On the forecasting of the challenging world future scenarios

Abstract

Logistic and power law methodologies for both retrospective and prospective analyses of extended time series describing evolutionary growth processes, in environments with finite resources, are confronted. While power laws may eventually apply only to the early stages of said growth process, the Allee logistic model seems applicable over the entire span of a long range process. On applying the Allee logistic model to both the world population and the world gross domestic product time series, from 1 to 2008. AD, a projection was obtained that along the next few decades the world should experience a new economic boom phase with the world GDP peaking around the year 2020 and proceeding from then on towards a saturation value of about 142. trillion international dollars, while the world population should reach 8.9. billion people by 2050. These results were then used to forecast the behavior of the supply and consumption of energy and food, two of the main commodities that drive the world system. Our findings suggest that unless the currently prevailing focus on economic growth is changed into that of sustainable prosperity, human society may run into a period of serious economical and social struggles with unpredictable political consequences. © 2011 Elsevier Inc.