often carried over into other countries, in the hope that more powerful nations and/or international organisations will notice the plight of the self-proclaimed 'homeless' groups. These actions have become more widespread and more elaborate, aided and synchronised by modern communications technology.

This same technology has also lead to another, generally less destructive, form of fragmentation. People can now be in constant communication with anyone else, any other group of people, anywhere in the world. In the developed world it's fairly normal for the younger generation to be constantly communicating with friends whose geographical location is irrelevant, or watching events happening elsewhere. This ease of communication with their self-created groups has led younger people to feel less attached to their national culture and more part of dispersed global culture. Increasing numbers travel from place to place, and from job to job.

The developed world hasn't yet been as badly hit as the rest of the world by global warming and only in recent years have they begun to take concerted effort to curb pollution. Their minds have perhaps been focused by increasing grass-roots activities by both western activist groups and representatives of the developing nations who are suffering most from global warming. They have proved harder and harder to stop, organising and co-ordinating their dispersed activities with the latest communications equipment.

Brainstorm

• Increasingly miniaturised and personalised communication devices
  • People can always be connected to friends or media
  • Private satellites become affordable for more groups/wealthy individuals
  • Increase in spying
  • Boom in communication-free retreats
  • No escape from work
  • Parents always in contact with children
  • Traffic accidents due to people watching/reading/talking while driving
  • See live pictures from anywhere instantly
  • More people roaming, not settling down
  • More short-term rental properties
  • Land line phones rarely used
  • People constantly in touch with different groups to which they belong
  • Animals fitted with tracking devices
  • Implanted devices
• Nations fragmenting into smaller regional areas/cultures
  • More border wars
  • New alliances form
  • Traditional governments try to cope with reduced power
  • Increased intolerance of outside groups/ethnicities
  • Rise of supra-national organisations to mediate disagreements and organise trade
  • Disagreements over natural resources, rivers, etc.
  • Boom in arms trade, black market, crime
  • Increase in regional culture and art
• Global temperatures rise
  • Some low-lying lands lost
  • Fresh water sources become infiltrated by salt water
  • Climate becomes gradually more unstable
  • Crop losses
  • Warmer countries suffer
  • Change in migration patterns
  • Traditionally cooler places become holiday resorts
  • Water increasingly precious
  • Green-taxes
• Miniaturised communication + national fragmentation
  • Insurrectionist and terrorist groups able to co-ordinate easier
  • Regional groups able to communicate with their members around the globe instantly, simultaneously
• National fragmentation + temperature rise
  • Areas want to separate from their more ecologically damaged neighbours
• Temperature rise + miniaturised communication
  • Satellites used to monitor crop growth, good land, water supplies

[ Scenario 1 | Scenario 2 ]