What do counterfeiters, smelly jeans and water all have in common?

Ever wonder what life would be like with a crystal ball? Do you dream of peering into the future and seeing what the world would be like? Well, wish no more. Every year, the World Futurists Society complies the top ten most through-provoking forecasts from The Futurists magazine (www.wfs.org/futurist.htm). 

1. Increases in technology and globalization will create one billion millionaires by 2025.
2. Fashion will go wired, as clothing and technology meld. Look for items like aroma emitting clothes and shoes that analyze your movements.
3. The threat of another cold war (with China, Russia…or both) could replace terrorism as the chief foreign affairs concern of the U.S.
4. Advances in optical scanning over the next five years will raise the threat of counterfeiting, pushing the world further towards a “cash-less” society.
5. The earth is on the verge of a significant extinction event. The twenty-first century could witness a biodiversity collapse 100 to 1,000 times greater than any previous extinction since the dawn of humanity.
6. Water will be to this century what oil was to the twentieth century.
7. Global population in 2050 will be larger than expected – due to healthier, longer-living people and less than expected decline in fertility among developing countries.
8. Global warming and rising population along Africa’s coasts will increase the number of Africans imperiled by floods seventy-fold by 2080.
9. Rising global demand may create an “Arctic commodities rush” for minerals, oil, natural gas, timber and fresh water.
10. More financial, health and even political decisions will be made b non-human entities (A.I., software programs, robots)

These and dozens more can be found in the full Outlook 2008 report available for $5 on the WFS website. That’s cheaper than Miss Cleo.