Using environmental scenarios to determine the world’s future

AllEnvi, the French national alliance for environmental research, has produced a study on possible future environmental scenarios based on a survey of major international foresight studies. The study tackled two issues: What do the scenarios look like and how long are their timelines? While future possibilities go from one extreme to another – from “Chaos” in the trajectories to “Positive Synergies” or environmental degradation and improvement – soil and water appear to face the most danger. These scenarios revealed major deficiencies with regard to seas, oceans, coastlines and forests that need to be quickly addressed.