iodiversity is not maintained, not only could cures for many diseases go undiscovered, there could be the loss of the availability of resources to support currently existing medicines. The environment and the world’s resources are not only important to mankind in the respect that they provide the means by which man is able to survive, but they are also important to the workings of the global society. Gilberto C. Gallopin and Paul Raskin explored 6 scenarios that could represent the future of society when natural resources been exhausted. Gilberto C. Gallopin is director of the Systems for Sustainable Development Program at the Stockholm Environment Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. Paul Raskin is Director of the Boston, Massachusetts, center of the Stockholm Environment Institute and president of the Tellus Institute in Boston. Gallopin and Raskin explore a wide range of long-term scenarios that could unfold from the forces that will drive the world social and economic systems in the 21st century. The two most vivid scenarios depict a world in which there becomes a widening separation between the fabulously rich and the terribly poor due to a severe decline in global economic stability. The instability is caused by a lack of resources and an inability for manufacturers to market their products due to production costs. The rich begin to stockpile resources while mandating that less fortunate conserve and live in relative poverty. Fewer and fewer jobs are created, leaving many unemployed, including the well educated. Smaller governments begin to collapse and disbursed and disconnected city-states begin to form. The advancement of technology is halted and the manufacture of current technology is greatly diminished. The rich become more and more fearful of the younger generations of peasants. The younger generations begin to feel that they are inept to control their own financial destiny and see the gap only widening between their stand...
