Credit: Emrah Elmasli

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Albert Einstein claimed he never thought about the future. "It comes soon enough," he would say. And you can see his point. What would have been the good of worrying about our destiny when it was not of our making?

But life has changed since the great physicist's day. Sweeping changes of our own creation now beset our world: carbon emissions, soaring populations, cloning, rising extinction rates.

We are changing our planet and its biosphere in ways that were once unimaginable. We are also developing lifesaving technologies that would have appeared equally incredible a few decades ago. Everywhere we witness change. But what will this bring and how will it affect our world?

In this article, we address these questions in detail and explore the issues involved, concerns that will shape the existence and lifestyles of ourselves and our children. Some, notably those involved in medical research, look very hopeful. Others, especially those concerned with climate and biodiversity, look far less optimistic. Indeed, they appear downright disturbing.

Overall, it is sobering stuff, though we should not be too downhearted about our prospects for life in 2020. As that other great guru of the 20th century, Charles M. Schulz, creator of the 'Peanuts' cartoon, once observed: "You needn't worry about the world coming to an end today. It is already tomorrow in Australia."

Hot in the city

WHATEVER else we experience in 2020, the impact of climate change will be inescapable. That's the clear message from virtually every scientist working in the field. Last century saw global atmospheric temperatures rising by 0.6˚C; in the next decade and a half, we can expect much the same.

"Climate change will become particularly noticeable at the poles," says James Lovelock, the British scientist who developed the Gaia hypothesis, the idea that life itself makes existence tolerable on Earth. "By 2020, the North Pole will be becoming free of ice, and by the end of the decade we will be able to sail straight across it. At the same time, the great glaciers of the southern hemisphere and the West Antarctic ice sheet will be breaking up."

The seas will rise dramatically, flooding Earth's low-lying areas. Thus, by 2020, we will have a very good idea of the fate that is awaiting our planet: heat, flooding and desertification. "Essentially, for most people on the planet, it will be like living through war," warns Lovelock. "It will be grim, but we are all going to have to stick together in our own communities."

It is an apocalyptic vision. Nevertheless, Lovelock – one of the world's most distinguished climate experts – is not alone in his prognosis. Graeme Pearman, of Australia's national science agency, the CSIRO, also forecasts cataclysmic changes. "The Great Barrier Reef is already suffering from serious bleaching," he says. "Temperature increases are killing off the coral and, with another one-degree increase in global temperatures in prospect, we are going to see serious damage being done to it. Not just from bleaching, but from damage from ever-worsening storms that are yet another consequence of global warming." (See also 'The late Great Barrier Reef', Cosmos 9, p 32).

Around 90 per cent of people living today will still be alive in 2020, so these disturbances will touch almost every family on Earth. Neither can we do anything to halt them. Increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide that have already taken place make them inevitable. Preventing even greater horrors should therefore be a scientific and political priority for the next decade and a half, says Tim Flannery, professor at Macquarie University in Sydney and author of the climatic bestseller, The Weather Makers. And, most importantly, a new and comprehensive policy for curbing carbon emissions both at home and in the workplace is now desperately needed. As Flannery points out: "It's now too late to avoid changing our world. But we still have time, if good policy is implemented, to avoid disaster."

It's life, Jim

NO FORECAST for 2020 would be complete without attempting to answer one of the most enduring questions in science: is there life elsewhere in the cosmos? And, if so, will we find it? The answer, according to Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the SETI Institute, in Mountain View, California, is a simple "Yes". By the end of the next decade we will have found evidence of extraterrestrial life. The only issue to be decided is how we will actually make that monumental discovery. And according to Shostak, it will be a three-horse race: between Earth-based radio telescopes, planetary probes, and space telescopes.

In the first category, radio telescopes will probe the skies to pick up signals sent out by alien civilisations – either deliberate 'here we are' messages or old episodes of their equivalent of TV show Neighbours that have been leaking out across space since they were broadcast. And of all the instruments designed to detect these interstellar signals, the Allen Telescope Array – a joint project between SETI (which stands for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and the University of California at Berkeley – is now rated the machine most likely to succeed. Consisting of some 350 separate radio telescopes, the array went into operation earlier in 2006 and, by searching the skies 24 hours a day, we should hit pay dirt sometime between 2020 and 2025, says Shostak.

Then there are the space telescopes, and in particular NASA's Terrestrial Planet Finder mission, and the Darwin Mission of the European Space Agency, which will hover in deep space and study the atmospheres of extrasolar planets (those beyond our Solar System) for telltale signs of oxygen, ozone and methane – gases that would indicate the presence of life. Both missions have been delayed by budget problems but are still likely to be in space by 2020. "They could still win the race," says Shostak, "but are outsiders at present."

And finally, there are planetary probes. Among these will be missions to land spacecraft on Mars as well as to visit the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, worlds that have ice-covered oceans where primitive lifeforms may be found. "My money is one of these winning the race – particularly a Mars mission," adds Shostak. "Certainly, I am sure by 2020 or thereabouts, we will have good evidence that we have neighbours somewhere in the galaxy and will know that life is really just a form of dirty chemistry that happens on lots of worlds."

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