Sorry, @ludwig should be @bushbred.

Bushbred Part Two

Unfortunately, corporate greed and hegemon has now trapped the US like a huge fester, as it has trapped Britain, as well as Australia, and has really trapped us in Iraq. Like the blind leading the blind, our leaders have been too blind to see that corporatism is really nothing new, as proven by the East India Company which finally gained control of the whole of Ceylon.

Simply the economies of scale, as Adam Smith knew all about, play along carefully and you will have the lot. But it was Adam Smith who warned to remember you are dealing with people, who as a social philosopher thought also about the proletariat as part of his Wealth of Nations.

Maybe Bill Gates is another one who thinks about people, though some say he will get back more than he gives away - though he at least gives indication how with corporatism most of the wealth will rise to the top like junket does to milk.

But after thousands of years, as Darwin made clear before he died. For humans, we surely should have found a kinder and more compassionate way to make money and live our lives different to the animals.

The point is, even through the ballot box, with economic rationalism and corporate power mesmerising both sides of government, we lower ranks have now lost the license to make the choice

This is only part of one picture.

There are many other problems from toxins and CO2 emissions endemic on this planet that will effect the human race.

For example, toxins in air and water is already effecting men's sperm counts. Currently this doesn't appear to pose much threat: only some men are affected at the moment.

More men will become more sterile as the toxins lower their sperm counts. Few will have access to technology to remedy this problem.

With cancers caused by no ozone layered sun, toxic radiation, and other pollutions in the air, the human immune systems will seriously be lowered by such toxins and environments.

The outcome will be more people will have similar symptoms as those who have AIDS. Not caused by a virus, but caused by constant environmental attack on our bodies. This will raise our death toll. People will be dependant on the pills, therefore depend on corporations that own these patents. Diseases and parasites will thrive as they do on sick bodies. Old viruses will return and mutate with vengeance, especially with global warming.

The human population will need to be modified genetically in order to copulate and survive. Yet these GM modifications will be patented by the corporations. Our grandchildren's bodies could end up being owned by the corporations that designed their survival and their pills.

Since 2002, according to the US Supreme Court, any corporation can patent any life form, and expect limitless royalties, especially from GM seeds and body parts used in medicine. This was a huge milestone in the history of life on Earth. This is why US farmers see GM products as a virus. Seed infection spread by wind and birds means that corporations can take over any farm by royalties internationally once they prove that their seed in on your property.

As the CO2 crisis could subside with population decline, another monster could be facing us behind this smoke screen.

No one knows what the future will hold. The possibilities are infinite with so many variables but they do not just boil down to 4 scenarios.

Ludwig,
An extension of your Scenario 8:
The impact of peak oil, or no oil, will hurt both oil consumers & oil producers.(& some other posters on other topics have already alluded to it)

But while oil consumers may well develop suitable alternatives to oil.It is less likely the oil producers are going to find an equally lucrative alternative.

So then, how do the oil producers continue to support their burgeoning populations & extravagant infrastructures when the intravenous drip from oil revenue is removed?
Internal civil strife, more export terrorism, and mass migration to other parts of the world -and guess what places will be their countries of first choice.

An individuals most favored scenario will depend on ones general attitude and demeanor, optimistic or pessimistic.

Recalling the competing demands for fuel to heat the furnaces of the first industrial revolution which, in competition to wood for ships saw the development of coking coal.

That was followed by the Victorian pessimists who could not see the development of deeper coal mines, oil exploration or nuclear energy and thought the worlds energy resources would be depleted by 1850.

It is always easier for individuals to anticipate the inability of the world to invent solutions or to change circumstances than to anticipate unseen and unknown solutions - thus, the general view of the future will always tend toward the pessimistic.

The danger of this when the alarmist hysteria when a bunch of so called "experts" is applied and they put their collective ignorance together in pursuit of research funds, ignoring the natural energy and the capacity of other individuals to produce revolutionary solutions to everyday problems.

Based on the real experience of history, the likely outcome is going to be more optimistic than pessimistic.

The idea of “business as usual” is, in fact, just a tepid guess at acknowledging the “don’t know” view.

Thus, a more likely and more realistic outcome scenario is “business is booming”, provided we can fix the world population explosion. Fix that and global warming will disappear, poverty will disappear and overall “life quality” will improve out of site to what it is today.

Col Rouge is absolutely right about the benefits that could come from fixing overpopulation. However, just because technology has saved us in the past doesn't mean that it can in the future. In the 1960s Paul Ehrlich, the Paddock brothers, and other writers were predicting massive famines for the 1970s. In the 1960s India was importing vast amounts of food and had large numbers of malnourished people, as well as a population that was doubling every generation. I doubt if any of the people who sneer at Ehrlich now would have bet serious money on India NOT having a famine. Thanks to the Green Revolution food production is double what it was then, albeit requiring three times more water.

Now, though, we aren't just up against one limiting factor, but a host of different problems. In many cases the obvious solution to problem A makes problem B worse. We can deal with Peak Oil by burning more coal, but that will dump even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. More dams may solve an immediate urban water shortage, but also flood good agricultural land, threaten an endangered lungfish, and so on. There is no guarantee that human ingenuity will always save the day. Just think of the Easter Islanders, Greenland Vikings, Sumerian city states, Mayan kingdoms, etc.