In 2030 there will be 8,3 billion people on our earth, 1,3 billion more than today. The aspiration to improve the standard of living will entail the need to create 2 billion new jobs. The consumption of food and energy will have to increase by 50%, those of fresh water by 30%, while they will have to face each other huge problems to contain global warming phenomena or to try to adapt to it. Our planet will undergo a very strong stress that could cause social and political upheavals thus determining a real "perfect storm" from which many citizens of all continents risk coming out very battered. Unless you decide to intervene immediately with medium-term policies. It's not impossible, but you have to start thinking about it make the right choices. First we will start on this road, the lower the economic and social costs will be, the easier it will be to prevent the "perfect storm" from causing a generalized shipwreck.
This is the cross-section of the future that Donato Speroni e Gianluca Comin describe us in their book “2030 The perfect storm” (Rizzoli 18,50 euros). It is not a science fiction book, nor can it be included in the catastrophic vein. On the contrary there is no pessimism in their conclusions. There is alarm for a series of problems which are accumulating with exponential growth rates and to which individual states and the international community as a whole are responding too slowly at best.
The first concern lies precisely in the fact that the current political debate in most of the world does not incorporate a medium-term vision, but it appears almost entirely absorbed by a very short-term vision if not by instrumental controversies that are born and live only a few days. In Italy, where all political parties are committed to re-founding themselves after the failure of the type of politics practiced in recent decades, the book by Speroni and Comin offers insights and very appropriate reflections to allow political forces to build their own vision of the future and to make concrete proposals on how to face the new and serious problems that the natural evolution of things is posing for us.
The book tells in a lively and accurate way of data, all of them the main evolutionary trends of the globe, from population growth to energy consumption, from the lack of fresh water to the evolution of cities, obviously passing through the predictable evolution of the climate and for the positive or negative impacts of technologies up to describing the attempts of a new global governance and the role of communication and the internet.
The intent is not to make alarmism an end in itself, but certainly to launch some alarm signals above all on the lack of attention both on the part of public opinion and in the world of politics, with which these issues are accepted. This is certainly a long-term evolution, even if 2030 is around the corner, and considering the slowness with which the appropriate contrast policies are adopted, twenty years is not that far off.
The choices to be made are certainly not easy. Furthermore, in many cases there is great uncertainty, both technological and economic, as to which is the best path to take. For example, on energy, the two authors take it for granted that nuclear power plants will play only a residual role, while a certain trust is placed in new generation renewables even if so far these technologies have involved very high costs for citizens with modest results on the containment of CO2 emissions.
Great confidence is given to the improvement of networks with strong reductions in losses during transport, and certainly to energy saving with the necessary renewal of infrastructures and homes especially in developed countries.
Of great interest is the chapter dedicated to water the shortage of which both for irrigation and for domestic uses risks becoming dramatic. Hence the need to avoid purely ideological and think about how the large investments necessary to guarantee a sufficient volume of fresh water for a rapidly growing population can be made both in number and in needs. The theory of water as a public good, which is essentially based on the fear that an economic and private management of this resource could harm the poorest, is demolished. In reality – say Speroni and Comin – already today the poorest, those who live in shantytowns, pay for the water supplied to them by tankers even 10 times more than those connected to the aqueducts. Not only – one could add – the inhabitants of the South American favelas, but also many Sicilians to whom public water is supplied only a few hours a day!
La communication is undoubtedly a critical factor. The web has enormously accelerated the circulation of messages and has created a desire for participation and protagonism that both political and economic decision makers can no longer neglect. However, that the web, in itself, is creating citizens who are more aware, more cultured and more willing to overcome their particular interest in connecting to the collective well-being is by no means confirmed. In Italy, for example, it suffices to think of the results of the recent referendum on nuclear power and water to understand how the short-term and completely free vision is still by far prevalent. Surely transparency and accountability have made great strides forward. No one, neither governments nor companies, can now ignore the satisfaction of these two fundamental needs of citizens. And this is a good first step for the creation of that "collective consciousness" which according to the two authors is the indispensable premise to be able to start new long-term policies that can avoid the more negative effects of the "perfect storm".
The world is not going to end. There is no need to focus, like Latouche, on degrowth, on a life based on small rural communities that produce almost everything they need locally. Of course, many individual habits will have to be changed. Reducing waste which is enormous, especially in the more developed world, recycling waste as much as possible, living in more organized cities as is already being tested with smart city projects. This entails a reorientation of the consumption of individual citizens, ie a different destination of their financial means. In this sense, in addition to political guidelines, much will have to be left to the free operation of prices on the market. But these are things that can be done, without having to go back to the Middle Ages. Comin and Speroni show that the sooner we start working in this direction, the easier and less traumatic the change will be.
