The world in 2050 will be radically different from today.
Northern countries - notably Canada, Russia and Scandinavia - will rise at the
expense of southern ones. Places like New Zealand, Argentina and interior
Brazil will also be winners. Patterns of human migration will be dramatically
altered - and where we are born will be crucial. "The New North"
explores the 'four locomotives' that are changing the world - climate change,
rising population, globalization and resource depletion - and attempts to
predict how they will shape the world between now and 2050. It is a book about
people, and the 'push' and 'pull' factors that determine where and how they
live. In particular, it examines the countries of the far north - Scandinavia,
Canada, Greenland, etc. which stand to gain from the changes underway. The book
is not a doomsday script. All of human history is a story of adaptation and
change, in response to our environment and to each other. Despite our booming
numbers we are healthier, safer, better fed, more knowledgeable, and less
violent than ever before. The population boom is slowing, our prosperity
generally rising. And as our coastlines inundate and the deserts encroach,
there will be new homelands for us throughout the high latitudes and high
altitudes, places currently marginal for human existence. Who will benefit? Who
will suffer? Current migration trends - to Florida and the drought-stricken
American southwest, towards vulnerable low-lying coasts, into Asian mega-cities
atop subsiding deltas - will go into reverse. Instead, we will turn north,
where the tragic loss of unique ecosystems will be countered by rising
biological production, stable water supplies, warmer winters, rising food
stocks, and new shipping access throughout the region. These physical benefits
intertwine crucially with human ones, like abundant cheap land, stable
governance and legal systems, new oil discoveries, the end of indigenous
land-claims, and rising global markets for energy, raw materials, and food.
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