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...most forests will be gone, but people won't notice -- they are satisfied with fake forests (timber plantations such as cover the state of Mississippi), some ornithologists are saying that migration will be at an end as migratory birds will either be extinct or some will have populations that can survive without migrating, most meals will be PCB-laden farmed fish, you'll either grow your own fruits and vegetables or do without unless you're wealthy, you'll either have sex in a scuba suit or you'll be rich enough to afford all sorts of medicines to keep you alive after hazardous encounter with various transmissable diseases...
Actually all of this is supposed to happen within 100 years. I think in a 1000 years the H. sapiens will have replaced itself with some genetically engineered species and our thousands of years of history, not to mention our millions of years of wildlife and wildflower heritage, will be forgotten as if they never existed.
I'm a real Mary Sunshine, aren't I?
Actually, there are transhuman futures that actually look worthwhile, like Iain Bank's Culture, but it's open to question whether we can get there from here. We'll do it within a thousand years or never, I believe -- if civilization crashes severely enough that we lose technology a la the Roman Empire crashing and even losing indoor toilets and aquifers, I don't think we can recover this time because many of the metals and petroleum resources are no longer gettable without technology.
So the whole future is at stake during this millennia. At least we can say we're doing our part to promote a future where there is something going on besides religious hysteria.
P.S. If you are not familiar with Iain Banks, read some of his Culture books. In addition to a positive future, which most SF does not offer in any plausible fashion, he meets the technical challenge of creating conflict in what would be, to us, a Utopia. Some great reading there for the amateur futurist.
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