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detectives","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/5b/6f/p05b6f3m.jpg","Title":"forensics3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05b6f3m","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p05b6f3m","_id":"598526ed543960df95e17886"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"Paul Marks is a freelance technology journalist based in London. A former technology correspondent at New Scientist, his work has also appeared in the Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Slate.com and The Economist. Paul's on Twitter at <a href=\"https://twitter.com/paulmarks12\">@paulmarks12</a>","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Paul Marks","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-03-27T11:43:16Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"bf14e675-09b4-42f0-b0fe-9ba01927f21f","Id":"wwfuture/author/20150327-paul-marks","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-03-27T11:43:16Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20150327-paul-marks"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/20150327-paul-marks","_id":"5981d0d7543960df95dde04d"}],"BodyHtml":"After spray painting his drone black, and taping over its lights, south Londoner Daniel Kelly probably thought he had a good chance of getting away with flying his now-stealthy drone into a prison yard.So in the early hours of 25 April last year, he flew the cheap, Chinese-made quadcopter, with what police believe was a package of contraband – tobacco and possibly legal highs – attached to a hook beneath it, over the wall of Swaleside jail on the Isle of Sheppey, in Kent.Unfortunately, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-kent-36849156\">he overestimated his chances</a>: he ended up jailed for 14 months, becoming the first person in Britain to be locked up under legislation that punishes such behaviour.But Kelly isn’t alone. He’s just one amongst many people worldwide who have discovered the potential that low-cost consumer drones have for illegal activities.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05b6gxs\"}}And now, investigators are launching new forensic intelligence forces of detectives to get to the bottom of drone-related crimes.Whether it is flying illicit goods into forbidden places, spying on people, interrupting the work of the emergency services or worrying wild animals or aircraft, the threat they present is growing. Just <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-40476264\">a couple weeks ago</a>, for instance, a drone forced five flights at London's Gatwick Airport to be diverted. <blockquote> How can a criminal pilot be identified when, say, only a drone is found at a crime scene? </blockquote>Identifying the pilots of remotely-controlled drones is not always easy. Drones are cheap, easy to fly, and widely available to consumers nowadays. Plus, governments are struggling to legislate fast enough to keep pace with burgeoning criminal possibilities.That’s why more police forces are turning to drone forensics teams: it might sound like the TV programme CSI, but it’s a growing trend of more detectives whose jobs it is to track down flyers of rogue drones.The rise of drone detectivesJust a few months ago, it was announced that the UK Prison Service and police are pooling resources to stop drone pilots from flying drugs and other contraband into British prisons, with reports suggesting that <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-39616399\">£3m could be spent</a> on the new task force.There’s a reason drone activity has piqued the interest of law enforcement. Drones deliver much more than drugs to jailbirds: they've been used to fly in <a href=\"http://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/crime/revealed-prisoners-use-drones-to-smuggle-banned-goods-into-yorkshire-jails-1-7743917\">mobile phones</a>, <a href=\"http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/drone-carrying-package-drugs-blades-found-oklahoma-prison-yard-n452221\">hacksaw blades</a>, knives, Sim cards, USB drives and <a href=\"http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/drone-spotted-delivering-dvd-prison-9509323\">DVD players</a>. Not to mention they can fly over walls and barriers, complicating the operations of institutions ranging from government buildings to airports.This makes the identification of the drone pilot crucial for law enforcement.While Kelly's case was rare in that the pilot, the drone and the smartphone/controller combination used to operate it were all captured together. And the drone contained valid flight data that had not been erased or otherwise tampered with.But how can a criminal pilot be identified when, say, only a drone is found at a crime scene? Or when only fragments from wreckage are found? Or when only a controller or phone is found, or when police have a likely pilot suspect but no drone?This is where the drone detectives come in.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05b6fl5\"}}Tying the digital and physical facets of drone flight to a human pilot is not easy. This has led to a perception that, with drones controlled wirelessly from a distance, often unseen, it's an easy crime to get away with. Drones are cheap, after all, and can be abandoned if the flyer fears arrest.But just as investigators only began to understand the enormous forensic resource that mobile phones represent around the turn of the century, the tougher challenges of drone forensics are now quietly beginning to be met, too.<blockquote> It isn’t in the bulky device itself. It’s the fact that it’s part of a complex digital ecosystem. </blockquote>All these issues are adding up to a need for more investigative tools, says James Mackler, an attorney specialising in drone litigation at Frost Brown Todd in Nashville, Tennessee.\"Drone forensics are becoming increasingly important as more drones take to the air. Civilian commercial drones are now being used by terrorist organisations and the fact that they are being weaponised makes forensics all the more critical.\" He knows the risks more than most: he’s a former US Army helicopter pilot who flew missions alongside military drones in Iraq.The need for drone-specific law enforcement extends to civilian safety, too. Crowds at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-34256680\">football matches</a>, concerts and protest marches have been regularly buzzed and endangered, too. At Seattle's 2016 Pride parade, for instance, a woman <a href=\"https://petapixel.com/2017/01/17/man-convicted-knocking-woman-unconscious-drone/\">suffered concussion</a> after a drone smashed into a building and dropped on her.And, of course, the drone's potential for <a href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/peeping-tom-drone_us_58a6847fe4b045cd34c03e56\">invasion of privacy</a> is profound, leading some people to shoot them down with all the risks public firearms use entails. Indeed, that has led to Mackler attempting to clarify drone airspace law after one of his clients had his drone shot down by a neighbour – and a federal judge let the shooter <a href=\"http://www.drone360mag.com/news-notes/2017/03/drone-slayer-gets-away-with-shooting-a-drone\">get away with it</a>. It’s not clear in US law, Mackler says, where a householder’s airspace ends and FAA-governed civilian airspace begins.Unlocking the systemSo how will authorities catch any drone-flying criminals?The secret isn’t in the bulky device itself, says David Kovar, a digital investigator and cybersecurity consultant based near Boston, Massachusetts. It’s the fact that it’s part of a complex digital ecosystem.This “ecosystem” includes peripheral devices like smartphones, controllers, and sensors that collect data like GPS position and crash analysis data from accelerometers, compass heading, and video images. And metadata in the video will reveal where shots were taken, including altitude.So investigators do actually have a lot to go on forensically, Kovar says, even if they don't have all the physical components. After all, a drone may crash and fracture into pieces, or only a remote may be recovered at the scene.\"But of them all, the biggest source of information is the mobile device, the phone or tablet,\" Kovar says. And investigators are well versed in pulling those apart.But here’s the challenge: it is a diverse marketplace. Each drone has its own digital quirks.<blockquote> Different drones use different operating systems, so analysts need to be well-versed in each </blockquote>How does the drone in question store flight data? How long does it store the latitude and longitude coordinates of where it was launched from? What data from the pilot's phone-based control app ends up stored in the drone too? Plus, different drones use different operating systems, so analysts need to be well-versed in each.Sometimes the makers unwittingly help forensics teams: one drone model injects the user’s flight control app login and password – unencrypted or \"in the clear\" in tech jargon – on the drone. This means officers can simply log into a copy of the app and examine a user's flight video and records in cases where a crashed or dumped drone is found at a crime scene and there is no trace of the pilot.But sometimes entire drones are found intact, too.\"We have already been involved in the forensic analysis of drones recovered in prisons, or found crashed by police forces and the Ministry of Defence,\" says Michael May, managing director of FlyThru Limited of Huddersfield, a commercial drone operator in the UK. \"They need to find out why they were there and we can comment forensically on whatever we can find on them, whether it is on the flight log data in the drone itself, or the DNA and fingerprints on it.\"A drone's rotors are reasonably sharp edged and retain traces of skin cells, he says, so they can sometimes retrieve DNA.  And there are parts like the SD cards – for storing video – and batteries where users can leave fingerprints as they insert them.It all sounds done and dusted, but some expert drone users are pretty clued up about hiding data.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05b6f3m\"}}So Graeme Horsman, a computer scientist and digital investigator at the University of Sunderland, took apart one cheap drone and <a href=\"http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1742287615001097\">found that</a> there are a number of tricks a user could play to obscure where the drone has flown. He found it was possible to mask a drone's flightlog by turning off certain phone settings. He could also force the drone to store a fake location for the pilot's launch point.<blockquote> A drone's rotors are reasonably sharp edged and retain traces of skin cells, so they can sometimes retrieve DNA </blockquote>In other words, it’s easy for a drone pilot up to no good to cover their tracks.Even by wrapping aluminium cooking foil around the GPS antenna, Horsman created a Faraday cage – or radio wave absorber – that prevented the drone logging its flight.But it’s easy for that heavily protected digital data to vanish in thin air, even if the drone find its way into the hands of the authorities.Turning a found drone off, or simply plugging in a USB cable, can cause data to be overwritten - and moving it can similarly overwrite GPS data. It all means it's vital to understand each popular drone before mishandling it or attempting forensics, Horsman says. \"There are a lot of variables, so every drone investigation will be different.\"Kovar says drones are already being seized for analysis: \"Law enforcement seized a protester's drone at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-38087180\">North Dakota pipeline protests</a>. I do not know who is doing the analysis of that drone. The drone that landed <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31023750\">on the White House lawn</a> was certainly analysed. And I know that people on the intelligence side are analysing drones <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161208-how-is-is-using-consumer-drones\">captured from Isis on the battlefield</a>.\"What’s most foreboding, however? Experts agree: we haven’t seen the worst criminals and terrorists can do with drones. That’s why being able to identify the pilot is becoming more pressing.\"The worrying thing is that some of our drone platforms can carry 15kg (32lb) payloads. That's a hell of a lot. Terrorists could switch from using truck bombs to ones they trigger from above,\" May says. He warns that some could even fly international missions as drone range increases. It's even possible a bioweapon – like anthrax – could be dispersed by a drone.\"This is an emerging technology and we cannot predict the number of dodgy ways drones are going to be used in future,” says Horsman. “I think we are going to be constantly surprised at what people do with them - it's only limited by the imagination of the criminal.\"Spray-painted drones, with taped over lights, look like being the very least of our problems.--Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":null,"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-07-31T18:02:26.312Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How police catch drone-flying criminals","HeadlineShort":"How to catch drones flown by criminals","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"From invading privacy to smuggling drugs over jail walls, more criminals are turning to flying drones – forcing detectives to learn new skills to find them.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"drones"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-12-09T15:31:42.899826Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"a05b3178-9937-4ccc-89cc-3862ed52655c","Id":"tag/drones","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-12-09T15:31:42.899826Z","Project":"","Slug":"drones"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/drones","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa486"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"From invading privacy to smuggling drugs over jail walls, more criminals are turning to flying drones – forcing detectives to learn new skills to find them.","SummaryShort":"The clues left behind by drones can be vital evidence","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future 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Challenges","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/58/jl/p058jlzf.jpg","Title":"future.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p058jlzf","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p058jlzf","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p058jlzf","_id":"59859be5543960df95e1b440"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":314933,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/58/j6/p058j6vq.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Floods and rising sea levels are becoming more common in coastal regions like Florida as populations grapple with the effects of climate change (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Grand Challenges","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/58/j6/p058j6vq.jpg","Title":"challenges1.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p058j6vq","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p058j6vq","_id":"5981d32b543960df95df25b8"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":476013,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/58/j4/p058j4pg.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Rapidly industralising countries like China are seeing equally rapid increases in car ownership(Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Grand Challenges","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/58/j4/p058j4pg.jpg","Title":"challenge3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p058j4pg","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p058j4pg","_id":"5981d32b543960df95df255e"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Bryan Lufkin","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"67534f97-e86d-4c3c-b668-6fa93daa84aa","Id":"wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"bryan-lufkin"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","_id":"5981d0d9543960df95dde2e9"}],"BodyHtml":"Over the last few months, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/now\">BBC Future Now</a> has been examining some of the biggest problems humankind faces right now: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170628-how-to-best-manage-earths-land\">land use</a> to accommodate exploding populations, the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century\">future of nuclear energy</a>, the chasm <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170706-theres-a-problem-with-the-way-we-define-inequality\">between rich and poor</a> – and much more.But what about the big challenges that are brewing for the future? In 30 years, what might be on the world’s agenda to solve? It’s impossible to predict, but we can get clues from how current trends in science and technology may play out. Here are just some of the potential big issues of tomorrow:GENETIC MODIFICATION OF HUMANSDebates among scientists started roaring last year over a new technology that lets us edit human DNA. It’s called Crispr (pronounced ‘crisper’) and it’s a means of altering people’s DNA to carve diseases like cancer out of the equation.Sounds great, right? But what if takes a dark ethical turn, and it turns into a eugenics-esque vanity project to <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160804-china-may-be-the-future-of-genetic-enhancement\">churn out ‘designer babies’</a>, selecting embryos that produce babies that will have a certain amount of intelligence or that have certain physical characteristics?While it’s still not widely used enough to be considered a current “grand challenge”, this is an up-and-coming advancement whose wide-ranging repercussions we need to be prepared for – and it’s all the more reason to <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/health-37509170\">ensure ethicists have a seat at the table</a> at every laboratory, university and corporation that might be itching to alter our DNA.“Proper reflection on what about us we might want to preserve takes time – it should draw on a wide range of perspectives about what it means to be human,” Nicholas Agar, professor of ethics at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century\">told BBC Future Now</a> earlier this year. “It’s difficult to set aside this time for ethical reflection when new technological possibilities seem to be coming thick and fast.”A MORE AGED POPULATION THAN EVER BEFOREWe won’t just be wrestling with the fact that the world’s population is exploding – but people are living longer than ever, too. Which is great – but all those senior citizens are going to require care. In fact, the number of centenarians will increase more than 50 times – <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years\">from 500,000 today to over 26 million by 2100</a>. From <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-34666382\">the UK</a> to <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-16787538\">Japan</a> to <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-19630110\">China</a>, societies with large numbers of people over 65 will become more common. In the next couple of decades, as that increase starts to happen, we’ll need better care for the elderly (Japan is even eyeing <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-24949081\">robots</a>) and perhaps policies to allow more immigrants to try and make up for ageing workforces and in some cases, declining birth rates.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p058j6vq\"}}LOST CITIESYou don’t need to look very hard in <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise\">a place like Miami</a> to see how cities are changing in the 21st Century – rising sea levels are gradually making some of them disappear. Fuelled by climate change, not only are floods becoming more common in the streets, but the changing weather patterns have also influenced building design. Aside from more seawalls, the city is requiring all new buildings be built with their first floor built higher. But that’s all a sticking plaster – if current trends continue, we may have to come to terms with losing whole swathes of cities, islands and low-lying regions such as Bangladesh. The economic impact to regions will be profound, and climate refugees could become the norm.Pressure is already growing on cities, as urban populations grow. If climate change forces mass migration, then existing infrastructure, services and economies may be stretched to breaking point.THE EVOLUTION OF SOCIAL MEDIASocial media has complicated the way we communicate for the better part of a decade. And it’s not going anywhere anytime soon, given that <a href=\"http://www.journalism.org/2016/05/26/news-use-across-social-media-platforms-2016/\">most people get their news from it now</a>. That’s before we even get into the mess of online harassment, as well. What might social media look like in 30 years, and by that time, what are some threats it might pose?A world with no privacy, for one. That’s one problem we’re already seeing. And besides <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again\">weathering away our sense of and desire for anonymity and privacy</a>, social media brings with it the many problems of cyberbullying too. Many charities and non-profit organisations across the world <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160318-what-is-the-best-way-to-stop-internet-trolls\">have mobilised in the fight against internet trolls</a>, but it’s an open question about whether law enforcement agencies and the social media companies can fix it or whether it will get worse.Then there’s also the problem of our information diet to consider: if the status quo of ubiquitous fake news remains, how will that shape how people see the world? If individuals spend months, years, even decades of their life exposed only to unreliable news sources, it does not augur well for civilised society and debate.That said, given how fast social media has arrived in the world, an optimist may suggest that those problems could soon be resolved. In 30 years’ time we may be dealing with social media issues that we’ve not even considered yet. After all, Facebook is only 13 years old.NEW GEOPOLITICAL TENSIONSThe past year has seen a complete upset of our geopolitics’ fragile balance. That could make the global stability of the next couple of decades a complete question mark.North Korean missile launches. Thousands of refugees crossing borders to flee turmoil. Hackers meddling in other nations’ elections. Rising nationalist sentiment worldwide. Headlines in 2016 (and so far, 2017) have been dominated by never-ending political drama that’s been fuelling <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39940155\">a ‘geopolitical minefield’</a> and an ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-eu-referendum-36625209\">unprecedented geopolitical shift</a>’ – whether it’s managing unpredictable North Korea, the plight of Syrian refugees, or Britain’s transition from the European Union. Throw in widespread hacking, nuclear missiles and other dangerous technology, and it’s easy to see why maintaining basic diplomacy becomes vital.SAFE CAR TRAVELDespite all the rapid urbanisation and talk of bullet trains and fantastical technology like the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-36307781\">Hyperloop</a> coming to the fore, the car isn’t going anywhere – and in fact, in the next couple decades, there will be even more of them on the road.<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20141013-convoys-of-huge-zombie-trucks\">Driverless car technology</a> is swiftly rolling out, with major tech companies and automakers aggressively seeking to debut human-free vehicles in coming years. But in addition, the sheer number of cars – self-driving or not – is going to skyrocket, studies show. In <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-asia-31065433/car-ownership-reaches-record-high-in-china-in-50-seconds\">countries like China that are seeing a growing middle class</a>, the environmental and <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130617-moving-around-in-the-megacity\">infrastructural needs that an increasingly road-faring population</a> demands is going to be a grand challenge. How do we ensure safety, fight pollution, and make sure driverless cars aren’t a menace on the road?{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p058j4pg\"}}DWINDLING RESOURCESThe new tech and devices that characterise the 21st Century all require rare earth metals to make – an average smartphone has over 60 “ingredients”. That’s putting <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140314-the-worlds-scarcest-material\">a strain on the planet’s natural resources</a>: in China, where 90% of the world’s rare earth metals are found, it’s estimated that its mines will run out in the next two decades – and good substitutes for those materials are hard to come by.SETTLING OTHER WORLDSHow will space tourism companies make sure their activities are safe? How will we find ways to send humans to Mars or another planet to live there, as Stephen Hawking <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-40345048\">has urged us to figure out</a>? Space travel might seem like the domain of space agencies and billionaires today, but as it becomes more accessible to everybody else, a whole host of new challenges will emerge. Outer space is increasingly looking less like the final frontier and more like our backyard, and with more money being shelled out to get humans up to the inky abyss than ever before, the logistics, safety and <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140709-why-mars-needs-a-bill-of-rights\">diplomacy</a> behind the challenge all demand serious consideration.BOOSTED BRAINPOWERIt’s already common to use drugs to boost brainpower (whether it’s coffee, or <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140729-the-truth-about-smart-drugs\">something stronger, like modafinil</a>), and most of the developed world now relies on their smartphones as an ‘externalised’ memory – but let’s extrapolate that out a few decades. Imagine targeted pharmaceuticals that make us think faster than currently possible, and technological implants that help us concentrate beyond normal human ability for hours or days, for example – these advances are already well underway in laboratories around the world. The question it raises is: what happens to those that cannot afford such enhancements? Could it widen inequality, and allow the rich to get richer? Then there’s also the legal and ethical issues: it’s acceptable to drink a coffee before you sit an exam, but is it ok to use an implant or a smart drug? The challenges posed by intelligence enhancement are only just emerging.AI’S DOMINANCE IN OUR LIVESFuturist Ray Kurzweil has made a host of predictions – some inspirational, others downright alarming. One of them is the sci-fi-sounding notion that suggests artificial intelligence will one day become more powerful than human intelligence and improve itself at an exponential rate, otherwise known as ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161110-the-real-risks-of-artificial-intelligence\">the singularity’</a>.It’s far from the majority view, but few would deny that AI is only going to get more powerful. So, like in the case of gene editing, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170307-the-ethical-challenge-facing-artificial-intelligence\">the tech and AI community</a> will need to consider the ethical and societal implications of their work as AI comes to shape more realms of our life, from healthcare to financial markets.As for end-of-the-world extinction scenarios, it’s frankly not likely – but that shouldn’t obscure the fact that AI is poised to change how we live and work in profound ways. It is also not impossible that specific AIs could malfunction or run out of their creators’ control, leading to very human disasters, where lives are lost or millions of dollars are wiped out.--That’s just a taster of what we may face in 2050. What challenges do you think are in store for the human race? Let us know on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.+ Read more from our Grand Challenges series:<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170607-how-we-can-stop-antibiotic-resistance\">Is the ‘end of modern medicine’ near?</a><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170628-how-to-best-manage-earths-land\">Are we running out of land?</a><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view\">How automation will affect you</a> <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170616-garry-kasparov-why-the-world-should-embrace-ai\">Garry Kasparov: The upsides of AI</a><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170619-the-surprising-economic-downsides-of-slow-internet\">How slow internet affects income</a><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170615-why-hydro-politics-will-shape-the-21st-century\">Why ‘hydro-politics’ will shape the 21st Century</a><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century\">50 grand challenges for the 21st Century</a> <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170706-theres-a-problem-with-the-way-we-define-inequality\">There’s a problem with the way we define inequality</a>Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. --Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now for BBC Future. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-07-13T00:26:26Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"10 grand challenges we'll face by 2050","HeadlineShort":"10 grand challenges we'll face by 2050","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"Editing genes, ageing populations, rising sea levels… the world is moving faster than ever. What will those trends mean for our society over the next 30 years?","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Many of the global health challenges I see in 2017 were painfully present and widely acknowledged as challenges in 2016. This is true of specific demographic questions, such as how to help protect public health for refugees and provide refugees health care. It’s also true of methodological questions, such as how to ensure that health is a meaningful part of conversations in other areas, such as climate change, economic development and women’s rights, including the right to a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.It’s true when we think about the resources available to global health overall, and the resources allocated to address ‘new’ health threats like Zika, and more ‘familiar’ health threats, including polio or malaria. And, finally, it’s true when we think about questions of governance, of determining what’s on the global health agenda, how that agenda will be addressed and financed, who will do the work, how will that work be judged and how will those judgments hold those doing the work and in charge accountable.Questions of resource allocation and governance are even more salient in 2017 given a new Director-General will assume leadership at the World Health Organisation (WHO) later this year and donor governments around the world are questioning the value of development assistance, including in health.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vj4hs\"}}There is a challenge that – while acknowledged in 2016 – only began to claw its way up the global and domestic agenda last year and deserves a more prominent place in 2017: opioid addiction and overdose. The US Centers for Disease Control recognises that our country is gripped by an ‘<a href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/\">opioid overdose epidemic</a>,’ and various studies estimate that <a href=\"http://www.drugfree.org/news-service/80-percent-opioid-use-disorders-dont-receive-treatment/\">80%</a> of those struggling with opioid use don’t get the help they need. The global gap between need and access to treatment is even greater; the WHO estimates <a href=\"http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/information-sheet/en/\">90%</a> of those who need treatment don’t get it.Over the past few years, the Clinton Foundation has worked with researchers at Johns Hopkins University to study the opioid epidemic that has ravaged families and communities across the US.<blockquote> We can save thousands of lives - Chelsea Clinton   </blockquote>We learned that by decreasing stigma around addiction and increasing access while normalising attitudes to life-saving Naloxone – an antidote for opioid overdose – we can save thousands of lives. We’re working with partners to make Naloxone widely affordable (and at times free) and accessible to EMTs, police officers, educators, and community first responders, so that they know how to use Naloxone and are ready to use it whenever needed to save someone’s life – at a school, in a park, on a street, in a home.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vj55v\"}}No longer is this first a criminal justice issue. Rather, it is a public health and awareness issue and is widely beginning to be acknowledged as such. It is also a moral issue – we know now that Naloxone has the chance to save thousands of lives.The next question is what role can Naloxone play in saving lives around the world? We hope the Clinton Foundation’s early work in changing markets and distribution systems around HIV/AIDS medicines may provide a model and we know we need new partners in the mental health, health systems and education spaces, among others, to help shape any future global opioid addiction work. And, of course, we need research to inform potential global work as it has in the US. There is always more data to be collected, more assumptions to be challenged, more stories to be inspired by.No one should die of an opioid overdose in 2017 in America, or anywhere – as in all areas where we know how to prevent such deaths, we have an obligation to save lives and work toward zero.Chelsea Clinton is Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation--------------------------------------- AMERICA’S OPIOID ADDICTION Analysis by Bryan Lufkin, BBC Future In the United States, opioid addiction has become an epidemic, according to national health organisations.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 91 Americans die a day from opioid dependence, totalling 33,000 deaths in 2015 – more than any year on record. In fact, such <a href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm\">drugs now kill more Americans than guns or car accidents</a>.<blockquote> Opioids now kill more Americans than guns or car accidents </blockquote>Opioids are synthetic drugs that mimic the effects of the opium from poppy plants. Since ancient times, opium has yielded pleasure and deadened pain in humans, interacting with the nervous system and nerve cells in the brain. But that’s also what makes it addictive.Today, opioids take the form of prescription painkillers and illicit substances like heroin. Sales of prescription opioids <a href=\"http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf\">quadrupled</a> in the US from 1999 to 2010.According to the World Health Organisation, 15 million people worldwide suffer from addiction to opium-derived drugs, and each year they kill 69,000 people.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vj4wy\"}}But why is a huge chunk of that number in the US? Prescriptions of opioid medications have soared in the country since the late 1990s. Some point to doctors over-prescribing powerful opioid painkillers to their patients, and those medications — like OxyContin and Vicodin — often “serve as gateway drugs to heroin, which has a nearly identical chemical makeup and is cheaper and sometimes easier to obtain,” <a href=\"http://www.nsc.org/RxDrugOverdoseDocuments/Prescription-Nation-2016-American-Drug-Epidemic.pdf\">according to the US National Security Council.</a> (Heroin-related deaths have tripled in the US since 2010.) Last year, the BBC <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37224075\">investigated the phenomenon</a> in the rural American heartland, where the epidemic has hit the country hard.<ul> <li>More from BBC News - <a style=\"font-size: 12px;\" href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37992809\">America's heroin trail: A new generation of addicts</a></li> </ul>So, what’s being done about it? Last year, a group called the Coalition to Stop Opioid Overdose launched in Washington, DC, and other health organisations are pivoting to make finding a solution a priority. They’re pursuing a push to increase the availability of Naloxone, a prescription drug that reverses the effects of an opiate overdose. And last year, the US Food & Drug Administration began requiring opioid painkillers’ boxes to feature labels that warn of abuse and overdose risks. Educating doctors and changing prescribing guidelines will also play a role.The sooner strategies are worked out, the better. Opioid addiction is on the rise worldwide, but it’s significantly more pressing in the US. <a href=\"https://www.asipp.org/documents/ASIPPFactSheet101111.pdf\">According to the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians</a>, the US makes up less than 5% of the global population – but consumes 80% of the world’s opioids.Watch an animation about the opioid epidemic:{\"video\":{ \"pid\": \"p04vkphs\",\"encoding\": \"ib2\" }}  Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"We may have things better than ever – but we’ve also never faced such world-changing challenges. That’s why <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the key challenges in their area.\nThe range of different responses demonstrate the richness and complexity of the modern world. Inspired by these responses, over the next month we will be publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">the biggest challenges we face today.</a>","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"A guide to the issues that define our age","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-02T10:01:45.779Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Chelsea Clinton: America is suffering an opioid epidemic","HeadlineShort":"Chelsea Clinton: The US opioid epidemic","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"What are the biggest public health challenges in 2017? Chelsea Clinton writes about the issues she believes will matter in the year ahead – and argues for urgent work to tackle America’s disproportionate problem with opioid addiction. \n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"What are the biggest public health challenges in 2017? Chelsea Clinton writes about the issues she believes will matter in the year ahead.\n","SummaryShort":"America is leading the world – in serious drug addiction","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-02T10:13:45.731985Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"4de0c9dd-f05e-4f36-9066-4a47a34fafdf","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-22T15:41:43.904203Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic","_id":"59851ff6543960df95e174ce"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"Horror stories about artificial intelligence abound: whether it’s <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view\">robots stealing our jobs</a>, or <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your-friend\">smart appliances spying on you</a>. Coping with the rapid rise of automation has become a <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">grand challenge for the 21st Century</a>, identified by academics and researchers across the globe.The coming era of intelligent machines can sometimes sound terrifying, and even dystopian. Will it actually be, though? Not at all, says chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov.Kasparov has direct experience of being humbled by a machine, so it's perhaps surprising that he has a pro-AI outlook. In the 1990s, the chess virtuoso made headlines when he played matches against IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue. He won once, but then lost in the rematch. Since then Kasparov has gone on to become something of an AI authority: his new book, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins was released last month.The BBC Click team caught up with Kasparov at <a href=\"https://www.hayfestival.com/\">this year’s Hay Festival</a> in the UK. In the video above, watch what he had to say about the inevitability of AI’s rise – and why it could actually be a revolution that will help humans work even better.Do you agree with what Kasparov has to say? Let us know on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.Watch more from <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3ct2k95\">Click at the Hay Festival</a> on BBC World News. If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insights from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-16T09:51:03.404Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Garry Kasparov: Why the world should embrace AI","HeadlineShort":"Garry Kasparov: The upsides of AI","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The chess grandmaster, who once saw his skills outstripped by artificial intelligence, explains why it’s time to welcome the era of smart machines.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"The chess grandmaster, who once saw his skills outstripped by artificial intelligence, explains why it’s time to welcome the era of smart machines.","SummaryShort":"The chess grandmaster explains why humans must welcome artificial intelligence","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-16T09:11:06.723363Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"8f671a2e-a1d0-42d8-99a0-869778ba0e57","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170616-garry-kasparov-why-the-world-should-embrace-ai","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-06T20:52:42.938811Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170616-garry-kasparov-why-the-world-should-embrace-ai"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170616-garry-kasparov-why-the-world-should-embrace-ai","_id":"5984ebc7543960df95e159a7"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"More than 635,000 tonnes of rubbish <a href=\"http://www.noaa.gov/resource-collections/ocean-pollution\" target=\"_blank\">gets thrown in Earth's oceans every year</a>. There's a collection of \"<a href=\"http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-big-great-pacific-garbage-patch-science-vs-myth.html\" target=\"_blank\">garbage patches</a>\" in the Pacific Ocean that stretch from California to Japan. And plastic waste <a href=\"http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/focus-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/marine-pollution/facts-and-figures-on-marine-pollution/\">kills</a> a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals every year.What do all of these ecological disasters have in common? They share a single perpetrator: humankind.That's why the \"single greatest threat\" to our planet's seas is humankind, according to conservationist and filmmaker Fabien Cousteau, who spoke to BBC Future Now in New York recently.He should know about the oceans – he’s practically seafaring royalty, as his grandfather was Jacques Cousteau, the French scientist and explorer whose impact on public awareness for ocean exploration is legendary. Jacques co-developed the Aqua-lung (the breathing apparatus used in scuba diving), wrote countless books on ocean conservation and produced over 100 films.Fabien is an ocean pioneer in his own right. In 2014, he and his team <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-27659224/cousteau-grandson-attempts-to-break-underwater-record\">lived in an underwater</a> laboratory for a month off the Florida coast, broadcasting to schools worldwide – watch the footage from that extraordinary mission in the video interview above.Educating people through exploration is how he thinks we can save the ocean from ourselves. That will help us land-dwellers learn more about what could be lost, possibly convincing people to curb their bad habits. We’ve been the ones harming the ocean, and it’s also our responsibility to save it.Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now. Follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-29T16:59:53.469Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Fabien Cousteau: How to save the ocean","HeadlineShort":"'What I learnt from living underwater'","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"The 21st Century poses no shortage of threats to Earth's oceans – all man-made: pollution, climate change, overfishing. Fabien Cousteau, who once lived continuously underwater for a month, explains what can be done to tackle this grand challenge.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"The 21st Century poses no shortage of threats to Earth's oceans – all man-made: pollution, climate change, overfishing. Fabien Cousteau explains his solution to this grand challenge.","SummaryShort":"Fabien Cousteau on how to save the ocean","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-30T09:41:18.335851Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"5f67ef19-e915-4d8b-b394-4791fa32c2f3","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170629-fabien-cousteau-how-to-save-the-ocean","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-10T14:06:36.824874Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170629-fabien-cousteau-how-to-save-the-ocean"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170629-fabien-cousteau-how-to-save-the-ocean","_id":"59832cf9543960df95e06c27"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Editing genes, ageing populations, rising sea levels… the world is moving faster than ever. What will those trends mean for our society over the next 30 years?","SummaryShort":"Editing genes, ageing populations, lost cities, and more","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d40a543960df95dfa4dd"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-07-13T11:06:40.410856Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"235af590-6f40-4039-b45f-aa7bec829959","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170713-what-will-the-challenges-of-2050-be","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-13T11:33:33.847635Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170713-what-will-the-challenges-of-2050-be"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-07-13T11:06:40.410856Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"235af590-6f40-4039-b45f-aa7bec829959","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170713-what-will-the-challenges-of-2050-be","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-13T11:33:33.847635Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170713-what-will-the-challenges-of-2050-be"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170713-what-will-the-challenges-of-2050-be","_id":"5981d3c3543960df95df808d"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1153860,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/58/dm/p058dmwn.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Solar energy","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/58/dm/p058dmwn.jpg","Title":"solar.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p058dmwn","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p058dmwn","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p058dmwn","_id":"59831fe5543960df95e065f6"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[{"Duration":131,"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"videopid","Guid":"","Id":"p058blds","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Thumbnail":[],"Title":"In the Future how will we source clean energy for all?","Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:videopid:p058blds","Vpid":"p058bldv","_id":"5981d41c543960df95dfb3e6"}],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Miriam Quick","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-28T13:41:28.192552Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"e01f37a2-b2b4-4259-93ad-006b8cd795f8","Id":"wwfuture/author/miriam-quick","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-28T13:41:28.192552Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"miriam-quick"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/miriam-quick","_id":"5981d0db543960df95dde5b3"}],"BodyHtml":"When it comes to how we consume energy, there’s good news and bad news. The bad news? Around 86% of global energy still comes from fossil fuels, which pollutes the planet and stokes climate change.The good news? In the 21st Century, we’re poised to use more renewable energy sources than ever before, including those from wind or water. Solar energy alone saw <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years\">a 664% increase between 2010 and 2015</a>.But where in the world will all this renewable power come from?Aggressively pursuing this kind of energy is going to be one of the big challenges we’ll face, and it’s crucial to know which countries are going to lead the way. Watch the video above to see how the numbers break down.Research by <a href=\"https://miriamquick.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Miriam Quick. </a>She is a researcher specialising in information visualisation. Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-07-11T14:42:44.795Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How will we source clean energy for all?","HeadlineShort":"Where our clean energy will come from ","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"Solar, wind, water… these are the energy sources that need to replace fossil fuels in the 21st Century. But which countries are up to the task?","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"Solar, wind, water… these are the energy sources that need to replace fossil fuels in the 21st Century. But which countries are up to the task?","SummaryShort":"These countries are leading the way with the fuels of the future","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d40a543960df95dfa4dd"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Future 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Images)","SynopsisShort":"Economic inequality","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/yl/p057yl9j.jpg","Title":"income2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p057yl9j","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p057yl9j","_id":"5981e95e543960df95dfc372"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":484303,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1688,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/58/0b/p0580bwc.jpg","SourceWidth":3000,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"A resident walks in the Cantagalo shantytown in Rio de Janeiro, with the wealthy Ipanema seen in the distance (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"A resident walks in the Cantagalo shantytown in Rio de Janeiro (Credit: Getty Images)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/58/0b/p0580bwc.jpg","Title":"GettyImages-468792421.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0580bwc","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0580bwc","_id":"5984f4e9543960df95e15e85"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Bryan Lufkin","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"67534f97-e86d-4c3c-b668-6fa93daa84aa","Id":"wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"bryan-lufkin"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","_id":"5981d0d9543960df95dde2e9"}],"BodyHtml":"Haves and have-nots. The 99%. The income gap. The chasm between rich and poor has never mattered more. It’s estimated that the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/business-30875633\">top 1% of the world’s richest people owns 50% of the planet’s wealth</a>.Solving this level of inequality is often held up as a ‘grand challenge’ for the world. But is that the right way to look at it?Some researchers argue that income disparity itself may not be the main problem. The issue, they say, is not the existence of a gap between rich and poor, but the existence of unfairness. Some people are treated preferentially and others unjustly – and acknowledging that both poverty and unfairness are related may be the challenge that matters more in the 21st Century.While many people may already view inequality as unfairness, making the distinction much clearer is important: to improve the society we live in, these researchers are arguing that we need to all be on the same page as to what inequality actually is. Only then can we direct resources to the places that matter.MORE GRAND CHALLENGES:<ul> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170607-how-we-can-stop-antibiotic-resistance\">Is the ‘end of modern medicine’ near?</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170628-how-to-best-manage-earths-land\">Are we running out of land?</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view\">How automation will affect you</a></li> </ul>What is it about inequality that bothers us: the fact that some people are rich and others are poor? Or that not everyone has an equal shot? Or something else?In a paper published in April in the journal Nature Human Behaviour called ‘<a href=\"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0082\">Why people prefer unequal societies</a>’, a team of researchers from Yale University argue that humans – even as young children and babies – actually prefer living in a world in which inequality exists. It sounds counter-intuitive, so why would that be? Because if people find themselves in a situation where everyone is equal, studies suggest that many become angry or bitter if people who work hard aren’t rewarded, or if slackers are over-rewarded.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p057yl9j\"}}For example, <a href=\"https://philpapers.org/rec/SHACDA-4\">in one study</a>, a group of six- to eight-year-olds was tasked with divvying up erasers among two boys who cleaned a room as rewards. Researchers found that, if they told the group of children that both boys did a good job, and then gave the group an odd number of erasers, the kids made the unanimous decision to throw away the extra eraser rather than give it to one of the boys as an unfair bonus.And yet? When the researchers told the kids that one boy worked harder than the other, the group awarded the extra prize to the harder worker.“We argue that the public perception of wealth inequality itself being aversive to most people is incorrect, and that instead, what people are truly concerned about is unfairness,” says Christina Starmans, a psychology post-doc at Yale who worked on the paper.“In the present-day US, and much of the world, these two issues are confounded, because there is so much inequality that the assumption is that it must be unfair. But this has led to an incorrect focus on wealth inequality itself as the problem that needs addressing, rather than the more central issue of fairness.”Starman’s co-author Mark Sheskin, a cognitive science post-doc at Yale, puts the findings of this research succinctly: “People typically prefer fair inequality to unfair equality”.The reason this matters is that trying to create a world with no wealth disparity is at odds with people’s perception of fairness, and that could potentially lead to instability. A society where no poverty exists sounds rather utopian, but if that society is equal-but-unfair then it risks collapsing, argues Nicholas Bloom, an economics professor at Stanford University.“As reasonable as it sounds, people don’t typically work, create or strive without the motivation to do so,” says Bloom. “If I’m a painter, dentist or builder, why would I work for 50 hours a week if everything I’m given is free? From my own experience managing people, humans actually think it’s unreasonable for people that skive to get rewarded. When you run large teams, there is nothing that sends people mad more than lazy individuals getting the same rewards and promotions as the hard workers.”But how can we define inequality?Researchers argue that we need an agreed-upon definition of the term ‘inequality’.It’s important to remember that, as we figure out ways to combat inequality, that there are three separate (but related) ideas.First, the idea that people should have equal opportunity in society, regardless of their background, race, sexuality, gender and so on.The second idea is fair distribution, which says that benefits or rewards should be distributed fairly based on merit.The final idea is the notion of equality of outcome, or that people receive equal outcomes regardless of circumstance. This last one is a little trickier to grasp. Many of the experts BBC Future talked to brought up the phrase ‘inequality of outcome’: say if you were given £5 and your friend was given £10. That represents inequality of outcome, since the two of you have different amounts of money, regardless of how that came to be.Each of these ideas represent a different kind of inequality that manifests in everyday life and that contributes to the overarching mega-trend that many regular people think of as ‘economic inequality’. Recognising these different dimensions is crucial for formulating a holistic battle plan.MORE GRAND CHALLENGES:<ul> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170616-garry-kasparov-why-the-world-should-embrace-ai\">Garry Kasparov: The upsides of AI</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170619-the-surprising-economic-downsides-of-slow-internet\">How slow internet affects income</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170615-why-hydro-politics-will-shape-the-21st-century\">Why ‘hydro-politics’ will shape the 21st Century</a></li> </ul>So which of these types of inequality should be addressed? Which leads to a potentially better society?                                 Fighting the real issueMany of the researchers and economists interviewed for this piece agree: too much attention is paid to the fact that the 1%, and the super-rich all exist.Instead, they argue we need to concentrate more on helping those less fortunate, who via a lack of fairness, are unable to improve their situation.Harry G Frankfurt is a professor emeritus of philosophy at Princeton University. In his book On Inequality, he argues that the moral obligation should be on eliminating poverty, not achieving equality, and striving to make sure everyone has the means to lead a good life.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0580bwc\"}}“I do think that people are likely to respond with greater sympathy to the suffering brought on by poverty than to the harms necessarily imposed on those who are less wealthy than some others,” Frankfurt says. “This might support appropriate legislation to relieve the disadvantages of poverty.”Economic inequality is such a massive, sprawling, nuanced, intense issue; the product of complex cultural and political forces around the world throughout history.However, by understanding the different definitions of inequality – like inequality of opportunity – it highlights more clearly that not everyone is afforded the same opportunities to succeed, even if they put in that hard work.Depending on your political viewpoint, the way of addressing inequality might be different: perhaps the left might favour universal health care for all, while the right might favour job creation that employs low-wage workers. Whatever the political plan of action, however, experts say the solution lies in in addressing the fact that poverty and unfairness exist.Because that should be the real moral obligation, these researchers say – empathising with our fellow humans.“It will be beneficial to shift the conversation, and the research, away from inequality itself,” says Starmans, “and toward issues such as unfairness and poverty, which are the core of what we are concerned about.”--Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now. Follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nWe'll bring you insights from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"middle","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T11:16:12.756515Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3f52a790-5ab8-424b-928b-263e268e37b9","Id":"wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:17:22.643245Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95ddedbd"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-07-07T00:25:07Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"There’s a problem with the way we define inequality","HeadlineShort":"The problem with how we view inequality","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"We are failing to look at inequality in the right way, according to researchers who study people’s attitudes to wealth disparity.\n","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"We are failing to look at inequality in the right way, according to researchers who study people’s attitudes to wealth disparity.\n","SummaryShort":"We might be looking at wealth disparity in the wrong way, say researchers","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d40a543960df95dfa4dd"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand 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Cousteau","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/9d/p0579dy4.jpg","Title":"Fabien Thumbnail.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0579dy4","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0579dy4","_id":"59836885543960df95e08ea4"}],"AssetImagePromo":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":174385,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/57/9t/p0579txy.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Ocean","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/9t/p0579txy.jpg","Title":"turtle.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0579txy","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0579txy","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0579txy","_id":"59830ecf543960df95e05d50"}],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[{"Duration":193,"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"videopid","Guid":"","Id":"p0579slf","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Thumbnail":[],"Title":"Fabien Cousteau: How to save our oceans","Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:videopid:p0579slf","Vpid":"p0579sll","_id":"5981d41b543960df95dfb398"}],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Bryan Lufkin","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"67534f97-e86d-4c3c-b668-6fa93daa84aa","Id":"wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"bryan-lufkin"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","_id":"5981d0d9543960df95dde2e9"}],"BodyHtml":"More than 635,000 tonnes of rubbish <a href=\"http://www.noaa.gov/resource-collections/ocean-pollution\" target=\"_blank\">gets thrown in Earth's oceans every year</a>. There's a collection of \"<a href=\"http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/about/media/how-big-great-pacific-garbage-patch-science-vs-myth.html\" target=\"_blank\">garbage patches</a>\" in the Pacific Ocean that stretch from California to Japan. And plastic waste <a href=\"http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/ioc-oceans/focus-areas/rio-20-ocean/blueprint-for-the-future-we-want/marine-pollution/facts-and-figures-on-marine-pollution/\">kills</a> a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals every year.What do all of these ecological disasters have in common? They share a single perpetrator: humankind.That's why the \"single greatest threat\" to our planet's seas is humankind, according to conservationist and filmmaker Fabien Cousteau, who spoke to BBC Future Now in New York recently.He should know about the oceans – he’s practically seafaring royalty, as his grandfather was Jacques Cousteau, the French scientist and explorer whose impact on public awareness for ocean exploration is legendary. Jacques co-developed the Aqua-lung (the breathing apparatus used in scuba diving), wrote countless books on ocean conservation and produced over 100 films.Fabien is an ocean pioneer in his own right. In 2014, he and his team <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-27659224/cousteau-grandson-attempts-to-break-underwater-record\">lived in an underwater</a> laboratory for a month off the Florida coast, broadcasting to schools worldwide – watch the footage from that extraordinary mission in the video interview above.Educating people through exploration is how he thinks we can save the ocean from ourselves. That will help us land-dwellers learn more about what could be lost, possibly convincing people to curb their bad habits. We’ve been the ones harming the ocean, and it’s also our responsibility to save it.Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now. Follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-29T16:59:53.469Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Fabien Cousteau: How to save the ocean","HeadlineShort":"'What I learnt from living underwater'","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"The 21st Century poses no shortage of threats to Earth's oceans – all man-made: pollution, climate change, overfishing. Fabien Cousteau, who once lived continuously underwater for a month, explains what can be done to tackle this grand challenge.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"}],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"The 21st Century poses no shortage of threats to Earth's oceans – all man-made: pollution, climate change, overfishing. Fabien Cousteau explains his solution to this grand challenge.","SummaryShort":"Fabien Cousteau on how to save the ocean","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d40a543960df95dfa4dd"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand 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looks like an entire city is adrift in the Indian Ocean. A forest of tower-blocks rise above the emerald-coloured water while just a handful of trees poke through the canopy of concrete.For those living in Malé, the overcrowded capital of the Maldives, there is no choice but to build upwards.Caged by the sea, they have no more land to spread onto, yet the city’s population has soared by nearly 52% since 2006. The last census in 2014 counted <a href=\"http://planning.gov.mv/nbs/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Census-Summary-Tables.pdf\">158,000 people crammed</a> into the city’s 2.2 sq miles (5.7 sq km) of space, and officials say the figure has since grown further.“When people think of the Maldives, it is usually of a beautiful paradise with crystal clear lagoons and white sand beaches,” says Shamau Shareef, the city’s recently elected deputy mayor. “Malé is very different. We have very limited space and life is tough.”Space is such a premium in Malé that pavements are often less than three feet wide, forcing pedestrians to walk in single file, while many streets have no sidewalk at all.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05777f7\"}}Rents have risen exorbitantly and, in some of the poorest areas, up to 40 people can be crammed into buildings with just 250 sq feet (23.2 sq metres) of space - about the same size as a small studio flat.With so many people living under each others’ feet, crime, drugs and domestic violence have risen alarmingly while the city frequently runs out of water. An <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-asia-18073917/apocalyptic-island-of-waste-in-the-maldives\">entirely new island has risen out of the sea from the city’s garbage</a>.“In the early 1990s the tallest buildings in the city were only two storeys high,” says Shareef. “Now the average height is eight storeys and some are 25 storeys high. People are coming here because this is where the health, education and jobs are, but overpopulation is leading to many socioeconomic problems.”Although extreme, Malé is an example in miniature of something that is happening on a far larger scale around the world. With 83 million more people appearing on the planet every year, rising populations are placing increasing pressure on the land.The <a href=\"http://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp\">UN’s latest estimates</a> state that there are 7.6 billion people jostling for space on Earth at present and that number will rise to 9.8 billion by 2050. By the end of the century, their projections say there could be 11.2 billion people on our planet.<blockquote> With 83 million more people appearing on the planet every year, rising populations are placing increasing pressure on the land </blockquote>Each of those people will need somewhere to live, a place to work, fertile land to provide them with food. They will need water and energy to stay warm or to light their way at night.They will want roads to drive on and places to park. For the lucky ones, there will be space for their pastimes and leisure activities.But for all of them, there can be no doubt the impact they will all have on the land – and those impacts are managed – will be one of the grand challenges facing humanity in the coming century.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05777lm\"}}Habitable vs uninhabitable landAt first, it can be easy to dismiss fears that mankind may one day run out of space as ridiculous. Physically, the land can easily accommodate 11 billion people - there are around <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/docrep/T1079E/t1079e02.htm\">13.4 billion hectares of ice-free land </a>(51.7 million sq miles) on the planet.But large tracts of land remain virtually uninhabitable due to their climate or their remote location: Enormous tracts of Siberia are too inhospitable to be lived upon. And the huge landmass at the centre of Australia is too arid to support many people, meaning the majority of its population is clustered along its coastline.Meanwhile, cities and urban areas, like Malé, cannot keep growing indefinitely. They are bound by the natural landscape that surrounds them, whether it’s ocean or mountains. The land that is habitable faces challenges, like crowded cities and growing populations.“If you have that many people, there will obviously be a much greater demand for natural resources and food production,” says John Wilmoth, director of the UN’s Population Division. “But there has been a lot of misplaced attention that has tried to look at population control or limitation as a solution.”Experts say it’s misguided to just focus on population numbers, and whether there’s enough space on the planet to fit everyone.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05776vm\"}}“The countries where populations are growing the most are actually using the least of the Earth’s resources per person,” warns Jonathan Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences who has spent his career studying the impact human civilisation has on the environment. “Those of us in the rich and developed world consume far more than our fair share.”The cities and towns we live in account for<a href=\"https://www.eea.europa.eu/soer-2015/global/urban-world\"> less than 3% of the Earth’s total land area</a>, but <a href=\"http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.LND.AGRI.ZS\">between 35% and 40% is used for agriculture</a>. As populations grow, many fear that more land will be used up to grow more food. And land management has a lot to do with resource management – what we eat, how we grow it, and how we eat it.To feed the world’s growing population, a study by researchers at Stanford University estimated that between 2.7 million and 4.9 million hectares (10,400-18,900 sq miles) of additional land will be required. There are around 445 million hectares (1.7 million sq miles) thought to be suitable for growing crops left in the world.The researchers predicted that increasing demand for food, biofuels, industrial forestry and the spread of urbanisation will result in <a href=\"http://www.pnas.org/content/108/9/3465.full\">this reserve of land being completely used up by 2050</a>.So in the 21st Century, how will be able to manage land to not only fit all the extra people, but also to fit all the crops that will feed the extra people?Making room for farmsThe bad news? The demand for new cropland and pastures for animals is already thought to have caused <a href=\"https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/65505/6316-drivers-deforestation-report.pdf\">80% of the deforestation</a> taking place around the world today, wiping out large areas of rich biodiversity and trees that act as natural sinks for greenhouse gases.But the good news? According to Foley, it does not have to be this way.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05776p6\"}}“The way we use land right now is extremely inefficient,” he says. “So much of our land is being used to grow food for livestock - 75% of the world’s agricultural land is used for feeding animals that we then eat ourselves. About 40% of the food grown in the world is also never eaten by anybody - <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/\">it is thrown away</a>. That means all that land it is grown on is being wasted.”So, a possible solution: eat less meat and throw less food away.Already, “there is progress being made,” says Foley. “<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jun/20/chinas-meat-consumption-climate-change\">China is already talking about reducing meat consumption</a> and there are efforts to <a href=\"http://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food_waste/stop_en\">reduce food waste in Europe</a> and US.” Curbing consumption habits can lead to less land use on agriculture.About 40% of the food grown in the world is also never eaten by anybody - <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/\">it is thrown away</a>. That means all that land it is grown on is being wasted - Jonathan Foley, executive director of the California Academy of SciencesIn wealthier parts of the world, however, our consumption extends far beyond just food.Space for a growing middle classIncreasing prosperity in many parts of the developing world, along with countries like China and India, is leading to a burgeoning global middle class. It’s a group that’s expected to account for <a href=\"http://oecdobserver.org/news/fullstory.php/aid/3681/An_emerging_middle_class.html\">4.9 billion of the population by 2030</a>.With each of these people buying refrigerators, mobile phones, televisions, computers and cars, the demand for energy is expected to <a href=\"https://www.eia.gov/outlooks/ieo/world.php\">double over the next two decades</a>.And in a place like Malé – a tiny capital with an exploding population – that’s a grand challenge to tackle.“We need to be worrying less about whether we are going to be able to grow enough food or provide enough energy and look at the aftereffects of consumption,” argues the UN’s John Wilmoth. “If we have improvements in living standards around the world occurring as population is growing, they will multiply to have much a larger effect on the Earth and the environment.”Exactly how the world will meet this demand in the face of efforts to reduce climate change could greatly affect how much land we have at our disposal. And that’s a problem for the highly dense population centres on Earth’s coasts.Rising seas claim coastal land Historically, trade has fuelled the rise of middle classes and wealth in coastal areas. That’s led many of those cities to be some of the most crowded on our planet.A study by researchers at Kiel University in Germany and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research in the UK estimated that there were 625 million people living in low lying coastal areas in 2000. By 2060 they predict this will have <a href=\"http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0118571\">soared to more than a billion</a>.But add in climate change, and things get a lot more complicated.“The coast is a restricted space and so there is a lot of pressure on the environment and ecosystems there,” says Barbara Neumann, an expert on coastal risks and sea level rise at Kiel University who led the study.“Sand dunes act like a natural flood barrier, for example. If we take them away we remove a lot of the protection against coastal storms and rising sea levels.”Rising sea levels due to climate change are likely to put further pressure on these packed coastal regions, she warns. Island nations like the Maldives are particularly vulnerable to loss of land in this way. Miami in Florida is another famous example.“Malé is just two metres above sea level,” explains Shareef. “We already have sea swells during the monsoon each year but climate change is going to make that worse.”Further away from the coast, growing populations are spilling onto land that will leave them more vulnerable in the future.<blockquote> Rising sea levels due to climate change are likely to put further pressure on these packed coastal regions </blockquote>In Bangladesh, where 80% of the country is a flood plain, tens of millions of people are affected by vast floods that occur every few years. Suddenly, land is at a premiumEven in developed countries like the UK, pressure on housing has resulted in large scale developments on land known to be prone to flooding. In the past decade, flooding in these areas <a href=\"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8464717.stm\">has caused damage</a> that has <a href=\"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-costs-and-impacts-of-the-winter-2013-to-2014-floods\">stretched into billions of pounds</a>.“We need to balance the population growth and development with conserving the natural systems that protect us,” says Neumann. The low-lying Netherlands, for example, has tackled its problems with flooding by <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/16/flooding-netherlands\">giving the water back some space to spill into</a>. It is an approach that other countries, including the UK, have said they hope to follow.But changing, turbulent weather patterns might not just affect our city’s own land. It could affect our neighbour’s, too.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05776lb\"}}Climate change leads to migrationAround <a href=\"http://www.unhcr.org/uk/news/latest/2016/11/581f52dc4/frequently-asked-questions-climate-change-disaster-displacement.html\">21.5 million people are forced to leave their homes</a> due to weather-related disasters each year.“Drought in northern Syria led to a mass migration of people from rural areas to cities like Aleppo and became one of the spark plugs for the terrible conflict we are seeing there now,” says <a href=\"https://www.worldrefugeecouncil.org/council#lloyd-axworthy\">Lloyd Axworthy</a>, chair of the World Refugee Council and former foreign minister of Canada. With climate change also expected to exacerbate droughts, floods and storms, Axworthy warns the problem is likely to worsen.<blockquote> Other countries are having to subsidise and support large populations whose own means of growing food or living has been diminished – Lloyd Axworthy, World Refugee Council </blockquote>According to the <a href=\"http://www.unhcr.org/globaltrends2016/\">UN Refugee Agency’s latest figures</a>, 65.6 million people were forcibly displaced by conflict and persecution in 2016, around 300,000 more than the previous year and the highest number since World War Two.“This not a one-off,” warns Axworthy. “There are big areas of land that are running out of the fundamentals of life. Many governments are so bad that they do nothing about this. This means other countries are having to subsidise and support large populations whose own means of growing food or living has been diminished.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05778l5\"}}It means there are ever growing challenges to find space for the people uprooted by war, famine and drought. Of the people uprooted last year, <a href=\"http://www.unhcr.org/news/stories/2017/6/5941561f4/forced-displacement-worldwide-its-highest-decades.html\">22.5 million sought refuge across international borders</a>. Finding new homes for such large numbers of people is already proving difficult - just 189,300 refugees were admitted by other nations for resettlement in 2016. The majority remain housed in vast camps or living as stateless individuals, all of them requiring food, water and shelter.Without land of their own to get these fundamentals of life, they have to rely on others to provide them. A list of factors, like war, famine and drought, complicate what countries like Greece and Uganda can choose to do with their land – an influx of refugees from Syria and South Sudan, respectively, have strained already thinly stretched natural resources.‘A problem that does not recognise borders’Back in Malé, and in many other places around the world, more mundane reasons than conflict and water shortages are cramming the land.Access to amenities like healthcare, education and jobs have long drawn rural populations into cities. More than <a href=\"http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/news/population/world-urbanization-prospects-2014.html\">half of the world’s population now live in urban areas</a>. Just like in Malé, this is putting a huge strain on relatively small patches of land.City living also requires careful planning - while many in the world live relatively comfortable urban lives with running water, sanitation and waste disposal, cities in the developing world are blighted by huge slums where no such infrastructure exists.Africa and Asia are urbanising faster than any other parts of the world. By 2020 Africa is expected to be our planet’s second most urbanised continent with <a href=\"http://oecdinsights.org/2016/08/03/africas-urbanisation-and-structural-transformation/\">560 million people dwelling in cities while Asia will have 2.4 billion</a>. Yet according to the OECD, urban infrastructure in Africa is <a href=\"http://www.africaneconomicoutlook.org/en/theme/sustainable-cities-and-structural-transformation\">failing to keep pace and overcrowding is rife</a>.“The challenge is not that there is not enough space, but that we are not thinking about where people will be and what quality of life they will experience,” says Joel Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University and Columbia University. “Population growth is occurring most rapidly in the poorest countries where there are already slums. There are estimates that there could be an additional billion people living in slums by the end of the century.”In short, every place has its own challenges.In the cramped conditions of Malé, whose Maldives are famed for their natural beauty, nature has been squeezed almost completely out in its capital city. On top of all the other challenges we’ve already gone through, eco-friendliness is yet another bullet to add to the list.“Twenty years ago we still had a lot of trees here,” says deputy mayor Shareef. “Now they have almost all been chopped down to make way for buildings.And so on and so forth. Perhaps land’s pervasiveness on the planet, as well as its role as a basic building block of existence, is what invites such an array of issues.The planet can certainly find space for many more of us to live on. But in the 21st Century, perhaps the real question we need to ask ourselves is who – and what – we want to share that land with.--Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-29T16:48:07Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How can we manage Earth’s land?","HeadlineShort":"Are we running out of land?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"Overpopulation, climate change, mass migration… our relationship with terra firma has never been more complicated. Could Earth’s land be an overlooked, increasingly precious resource?","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"The first time my father’s basement flooded, it was shortly after he moved in. The building was an ocean-front high-rise in a small city north of Miami called Sunny Isles Beach. The marble lobby had a waterfall that never stopped running; crisp-shirted valets parked your car for you. For the residents who lived in the more lavish flats, these cars were often BMWs and Mercedes. But no matter their value, the cars all wound up in the same place: the basement.When I called, I’d ask my dad how the building was doing. “The basement flooded again a couple weeks ago,” he’d sometimes say. Or: “It’s getting worse.” It’s not only his building: he’s also driven through a foot of water on a main road a couple of towns over and is used to tiptoeing around pools in the local supermarket’s car park.Ask nearly anyone in the Miami area about flooding and they’ll have an anecdote to share. Many will also tell you that it’s happening more and more frequently. The data backs them up.It’s easy to think that the only communities suffering from sea level rise are far-flung and remote. And while places like the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36255749\">Solomon Islands</a> and <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/world/asia/climate-change-kiribati.html?_r=0\">Kiribati</a> are indeed facing particularly dramatic challenges, they aren’t the only ones being forced to grapple with the issue. Sea levels are rising around the world, and in the US, south Florida is ground zero – as much for the adaptation strategies it is attempting as for the risk that it bears.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykt1\"}}One reason is that water levels here are rising especially quickly. The <a href=\"http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Compact-Unified-Sea-Level-Rise-Projection.pdf\">most frequently-used range of estimates</a> puts the likely range between 15-25cm (6-10in) above 1992 levels by 2030, and 79-155cm (31-61in) by 2100. With tides higher than they have been in decades – and far higher than when this swampy, tropical corner of the US began to be drained and built on a century ago – many of south Florida’s drainage systems and seawalls are no longer enough. That means not only more flooding, but challenges for the infrastructure that residents depend on every day, from septic tanks to wells. “The consequences of sea level rise are going to occur way before the high tide reaches your doorstep,” says William Sweet, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).The flooding would be a challenge for any community, but it poses particular risks here. One <a href=\"https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Changing-Tides_FINAL_LOW-RES-081516.ashx\">recent report</a> estimated that Miami has the most to lose in terms of financial assets of any coastal city in the world, just above Guangzhou, China and New York City. This 120-mile (193km) corridor running up the coast from Homestead to Jupiter – taking in major cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach – is the eighth most populous metropolitan area in the US. It’s also booming. In 2015, the US Census Bureau found that the population of all three counties here was growing – along with the rest of Florida – <a href=\"https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/12011,12086\">at around 8%,</a> roughly twice the pace of the US average. Recent studies have shown that <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/nclimate2961.html\">Florida has more residents at risk from climate change</a> than any other US state.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykpp\"}}It has <a href=\"http://riskybusiness.org/report/come-heat-and-high-water-climate-risk-in-the-southeastern-u-s-and-texas/\">more property at risk, too</a>. In Miami-Dade County, <a href=\"http://www.miamidade.gov/business/library/reports/real-estate-market/2016/04-apr-through-06-jun.pdf\">developers had 1.6 million sq ft</a> (149,000 sq m) of office space and 1.8 million of retail space under construction in the second quarter of 2016 alone. Sunny Isles Beach, home to 20,300 people, has eight high-rise buildings under construction; swing a seagull in the air, and you’ll hit a crane. As you might imagine, the value of development in this sun-soaked part of the country is high, too. Property in Sunny Isles alone is now worth more than $10 billion. Many of the wealthiest people in the US reside in Florida, including <a href=\"http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/personalfinance/among-forbes-400-billionaires-florida-gaining-favor-as-a-place-to-call-home/2296459)\">40 billionaires</a> on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans; on a recent week, <a href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/2017/02/06/54m-palm-beach-compound-is-weeks-most-expensive-new-listing.print.html\">the most expensive real estate listing</a> in the US was a $54 million mansion in Palm Beach.Despite <a href=\"http://www.newsweek.com/timeline-every-ridiculous-thing-trump-has-said-about-climate-change-576238\">his history of referring to climate change as a “hoax”</a> and his <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39415631\">recent rollback of emissions-slashing initiatives</a>, President Donald Trump is one of these property owners with a stake in the issue. The president frequently visits his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, 75 miles (121km) north of Miami, which is itself an area <a href=\"http://weatherplus.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2016/10/13/king-tides-rise-again-south-florida-under-a-coastal-flood-advisory/\">experiencing flooding from high tides</a>. There also are six Trump-branded residential buildings in Sunny Isles, one of which still provides the president with income, and a Trump-branded condominium complex in Hollywood.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykfv\"}}Look beyond all the glass and steel, though, and – despite the federal government’s sidelining of the issue – there’s another thrum of activity. It’s the wastewater treatment plant constructing new buildings five feet higher than the old ones. The 105 miles (169km) of roads being raised in Miami Beach. The new shopping mall built with flood gates. The 116 tidal valves installed in Fort Lauderdale. The seawalls being raised and repaired. And the worried conversations between more and more residents every year about what the sea-rise models predict – and what to do about it.The communities aren’t short of solutions. “Nobody’s doing better adaptation work in the country than south Florida,” says Daniel Kreeger, executive director of the nonprofit <a href=\"https://accoonline.org/\">Association of Climate Change Officers</a>. But the question isn’t whether this work will save every community: it won’t. Even those tasked with making their cities resilient admit that, at some point in the future, certain areas here will no longer be “viable” places to live. Rather, the challenge is to do enough to ensure that the economy as a whole continues to thrive and that tourists still come to enjoy the sun, sand – and swelling sea.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykd2\"}}It’s a challenge that many officials and experts are determined to meet. Getting there, though, requires a shift in how everyone from mayors to taxpayers, insurers to engineers, property developers to urban planners thinks about their communities – and the everyday decisions that shape them. The eyes of the world are on them: if one of the richest communities on the planet can’t step up, what hope is there for everyone else?“If the science is correct on this – which it is going to be – the question is, ‘How extreme are the implications?’” says Kreeger. “We are literally going to have to rewrite how businesses function, and how cities are designed. Everything’s going to change. And that’s particularly going to be exacerbated in coastal communities.“This would be no different than if I came to you and said ‘Hey, in 40 years, gravity’s going to change. I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be. But let’s assume roughly between 50% and 80% stronger or weaker than it is now.’ You’d look around and say ‘Shoot, what’s that going to affect?’\"And the answer is: it affects everything.”* Sea level rise is global. But due to a variety of factors – including, for this part of the Atlantic coast, a likely weakening of the Gulf Stream, itself potentially a result of the melting of Greenland’s ice caps – south Floridians are feeling the effects more than many others. While there has been a mean rise of a little more than 3mm per year worldwide since the 1990s, in the last decade, the <a href=\"https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8723214\">NOAA Virginia Key tide gauge</a> just south of Miami Beach has measured a 9mm rise annually.That may not sound like much. But as an average, it doesn’t tell the whole story of what residents see – including more extreme events like king tides (extremely high tides), which have been getting dramatically higher. What’s more, when you’re talking about places like Miami Beach – where, as chief resiliency officer Susanne Torriente jokes, the elevation ranges between “flat and flatter” – every millimetre counts. Most of Miami Beach’s built environment sits at an elevation of 60-120cm (2-6ft). And across the region, underground infrastructure – like aquifers or septic tanks – lies even closer to the water table.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk9v\"}}On a nearly two-hour tour of Fort Lauderdale’s adaptation strategies, the city’s head of sustainability, Nancy Gassman, points out incremental differences in elevation: slight rolls in the sidewalk or paving that usually go unnoticed. “That might seem weird that I’m pointing out a couple of feet difference,” she says. “But a couple feet in south Florida – it’s time. Elevation is time for us.”Not only are sea levels rising, but <a href=\"https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level\">the pace seems to be accelerating</a>. That’s been noted before – but what it means for south Florida was only recently brought home in a <a href=\"https://www.rsmas.miami.edu/users/swdowinski/publications/Wdowinski-et-al-OCM-2016.pdf\">University of Miami study</a>. “After 2006, sea level rose faster than before – and much faster than the global rate,” says the lead author Shimon Wdowinski, who is now with Miami’s Florida International University. From 3mm per year from 1998 to 2005, the rise off Miami Beach tripled to that 9mm rate from 2006.An uptick also happened between the 1930s and 1950s, says Wdowinski, making some question whether this is a similar oscillation. But that’s probably wishful thinking. “It’s not necessarily what we see now. This warming of the planet has been growing for a while,” he says. “It’s probably a different process than what happened 60 years ago.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk6p\"}}“Can we definitely say it’s the ocean warming?” says Sweet, who has authored several sea-level rise studies. “No. But is it indicative of what we’d expect to see? Yes.”Modelling specific future scenarios is difficult – partly because scientists are still collecting and analysing data, partly because there are so many variables. What if the US or China reverses its trend on stabilising emissions? What if a major volcano erupts? What if a glacier melts more quickly than expected? But enough credible projections have been done to put together a range of scenarios that researchers are confident about.One graph compiled in 2015 by the <a href=\"http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/\">Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact</a>, a non-partisan initiative that collates expertise and coordinates efforts across Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties, is especially revealing (see below). At the bottom is a dotted green line, which rises slowly. Before you get optimistic, the footnote is firm: “This scenario would require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in order to be plausible and does not reflect current emissions trends.” More probable is the range in the middle, shaded blue, which shows that a 6-10in (15-25cm) rise above 1992 levels is likely by 2030. At the top, the orange line is more severe still, going off the chart – to 81 inches (206cm) – by the end of the century.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk14\"}}But as more data comes in, even the worst-case estimates may turn out to be too low: for example, researchers recently discovered that ice is melting more rapidly than expected from both Antarctica and Greenland, plus gained a <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145.epdf\">better understanding of how melting ice sheets actually</a> affect sea-level rise. “The unlikely scenarios are now, all of a sudden, becoming more probable than they once were thought to be,” says Sweet.The most dramatic impacts may not be felt for 50 or 100 years. But coastal communities are already experiencing more storms and extremely high tides known as king tides. In the same study, Wdowinski found there were a total of 16 flood events in Miami Beach from 1998 to 2005. From 2006 to 2013, there were 33.Although the <a href=\"https://www.epa.gov/cre/king-tides-and-climate-change\">timing of king tides</a> results from the positions of the Sun, Moon and Earth, rising seas heighten their effect. At extreme high tides, water levels have surged to an inch below the Intracoastal Waterway, says Jennifer Jurado, Broward County’s chief resiliency officer. “Once that’s breached, you’re open to the ocean – the supply of water is endless. The system is really at capacity. These are flood conditions, even with just the high tide and supermoon… You see men in business suits trying to trudge through water.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjx5\"}}Even without floods, the rising water table affects everything. The cities here are built on porous limestone. The water doesn’t just come over seawalls; it seeps up from beneath the streets. Nearly <a href=\"http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/concepts/gwater/aquifer.htm\">90% of the drinking water in south Florida comes from aquifers</a>, and these are finding their fresh water pushed further and further inland as the salt water exerts more and more pressure. Take Hallandale Beach, a small city of just under 40,000 residents. Saltwater already has breached five of the eight freshwater wells that the city draws from, says Vice Mayor Keith London. And around a quarter of Miami-Dade residents use septic tanks. If these don’t remain above the water table, the result could be thoroughly unpleasant.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjvm\"}}Another issue is beach erosion. Florida’s sand may be one of its biggest draws for tourist dollars, but <a href=\"http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/17/13660014/miami-beach-sand-erosion-nourishment-climate-change\">it, too, is vulnerable</a>: though sand never stays put, rising sea levels and worsening storms mean the need to replenish is intensifying. A massive town-by-town project is currently underway; Miami Beach (which, famously, <a href=\"http://miamibeach.org/directory/living/history-of-miami-beach\">was manmade from the start</a>) <a href=\"http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2017/03/28/fyi-miami-march-30-2017/\">just wrapped up</a> its 3,000ft (914m) section, to the tune of $11.9 million.Of course, another part of the problem is that south Florida is built on a swamp. “The only reason we live here is we learned how to drain it, we learned how to kill mosquitos, and we created air conditioning,” says Jim Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade County. Residents cut canals to drain inland areas, using the fill to raise the land and build properties. These canals are now open doors for tidal flooding and storm surge. They also cut down mangrove forests and levelled sand dunes – both natural barriers to flooding.“There is going to need to be a very serious conversation about how we deal with this,” says George Vallejo, the mayor of North Miami Beach. “The development that has happened here over the last 40 or 50 years has not been helpful to this situation. We’ve paved over a lot of the Everglades, we’ve paved over a lot of greenage.“We’ve done a lot of things that, in retrospect, we would have done differently, knowing what we know now.”*That’s the bad news. But there’s good news, says Gassman, whose no-nonsense demeanour and doctorate in marine biology (with a focus on coastal ecosystems) makes her particularly convincing. “That’s all if nothing changes. I think that’s another thing that the public doesn’t necessarily understand: the predictions that they’re hearing, time and time again, are if we do nothing. But we’re not doing nothing.”That’s point one. Point two is that the topography of the area isn’t quite what you’d expect. She brings out a map of Fort Lauderdale dotted with squares of purple and orange. Purple means an area is likely to be underwater at 2ft (61cm) of sea level rise; orange means it’s possible. A surprisingly small amount of the map is splashed with colour. And the at-risk areas – which are mostly by the bay, not the ocean – aren’t where you might think. “It’s not the whole city,” she says. “While there are problems in some areas, we’ll have to adjust, but these areas are not in places you’d expect – and we’ll have time to address some of these issues.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjjq\"}}Not every community might be so lucky. Play the inundation game with <a href=\"https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/beta\">Noaa’s perversely addictive mapping tool</a> in Hollywood, just 10 miles (16km) south of Fort Lauderdale, and you’ll find that the same 2ft (61cm) rise could put streets and most properties of an entire square-mile swathe underwater – not insignificant for a city measuring just 30 sq miles (78 sq km). (Hollywood also has its own intervention programme underway, including the installation of 18 flap gates to keep seawater from coming up through the drainage system). Still, it’s a good reminder that the problem, as overwhelming as it seems, can be broken down into smaller pieces.Which is exactly what Gassman and others are trying to do. Touring the city with Gassman is to see it in an entirely new way: not just a city of graceful mansions and pretty canals, but of seawalls that are leaking or too short, fire hydrants that are made of iron (“a fundamental, emergency-based infrastructure that’s made out of a material that’s potentially corrosive from saltwater”), drains that are overflowing and electrical boxes that need to be raised.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjdx\"}}“See, those cars are disappearing from view,” she says, pointing to the dip in the road in front of us. We turn onto Isle of Capri Drive. “Look what’s happening. Look how far I’m going to go down. This area floods all the time.”Fort Lauderdale is dubbed the Venice of America. That’s supposed to be because of its 165 miles (266km) of canals, but recent flooding has made the nickname more on the nose than residents would like.For both Fort Lauderdale and other communities across south Florida, the main problem is drainage. The systems here were designed to let stormwater drain into the ocean when it rains. Because homes and gardens are higher than the crown of the road, the streets flood first in a storm, by design. Water runs into the storm drain and is piped into the ocean or waterways that lead there.At least, that’s what is supposed to happen. With sea levels now often higher than the exits to the run-off pipes, saltwater is instead running up through the system and into the streets. To make matters worse, when the sea gets even higher, it can breach the seawall, flood people’s yards and flow down to the road – where it stays.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjcz\"}}Since 2013, Fort Lauderdale has been installing tidal valves to deal with the problem. Each of the one-way valves, which allows stormwater through but not saltwater, looks like a big rubber tube and can be attached inside the storm drains. Gassman pulls one out to show me. “If you stick your hand in there and push a little bit, see how it opens?” I do. “Right there, you were fresh water. Now you’re about to be salt water.” She flips the valve around. I push: sure enough, it’s a no-go.In some areas, the valves alone have been enough. But there’s a catch: the floodwater still can’t leave if the tide is above the level of the outflow pipes. That happened early on at one of the first places they installed a valve, Gassman says. A king tide came over the tops of the seawalls, flooded the street – and then remained higher than the outfall. “The valve wouldn’t open. So the roads stayed flooded 24/7,” she says. “We have had complaints that the valves aren’t working. But no. The valves are working.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjbs\"}}Despite the limitations of the valves, it doesn’t take an engineer to figure out that raising seawalls would fix flooding that resulted from high sea levels, if not from rain. But until recently, Fort Lauderdale had a height requirement for seawalls that was a maximum, not a minimum – for aesthetic reasons. Though some now do specify a minimum height, enforcement remains difficult. A new seawall runs from $600 to $2,000 for a linear foot; adding a 12in (30cm) cap costs about $60 per foot. For the average homeowner, a seawall measures 75-100ft (23-30m). “How are you going to force everyone to put in money?” asks Gassman.It turns out you can’t, at least for now. Last year, Fort Lauderdale proposed that everyone should be made to raise their seawalls to a certain height by 2035. Thanks to opposition from the public, the proposal failed. Instead, property owners are required to keep their seawalls in a state of good repair. Someone can be reported to the authorities if their seawall is breached by the tide, but <a href=\"http://gyr.fortlauderdale.gov/greener-government/climate-resiliency/seawall-maintenance\">the specific new height requirement only kicks in</a> if someone came to ask for the permit – which is required to do significant repairs, or to build a new wall. And Fort Lauderdale makes an interesting test case: if costs seem prohibitive in this relatively well-off area, it’s not going to work in south Florida’s less affluent communities – some of which also are suffering from similar flooding.Despite Fort Lauderdale’s best efforts, seawalls here remain a patchwork of heights and states of repair. At Cordova Road, Gassman and I look over the finger isles pointing into the Stranahan River. Across the road from the marina, one house has bright-green grass: it’s new, put down after a flood last spring swamped their property with salt water.Gassman points to an older house on the corner. Their seawall is about a foot lower than their neighbour’s. “That foot of difference allows water to run over their property and flood the road,” she says. “That one property, if we could fix that seawall, we could reduce a lot of flooding, right here.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj6h\"}}It’s not just residents who need to make changes. The city also owns a seawall along this stretch; it, too, was breached recently. Replacing the nearly half-mile stretch could cost up to $5 million. But getting the funds is just the first challenge. The end of the seawall meets a bridge. If you raise the seawall two more feet, what do you do with that bridge to protect it? And what about the docks that residents are currently allowed to have here, all of which will have to be re-done? “The people that live here want a solution and they want it now,” says Gassman. “But there’s both a public and a private cost. And changing one piece of infrastructure starts to domino into needing to change all sorts of things.”As well as seawalls, cities are investing in pumps. Many have put pump stations in the worst-hit neighbourhoods. But only Miami Beach has adopted an integrated, major pumping system as part of an aggressive overall defence strategy. Starting in 2013, the programme – which Torriente estimates will cost between $400 and $500 million – is multi-pronged. Pump stations have sprouted across Sunset Harbour, an industrial-turned-hip neighbourhood on the barrier island’s bay side, and are moving south.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj30\"}}Roads are being raised, too, sometimes by up to 2ft (61cm), to an elevation which the Southeast Florida Climate Compact’s projections put as a likely sea level height around 2065. Seawalls are being raised to a new minimum – something that residents in Miami Beach were more amenable to than in Fort Lauderdale. The city also is requiring that all new properties build their first floor higher.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj1r\"}}It’s an ambitious agenda. And it’s one that’s working. Areas where roads have been raised and pumps installed have been much drier. But, as Gassman noted, it’s not enough to change one piece of infrastructure without changing everything else. In this case, what happens when you raise a road without raising all of the properties around it? Water can go into the properties.That’s not supposed to happen when the pumps work. But they can fail. Antonio Gallo’s Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante is one of a number of businesses that have found their ground floors are now below the current road and sidewalk height. Last year, the pumps failed to kick in after a brief period of rain; the restaurant flooded, with diners stuck inside. When Gallo went to file his insurance claim, it was turned down. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which runs a national flood insurance programme for at-risk business and property owners like Gallo, anything below street level is considered a basement. Until Fema changes their policy, that includes all of the businesses now below the raised streets. Miami Beach is working closely with Fema to get not only Gallo’s situation, but the general basement classification, re-assessed.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhw8\"}}Miami Beach’s efforts are the most aggressive. But resilience also can be built into existing projects. A lot of public infrastructure is built to last for at least 50 or 75 years, and that means planning for what the world will look like then. This is where the Compact’s range of scenarios comes in handy. If you’re laying down something easily replaceable, like a sidewalk, you could build for one of the more optimistic scenarios. An airport? It’s a good idea to go for a higher-risk scenario.Murley, the chief resilience officer of Miami-Dade County (the county's first), points to a 4,200ft-long (1280m) <a href=\"http://www.portofmiamitunnel.com/\">tunnel that runs from the Port of Miami to highway I395</a>. Opened in 2014, its main objective was to re-route lorries that previously went through downtown Miami. But the tunnel was also given a huge gate that, in a hurricane, drops down to seal it at both ends. “That’s an example of resilience. We wouldn’t have built that 10 years ago,” says Murley. “We would have built the tunnel, but it would have had an open front. We might have had sand bags.”A larger-scale example of built-in resilience is going on at the Central District Wastewater and Treatment Plant on Virginia Key, a barrier island where Biscayne Bay and the ocean meet, just east of downtown Miami. It is one of three wastewater treatment plants run by the largest utility in Florida, which serves 2.3 million of the county’s 2.6 million residents. Like the other two, it sits right by the water.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhnr\"}}The plant already had a $500 million project on the go, making changes to comply with new <a href=\"https://www.miamidade.gov/water/library/reports/consent-decree/resolution-approving.pdf\">Clean Water Act requirements</a>. But because parts of the facility are expected to last 75 years or more, resilience to higher sea levels and storm surge has been baked into the design. Analysts ran what would be needed in a worst-case scenario: a category five hurricane during a king tide, with maximum rainfall. “What the results told us was that we ought to be building stuff at 17-20ft (5-6m) above sea level on the coast. Our current facilities, by and large, range from 10-15ft (3-4.5m),” says Doug Yoder, deputy director of Miami-Dade’s water and sewer department. The new design standards prioritise building at those elevations first for parts of the plants that convey flow – like the electrical wiring and pumps. “At least we won’t have raw sewage flooding the streets,” says Yoder.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhll\"}}Private developers will need to think about these issues, too. According to the non-partisan research organisation Risky Business, <a href=\"https://riskybusiness.org/site/assets/uploads/2015/09/RiskyBusiness_Report_WEB_09_08_14.pdf\">current projections put between $15 billion and $23 billion of existing Florida property</a> underwater by 2050. By the end of the century, that leaps to between $53 and $208 billion.But many developers aren’t thinking to 2050 or 2100. Their focus is on the time from construction to sale. In a hot real estate market like south Florida, where a lot of investors are foreign or periodic visitors, that timeframe is far shorter – a few years at most.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyh7v\"}}Until regulations enforce common building standards, few private developers are likely to adopt resilient designs. “I think it’s very hard for a developer or builder to do something the code or government doesn’t require in their zoning or building code,” says Wayne Pathman, a Miami-based land use and zoning attorney and the chairman of the new <a href=\"http://miamigov.com/sealevelrise/\">City of Miami Sea Level Rise committee</a>.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyh4g\"}}One exception is <a href=\"http://brickellcitycentre.com/\">Brickell City Centre</a>, a $1 billion, 9-acre complex of stores, restaurants, offices, condominiums and hotel in Brickell, a corner of downtown Miami filled with cranes and skyscrapers. Developed by Hong Kong-based Swire Properties, the complex is sleek and airy – and, says Chris Gandolfo, vice president of development for Swire’s US operations, resilient. “Starting years ago, Swire was progressive in its thinking on rising tides,” he says.Gandolfo ticks off some of the adaptation strategies that were used: building higher than the current flood plain; flood gates that can seal off the underground car park; an elevated seawall. It also has sustainable features like green roofs, native plants and what the developers have dubbed a “climate ribbon” – a walkway that captures the bay winds to cool the structure and lower energy costs, and works as a cistern to re-use rainwater for irrigation. “We may not make immediate returns,” Gandolfo says. “But I think it’ll have long-term returns.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygyp\"}}All of this puts a catch-22 at the heart of south Florida’s development. The state levies no personal or business income taxes and has a low corporate income tax, meaning property taxes provide a major source of revenue. But unless it is managed very carefully, new development brings new challenges.“Every one of these buildings that goes up expands your vulnerability and magnitude of risk,” says Kreeger. “On the flip side, you’re not getting help from the state, because the state legislature and governor are in total denial about climate change. So you’re bringing in money today which is going to help you. But you’re also bringing a bigger problem tomorrow.”*Thinking about any of this is a relatively new trend. Although scientists began speaking about sea level rise for several decades, the topic only saw real traction among local governments and businesses a few years ago.Part of the reason is that the issue was being ignored by so many others. Most officials say that the Compact, signed in 2010, has been a major driver in helping local governments collect the data they need and coordinate together on what to do about it – and it was signed after the realisation that, despite concrete problems that had to be solved today, state, federal and international governments weren’t doing what was needed to address them.The Florida governor is a climate change sceptic and has directed attention away from the issue. Former employees have said they even were told <a href=\"http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article12983720.html\">not to utter</a> the phrase “climate change”. Ignoring the issue now appears to pervade the highest levels of US government: the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39221092\">doubts whether carbon dioxide plays a primary role</a> in climate change, while President Trump recently <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39415631\">signed an executive order</a> overturning emissions-slashing regulations. Draft versions of the White House budget propose <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/budget-reflects-trumps-vow-to-cut-epa-in-almost-every-form/2017/03/15/0611db20-09a5-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.9dc6b02f6063\">cutting the EPA budget</a> by 31% and employee numbers by 20%, as well as steep cuts to Noaa – including <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/\">26% of the funds from its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research</a> and entirely eliminating the <a href=\"https://www.flseagrant.org/about/strategicplan/\">Sea Grant programme</a>, whose Florida section brings together 17 different universities to study sea level rise challenges and solutions.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygnl\"}}Local governments are forging on, but such circumstances make the challenge even greater. With budgets that run in the tens of millions, not billions, local governments already need to be fiscally creative. Meanwhile, planning depends on up-to-date data – there’s no point in raising seawalls if you don’t know how high they need to be. And some of the most reliable projection scenarios, as well as sea level rise data, is gathered from Noaa.Yet the impact from these changes won’t stop at party lines. Even President Trump’s family isn’t immune. Three feet of sea level rise – which the range of predictions put together by Compact estimates is likely to happen within the next 60 years – will flood Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican commissioner when a neighbour calls you and tells you that their lawn is flooded,” says Gassman. “The water doesn’t care about politics. The water goes where the water goes. And someone who has a flooding problem that’s impacting their quality of life or their property values, they don’t care what flavour their politician is. What they care about is that the city is thinking about it, and that they’re planning to do something about it.”*Some of the communities in south Florida doing the most to adapt to the effects of sea level rise are doing so largely because of public pressure. In 1993, Miami-Dade put together its first plan to reduce carbon emissions. Hardly anyone came out for the committee hearing, Yoder says. Fast-forward to 2015: a hearing on the county’s budget was dominated by one resident after another asking why the county wasn’t doing more about sea level rise.So much so, in fact, that the county decided to hire Murley, its first resilience officer. One of his immediate tasks was to look into getting onto the <a href=\"http://www.100resilientcities.org/\">Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities</a> programme. Accepted cities receive funding and tailored guidance on how to make themselves adaptable to future challenges, from high unemployment to earthquakes and sea-level rise.Greater Miami is just at the start of the process, Murley says. But he’s not the only one hoping that the resources made available will help guide the area far into the future. When I try to get in touch with the commissioners or mayor of Sunny Isles, I get a call back from Brian Andrews, a crisis PR consultant. He says sea level rise is something the city is aware of, but that “we’re waiting for the county” to gather data and send guidelines for an action plan. “They’re getting millions and millions from the Rockefeller Foundation for this,” he says. “We’re a little city. We couldn’t do it on our own.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygjp\"}}Despite how awareness of the issue has grown in some communities – particularly those, like Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, that have seen the most flooding – it’s still common for sea-level rise to get shunted to the end of the list of priorities. “As an elected official, when I go knock on doors, resiliency and sea level rise is never discussed,” says Esteban Bovo, chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission. “It’s never talked about. It’s crime, how much we’re going to invest in police, how much we’re going to invest in traffic, how much we’re going to invest in public safety, libraries – those are the topics of conversation.”* Later, I find myself playing with the Noaa sea-level tool again. I zoom in on Sunny Isles. At 1ft, the low-lying mangrove swamps of the Oleta River State Park, just over the water, are submerged and the wooded backyard of the Intracoastal Yacht Club disappears. At 2ft, the St Tropez Condominiums and the newly-built Town Center Park are underwater, as are many shops around 172nd Street. At 3ft, things start to get serious. Blue blots out the entire shopping plaza and the Epicure Market. At 4ft, the entire west side of Sunny Isles is uninhabitable. At 6ft, it’s gone. Only the spine near the beach – where my father lives – remains.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygcl\"}}It’s easy to look at Compact’s range of estimates and think that, since a 3ft or 4ft rise may remain fairly far off, everything will be fine for a few more generations. But it’s not. With public infrastructure – from fresh water to flushing toilets to roads – woven between communities, if just one area gets affected, others may suffer. Meanwhile, resilience is only one piece. As shown by the Compact chart’s steep orange line, if emissions continue to rise, adaptation will become increasingly difficult – if not impossible. And unlike raising seawalls or installing tidal valves, that, of course, can’t be controlled by a community or region alone. “Climate change mitigation to reduce greenhouse gases is a global issue and has to be dealt with globally,” says Gassman. “Adaptation to the inevitable effects of climate change is a local issue.”Later, peering out the window as my plane takes off over Miami, I no longer see the dense green squares of the city's western edge, the sharp skyscrapers downtown and the surprisingly slender line of barrier islands. Instead, I see what might be lost. From here, the ocean looks vast.But as the plane climbs, I remind myself that human innovation was enough to drain the swamp and make Florida what it is today. It was great enough to get me here, 15,000ft in the air. And it just might be enough to save what I see below.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-04-04T00:15:20Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Miami’s fight against rising seas","HeadlineShort":"Miami’s fight against rising seas","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"Just down the coast from Donald Trump's weekend retreat, the residents and businesses of south Florida are experiencing regular episodes of water in the streets. In the battle against rising seas, the region – which has more to lose than almost anywhere else in the world – is becoming ground zero.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Just down the coast from Donald Trump's weekend retreat, the residents and businesses of south Florida are experiencing regular episodes of water in the streets as sea levels rise.","SummaryShort":"‘The water doesn’t care about politics’","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-04-04T09:19:02.015567Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"1c1ef5bc-6b25-4e85-9b19-cd2f6f751e11","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-02T06:36:19.799891Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise","_id":"59852527543960df95e177a2"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"In an old carpet factory on the outskirts of the Belgian city of Kortrijk, an agricultural upheaval is being plotted: growing crops indoors, not out on a farm, stacked layer after layer under candy-coloured lights in an area the size of a studio flat.It’s called vertical farming, and several companies have sprung up over the last 10 years or so, filling old warehouses and disused factories with structures that grow vegetables and herbs in cramped, artificially lit quarters out of the warm glow of the sun.A firm called <a href=\"https://urbancropsolutions.com/\">Urban Crops</a> is one of them. In its case, a large frame is designed to hold conveyor belt-shunted trays of young plants under gently glowing blue and red LEDs in this former carpet factory.But their system, largely automated, is still a work in progress. When I visit, a software update, scheduled at short notice, means that none of the machinery is working. Chief executive Maarten Vandecruys apologises and explains that, usually, the hardware allows the plants to be fed light and nutrients throughout their growing cycle. Then they can be harvested when the time is right.“You don’t have the risk of contamination,” says Vandecruys as he points out that the area is sealed off. And each species of crop has a growing plan tailored to its needs, determining its nutrient uptake and light, for instance. Plus, in here, plants grow faster than they do on an outdoor farm.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04z54ks\"}}Urban Crops <a href=\"https://urbancropsolutions.com/\">says</a> that vertical farming yields more crops per square metre than traditional farming or greenhouses do. Vertical farming also uses less water, grows plants faster, and can be used year-round – not just in certain seasons. The facilities also can, in theory, be built anywhere.At Urban Crops, eight layers of plants can be stacked in an area of just 30sq m (322 sq ft). It’s not a commercial-sized operation, but rather a proving ground intended to show that the concept is viable.“Basically, inside the system, every day is a summer day without a cloud in the sky,” says Vandecruys.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04z5cdj\"}}But can you really grow anything in a building, with the right technology at your fingertips?Vandecruys says it’s possible to grow practically anything inside – but that’s not always a good idea. He explains that it’s more cost-effective to stick to quicker-growing crops that yield a high market value. Herbs, baby greens for salad and edible flowers, for instance, fetch a lot more per kilogram than certain root vegetables, which are more likely to be grown outdoors the old-fashioned way for some time yet.<blockquote> Basically, inside the system, every day is a summer day without a cloud in the sky - Maarten Vandecruys </blockquote>By growing plants indoors, you get a lot of fine-grained control you get over the resources your crops need. It allows for rapid growing and predictable nutrient content. The LEDs, for example, can be turned up or down at will and, because they do not give out lots of heat like old filament bulbs, they can be kept close to the plants for optimal light absorption.Of course, it’s possible to produce the same amount of veg that you might get from an outdoor farm – but with far less land at your disposal.So, how does it actually work? There are a few main models for indoor agriculture that vertical farmers tend to choose from: hydroponics – in which plants are grown in a nutrient-rich basin of water – and aeroponics, where crops’ roots are periodically sprayed with a mist containing water and nutrients. The latter uses less water overall, but comes with some greater technical challenges. There's also aquaponics, which is slightly different, in that it involves breeding fish to help cultivate bacteria that's used for plant nutrients.Urban Crops has opted for hydroponics. Vandecruys points out that they recycle the water several times after it is evaporated from the plant and recaptured from the humid air. It’s also treated with UV light to curb the spread of disease.Perhaps the key benefit of vertical farming is that it uses far less water. “We made an estimation with oak leaf lettuce and there we are actually at, say 5% [water consumption], compared to traditional growing in fields,” explains Vandecruys.But Urban Crops doesn’t plan to make its money from the sale of crops. It plans to make money on the sale of its vertical farms.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04z550m\"}}It has designed contained growing systems as a product in and of themselves – people will be able to buy them in order to grow food in relatively confined spaces – potentially bringing farming to urban areas or complexes like the campus of a university. The apparatus can also be installed alongside existing plant production lines at greenhouse farms.One of the biggest names in vertical farming, however, has a different business model. <a href=\"http://aerofarms.com/\">AeroFarms in New Jersey</a>, USA, has opened what they say is the world’s largest indoor vertical farm – with a total of 7,000 sq m (70,000 sq ft) floor space – and they’re hoping to produce tasty greens in massive quantities.Ed Harwood is the inventor and agricultural expert who came up with the technology that has made this possible. He got the idea years ago while working for Cornell University, where aeroponic systems were being used to grow plants in a lab setting. Why, he wondered, was this approach not being used on a bigger scale?“I kept asking, ‘how come’ – people said, ‘Oh, it would never make money, the sun is free, it’s expensive to add lights and everything else, it won’t happen’,” recalls Harwood.But he wasn’t satisfied with that. After years of experimentation he came up with a system and nozzle design for spraying the aeroponic mist onto his plants’ roots. At AeroFarms, the roots grow through a fine cloth rather than soil. But the details of how he solved the key problem – keeping the nozzles clean over time – remain a trade secret.“Every nozzle I purchased off the shelf had significant issues,” says Harwood. “I had to do something about it – it was just a cool moment of, I guess, serendipity.” But he’s not telling anyone how he did it.Like Urban Crops, AeroFarms is prioritising the cultivation of fast-growing salad veg and greens. Harwood believes there is a demand for such produce grown locally in big facilities like theirs that could one day be a feature of city suburbs. And he also promises the guaranteed crunchiness and freshness that consumers want.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04z5dwd\"}}Harwood is firm in his belief that the business he and his colleagues have put together can be profitable. But there are still those who remain sceptical.Michael Hamm, a professor of sustainable agriculture at Michigan State University, is one of them. He points out that vertical farms depend on constant supplies of electricity, much of which will come from fossil fuel sources.“Why waste that energy to produce a whole lettuce, when you can get light from the sun?” he says.And he points out that it just doesn’t make economic sense to grow some crops this way: “At 10 cents a kilowatt hour, the amount of energy it would take to produce wheat would [translate to] something like $11 for a loaf of bread.”There’s been a spike in home beer brewing – might we see a spike in farming at home, too?He does acknowledge a few of the benefits, though. If the indoor systems are well-maintained, then the technology should in theory allow for reproducible results with every harvest – you’ll likely get the same quality of crops every time. Plus, while it costs a lot of money to set up a vertical farm in the first instance, it’s potentially a more attractive option to people getting into the agriculture business for the first time – they won’t need to spend years learning how to contend with the vagaries of the sun and seasons. For that, there’s no substitute yet for experience.With the development of vertical farming technologies, and the likely fall in cost associated with them in coming years, some are betting that all kinds of people will want to start growing their own greens – even at home. There’s been <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21541887\">a spike in home beer brewing</a> – might we see a spike in farming at home, too?<a href=\"https://www.neofarms.com/\">Neofarms</a> is one start-up based in Germany and Italy that is anticipating this. Its founders, Henrik Jobczyk and Maximillian Richter, have developed a prototype vertical farm about the size of a household fridge-freezer.“We designed it in standard kitchen closet sizes,” explains Jobczyk, who adds that their plan is to make the device available as an integrated or standalone design, depending on the customer’s preferences.People who choose to grow their salad veg at home will pay about two euros (£1.71/2.13) per week in energy costs with this system for the privilege, the pair calculate. And they would also have to keep the Neofarms device clean and constantly topped up with water. But in exchange they will have the freshest produce possible.“With the plants growing in the system, you know about the conditions they were raised in – that gives you control and knowledge,” says Jobczyk. “But also it’s the freshness, one of the biggest problems with fresh veg – especially the greens – is the field to fork time, the time between harvest and consumption.”Future supermarkets, though, might be filled with miniature vertical farms of their ownIf you pick the plants yourself and eat them straightaway, you might enjoy a richer wealth of vitamins and other nutrients – <a href=\"http://www.livestrong.com/article/447449-how-do-fruits-and-vegetables-lose-their-nutrients-after-picking/\">which can be lost during packaging and transportation</a>. Many consumers already grow their herbs on a window box, but that is a low-cost and low-maintenance activity. It remains to be seen whether the same people would be interested in making the conceptual leap that comes with bringing a mini vertical farm into their own kitchen.Jobczyk and Richter will have to wait to find out – they’re planning more testing of their device later this year, with a public launch potentially following sometime after that.Ed Harwood, for one, thinks vertical farming technologies might help to bring agriculture closer to the consumer. But he also sticks by his belief that farming on giant scales is here to stay.“Irrespective of the number of recalls, I think we’ve improved food safety over all, we’re feeding more people with fewer resources,” he says.One of the downsides of this is that children have to be introduced to the idea that their food is grown somewhere – it doesn’t come from the supermarket, but a field or factory. Future supermarkets, though, might be filled with miniature vertical farms of their own.“For the child who says their food comes from the grocery store,” says Harwood, “they might one day be right.\"Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":null,"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-04-06T15:09:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How vertical farming reinvents agriculture","HeadlineShort":"The indoor farms of the future","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"Instead of growing crops in sunny fields or greenhouses, some companies stack them and grow them in old, dark warehouses with UV lights — saving water and harvesting produce faster.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Instead of growing crops in sunny fields or greenhouses, some companies stack them and grow them in old, dark warehouses with UV lights — saving water and harvesting produce faster.","SummaryShort":"These tiny towers of crops could totally change where your food comes from","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-04-06T09:32:47.827096Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"e4950ce5-2230-42cb-b6fa-9f2b74aa68e0","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170405-how-vertical-farming-reinvents-agriculture","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-06T16:29:36.102276Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170405-how-vertical-farming-reinvents-agriculture"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170405-how-vertical-farming-reinvents-agriculture","_id":"59821416543960df95dfda88"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"In a conference room overlooking downtown Miami, British executives are talking about why they know south Florida’s streets so well. It isn’t because of the sunshine. It’s because of the area’s risk for disasters like hurricanes and flooding.“There are hundreds of my colleagues… who know the zip codes of these counties in this part of the world almost as well as the residents here,” says Rowan Douglas, head of capital, science and policy at the London-based risk management group and insurance broker Willis Towers Watson. “This area of the world is protected to some degree by a global community of everyone else who buys their insurance policy. My mother-in-law in northwest Spain is sharing risk with Florida.\"<ul> <li>ALSO READ: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\">Miami's fight against rising seas</a></li> </ul>No policy or premium stands alone. Our global economy is so intertwined that if you buy insurance, you’re helping to cover the fallout from far-away crises, whether an earthquake in Mexico or flood in Louisiana. As a result, nearly everyone’s pocketbook is affected by one simple fact: rebuilding after a major catastrophe nearly always costs more than preparing for it in the first place.And climate-related disasters (like droughts and tropical storms) are getting more common. From 2005 to 2015, the UN found there were 335 weather-related disasters each year across the globe, <a href=\"https://www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf\">almost twice the number seen from 1985-1994</a>. The average catastrophe also is getting more expensive. While the inflation-adjusted cost of natural disasters was about $30 billion annually in the 1980s, <a href=\"http://media.swissre.com/documents/Closing_the_Gap_2015_FINAL.pdf\">it’s now more than six times that</a>: an average of $182 billion a year.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0530hl8\"}}Governments have improved at implementing policies that protect against some types of disasters. For example, zoning laws can restrict the population living in hurricane-prone areas. But it hasn’t been enough. From 2003 to 2013 alone, <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5128e.pdf\">natural disasters caused $1.5 trillion in damages</a>, killed more than 1.1 million people and affected more than 2 billion. At the same time, it’s not as if governments are finding they have more room in their budgets to clean up a crisis – or to build the resilience measures that could help prevent them.Enter a new idea that could transform not only the global economy, but how disasters affect us: a resilience bond. As well as guaranteeing help to communities after a catastrophe, it would help fund projects and strategies they need to become less vulnerable to begin with. “Resilience bonds are, in my view, the next exciting and innovative frontier in infrastructure and resilience finance,” says Samantha Medlock, former senior advisor to the Obama White House on resilience and now senior vice president at Willis Towers Watson.The concept is part of an overall trend, experts say, that could transform how communities work: as risk modelling has become more and more sophisticated, the private sector is getting closer to being able to turn not only risk, but resilience, into numbers.It’s like a life insurance company being able to tell you not only how likely you, specifically, are to have a heart attack in the next five years, but also exactly how much walking a half hour a day or cutting out red meat could reduce that risk… and <a href=\"http://www.rms.com/perils/liferisks\">what that increase in health is likely to be worth</a>, in cash, to your future.<blockquote> It will be a financial and scientific revolution, and it will save billions of dollars and thousands, if not millions, around the world of lives – Rowan Douglas </blockquote>That ability to put ‘hard numbers’ on what previously have been seen as ‘soft’ concepts, like the value of resilience, is huge, industry insiders say. “It will be a financial and scientific revolution, and it will save billions of dollars and thousands, if not millions, around the world of lives,” says Douglas.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0531j9b\"}}Fix-it mentalityWhen it comes to preparing for future disasters, humanity tends to be woefully optimistic. In the same way that it’s difficult to convince individuals to fork out money for a life insurance policy, it’s tough to get governments to carve out spending for just-in-case scenarios when they also need to prioritise streets and schools.Worldwide, <a href=\"http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/01/17/438996.htm\">just 26% of economic losses</a> due to natural disasters were covered by insurance in 2016. “That means people dying or suffering, and governments and aid agencies and charity and philanthropy filling that gap. Or not filling that gap, as the case may be,” says Daniel Stander, managing director of consulting company <a href=\"http://www.rms.com/\">Risk Management Solutions</a> (RMS), which works with companies and governments to model and manage catastrophe risk.Buying insurance for your household (or city) is one thing. Another is making your community resilient to begin with. Here’s the problem: it’s difficult to pay for something when the risk of doing nothing is hard to quantify.In other words, it’s not enough to only determine how likely a city is to experience a magnitude eight earthquake at a specific depth. You also have to know how many buildings that would destroy, lives it would disrupt – and the likelihood and extent of that financial loss. Without figuring out both the cost and the probability of risk, you can’t determine the value of resilience – like adopting an earthquake-resistant building code.The resulting lack of hard numbers means communities historically haven’t been rewarded upfront for thinking ahead – whether by credit ratings agencies, insurance companies or even their own central governments. And that’s made it difficult to decide to spend on resilience now… rather than kicking the decision to the next mayor or CEO and hoping a disaster won’t happen on your watch.<blockquote> Buying insurance for your household (or city) is one thing. Another is making your community resilient to begin with </blockquote>But that tends to be a bad move long-term – especially as for major crises, making the needed changes now tends to be cheaper than rebuilding after. <a href=\"https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.nibs.org/resource/resmgr/MMC/hms_vol1.pdf\">One recent study</a> reported that each dollar spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) on disaster preparedness in the US saved $4 later. Other cases can be more extreme. One <a href=\"http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pdacp539.pdf\">analysis of flood prevention measures in Kinshasha</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that every dollar spent on measures like constructing small dams, cleaning drainage canals and seeding watersheds with grass saved at least $45.58 during the following rainy season.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05317yw\"}}But with a fix-it ethos still more common than a plan-ahead one, it’s no wonder that governments have found themselves vulnerable to big financial losses. In the US, flooding is the largest source of financial exposure for the federal government after only Medicare and social security. That has led to struggles. In 2011, the worst global natural catastrophe loss year on record, the country had $116 billion in damage claims. Fema’s National Flood Insurance Programme (NFIP), which provides insurance to flood-prone communities, is more than $24 billion in debt. But it wasn’t until September 2016 that NFIP bought its own re-insurance programme, effectively transferring more than $1 billion of risk out of taxpayers’ wallets and into the reinsurance market.People will have to shift their entire thinking about how disaster recovery is funded – and by whom, experts say. “There’s a perception that, following a disaster, the federal government’s role is to make you whole and rebuild homes and infrastructure and community at the federal taxpayer’s expense. And that is simply not true,” Medlock says. “There are limits to what the federal government can – and should – do.”Fat catThe insurance industry itself, which dates back at least 14th-Century Genoa, may make sense for helping to cover that gap. “No one understands the risk of loss from climate hazards better, I would argue, than the insurance industry,” Stander says. “They’ve become experts at translating hazard into damage, and then damage into cold, hard cash.”But many traditional insurance products aren’t quite right for governments. Take a homeowner’s policy. You pay an insurer, who keeps your money, just in case of, say, a burglary. If you do get burgled, you tell the insurer what you lost and they pay back the value of the items. But as anyone who has had to make a claim knows, that process can take weeks or months. You also run the risk that the insurer could argue over the value… or decide to not pay out at all, as New York University found out to its detriment after a 2015 flood, <a href=\"https://www.nyunews.com/2015/11/03/nyu-sues-for-1-47-billion-over-denied-sandy-insurance-coverage/\">leading it to sue its insurer for $1.5 billion in denied coverage</a>.Governments can’t run the risk of losing taxpayers’ money. And when it comes to disaster response, no one wants a delay – not least of all because, with each passing day, losses can escalate. Medlock points out Hurricane Sandy. After it hit the east coast of the US in 2012, it took the US Congress about 90 days to agree on an appropriations package for federal disaster assistance. “That three-month delay is very inefficient,” Medlock says. “It creates tremendous uncertainty for survivors, for communities – and for regional economies.”<blockquote> With a fix-it ethos still more common than a plan-ahead one, it’s no wonder that governments have found themselves vulnerable to big financial losses </blockquote>One innovation developed in response is a parametric catastrophe (or ‘cat’) bond. When you buy a cat bond, the insurer doesn’t hold the money in their bank account – it sits in an account beyond their control, so there’s no chance of it disappearing when you need it. There’s another twist, too: whenever there’s a crisis, you don’t have to tell the insurer (let alone prove) exactly what was lost. Instead, the payout happens automatically as soon as a certain parameter is reached – often as quickly as 48 hours later. For a storm cat bond, it might be when storm surge reaches a certain height. That was the trigger chosen by <a href=\"http://www.mta.info/press-release/mta-headquarters/mta-secures-200-million-insurance-protection-future-sandy-storms\">New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) for its first cat bond</a>, which it issued in response to Hurricane Sandy in 2013. (According to reports, <a href=\"http://www.artemis.bm/blog/2017/05/02/new-york-mta-targets-125m-parametric-metrocat-re-2017-1-cat-bond/\">the MTA is now issuing its second cat bond</a>). It's worth noting that to have an immediate payout, the parameters that trigger a cat bond, like minimum strength of the storm, require certainty and clarity -- a lesson learned, according to reports, after a Mexican cat band took more than three months to pay out after Hurricane Patricia in 2015.The <a href=\"http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/crm/mexico_making_measurable_difference.html\">first federal government to purchase a cat bond was Mexico</a>, which bought a parametric bond in 2006 that was structured by reinsurer Swiss Re to cover damage from earthquakes (and later, hurricanes). Today, says Nikhil da Victoria Lobo, Swiss Re’s Americas leader for global partnerships, some 40 federal governments worldwide have purchased similar protection. “When we started this discussion in 2006, it was about one risk – earthquakes; one country – Mexico; and one transaction – Mexico’s first cat bond. Today, there are so many sovereign nations doing this,” he says.But that’s still only one-quarter of countries worldwide. And whenever governments are unprepared for a catastrophe, the consequences get even worse. The knock-on effect of a disaster can include everything from disrupting supply chains to a power outage that stops production. So far, most entities have been able to manage disruptions, Standard & Poor wrote in a recent <a href=\"https://www.environmental-finance.com/assets/files/How%20Environmental%20And%20Climate%20Risks%20Factor%20Into%20Global%20Corporate%20Ratings%20Oct%2021%202015%20(2).pdf\">report</a>. But “looking ahead,” it added, “the picture is less certain.”If a disaster causes an economic cascade effect, S&P wrote, <a href=\"https://www.agefi.com/uploads/media/S_P_The_Heat_Is_On_How_Climate_Change_Can_Impact_Sovereign_Ratings_25-11-2015.pdf\">in the most extreme cases</a>, certain governments could see a downgrade of four-to-five notches in their credit rating – the equivalent of moving from investment-grade to junk bond status. By affecting everything from car insurance payments to homeowners’ insurance, that’s enough to send a country’s economy into a tailspin.The trick is to prevent disasters from becoming so deadly and damaging to begin with. And that’s where the resilience bond comes in.Pilot projectA <a href=\"http://www.refocuspartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/RE.bound-Program-Report-December-2015.pdf\">resilience bond</a> is “an innovative variation on the cat bond”, says Medlock. It would work like this: imagine City X wants to build higher seawalls or fix its levee, but doesn’t have access to funds. When it goes to buy a multiyear, parametric cat bond for flooding, the insurer takes the expected impact of that planned investment into account and lowers the premium the city has to pay. With that cost saving in the budget, City X now has the money to fund its seawalls and levee – even if no disaster ever occurs.At the moment, this hasn’t happened yet. But it’s close. “We’re probably not years away from this sort of a concept becoming real,” says Medlock. “We could be months away.”One government leader interested in piloting the concept is Greg Guibert, the chief resilience officer of Boulder, Colorado. He recently partnered with the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative for a workshop on innovative solutions for resilience finance. Just a few days later, he says “my head is kind of spinning” from the potential tools he was introduced to – especially the concept of a parametric resilience bond.Like many other local leaders, Guibert has had difficulty with funding resilience. Disaster recovery money came in after a devastating 2013 flood, he says, “but the federal funds have dried up. So we’re looking at more innovative avenues for financing.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05310tk\"}}A resilience bond appeals because you could use a dividend from a resilience bond to capitalise even less infrastructure-based types of resilience programmes, like community-building exercises that strengthen disaster response by encouraging neighbours to look out for one another. “I’m never going to be able to add enough zeros to a city budget required to achieve that otherwise,” Guibert says.But as long as a resilience bond remains untested, it can be a hard sell to others at the local level.“The ultimate value of local government is to protect the residents and property,” says Guibert. “So if you make a large alteration in how you do that, you really want some assurance that you’re making an appropriate choice for our citizens. That can be a hard leap when we’re talking about really major investments.”It isn’t just local governments that would need to come on board before the first resilience bond actually makes a trade. Other entities that are integral for providing financing – like the US Government Finance Officers Association, or rating agencies – will have to agree in the innovation’s merit, too. “Until those people give credit to that decision-maker, and thereby bring down their financing costs, you’re never going to create a tangible and monetised cash flow” to fund the project, says da Victoria Lobo.But from the amount of excitement around the products to <a href=\"https://www.spratings.com/en_US/topic/-/render/topic-detail/climate-change-assessing-the-potential-long-term-effects\">S&P’s increasing recognition of climate change</a>, da Victoria Lobo says, “I think we’re a lot closer than we think we are.”No one knows exactly how much of an effect a product like this could have on encouraging resilience investment. But with both the number and the expense of natural disasters on the rise, it seems fair to say that this kind of incentive won’t come a moment too soon.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>. If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-16T00:01:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"‘Resilience bonds’: A secret weapon against catastrophe","HeadlineShort":"A secret weapon against catastrophe","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The costs of natural disasters are becoming too much to bear – and it��s driving up premiums no matter where you live. The solution may be a transformative type of insurance never seen before.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The costs of natural disasters are becoming too much to bear – and it’s driving up premiums no matter where you live. The solution may be a type of insurance never seen before.","SummaryShort":"A new type of insurance could transform how the world prepares for disasters","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-16T05:23:43.86671Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"63c87aa1-f443-4cb8-8daa-542b9a9da9ae","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-16T06:10:20.334296Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe","_id":"5983b868543960df95e0b913"}],"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Overpopulation, climate change, mass migration… our relationship with terra firma has never been more complicated. Could Earth’s land be an overlooked, increasingly precious resource?","SummaryShort":"As the population increases, our relationship with Earth’s land is changing","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d40a543960df95dfa4dd"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand 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#2","SynopsisShort":"Why having a fast internet matters?","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/3q/p0563qbz.jpg","Title":"Grand Challenges- Broadband Speed"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0563qbz","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0563qbz","_id":"5984031f543960df95e0df6a"}],"AssetImagePromo":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1803235,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":2415,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/bh/p056bhfd.jpg","SourceWidth":4292,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Woman using smartphone on train (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"(Credit: Getty 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Speed","Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:videopid:p0563ptf","Vpid":"p0563pth","_id":"59840320543960df95e0df6b"}],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Miriam Quick","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-28T13:41:28.192552Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"e01f37a2-b2b4-4259-93ad-006b8cd795f8","Id":"wwfuture/author/miriam-quick","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-28T13:41:28.192552Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"miriam-quick"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/miriam-quick","_id":"5981d0db543960df95dde5b3"}],"BodyHtml":"The internet: not even 25 years ago, <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlJku_CSyNg\">people barely knew what it was</a>. Today, the modern world could barely operate without it.Still, <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/22/47-percent-of-the-worlds-population-now-use-the-internet-users-study-says/?utm_term=.83d28e8242fa\">over half the global population</a> doesn’t have access to it. While that’s a monumental challenge in its own right – tech companies love to posit how they’ll get <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-34655077\">‘the next billion’</a> online – there’s another web-related hurdle. For those that do have internet access, how do we make sure their internet speeds are as fast as possible? And why is it important?The pluses of having swift net speeds are not limited to brisk downloads of movies or video games or music. The real benefits are far more substantial – and could even affect a country’s GDP. In the infographic animation above, see a series of surprising numbers and charts that reveal why.<a href=\"https://miriamquick.com/\">Miriam Quick</a> is a researcher specialising in information visualisation. Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insights from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-19T11:25:23Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The surprising economic downsides of slow internet","HeadlineShort":"How slow internet affects your income","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"One of the grand challenges of the 21st Century will be to make internet speeds faster, because as the statistics reveal in the animation above, slow connections influence incomes more than you might realise – and some countries are lagging behind.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"}],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"There’s a correlation between broadband and the success of global economies.","SummaryShort":"The surprising link between economic growth and broadband","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future 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Kasparov talks about the inevitability exceeding our abilities.","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/zg/p055zg1n.jpg","Title":"Garry Kasparov talks about the inevitability exceeding our abilities."},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p055zg1n","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p055zg1n","_id":"5984ac4a543960df95e138fd"}],"AssetImagePromo":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1178690,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":2316,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/2r/p0562rg9.jpg","SourceWidth":4118,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"(Credit: iStock)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/2r/p0562rg9.jpg","Title":"iStock-517407438.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0562rg9","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0562rg9","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0562rg9","_id":"59842f41543960df95e0f750"}],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[{"Duration":207,"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"videopid","Guid":"","Id":"p055z7gw","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Thumbnail":[],"Title":"Garry Kasparov talks about the inevitability exceeding our abilities.","Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:videopid:p055z7gw","Vpid":"p055z7h2","_id":"5984ac4b543960df95e138fe"}],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"Horror stories about artificial intelligence abound: whether it’s <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view\">robots stealing our jobs</a>, or <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/autos/story/20160809-your-car-is-not-your-friend\">smart appliances spying on you</a>. Coping with the rapid rise of automation has become a <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">grand challenge for the 21st Century</a>, identified by academics and researchers across the globe.The coming era of intelligent machines can sometimes sound terrifying, and even dystopian. Will it actually be, though? Not at all, says chess grandmaster and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov.Kasparov has direct experience of being humbled by a machine, so it's perhaps surprising that he has a pro-AI outlook. In the 1990s, the chess virtuoso made headlines when he played matches against IBM’s supercomputer, Deep Blue. He won once, but then lost in the rematch. Since then Kasparov has gone on to become something of an AI authority: his new book, Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins was released last month.The BBC Click team caught up with Kasparov at <a href=\"https://www.hayfestival.com/\">this year’s Hay Festival</a> in the UK. In the video above, watch what he had to say about the inevitability of AI’s rise – and why it could actually be a revolution that will help humans work even better.Do you agree with what Kasparov has to say? Let us know on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.Watch more from <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/n3ct2k95\">Click at the Hay Festival</a> on BBC World News. If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insights from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future 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machines.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d409543960df95dfa406"}],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"The chess grandmaster, who once saw his skills outstripped by artificial intelligence, explains why it’s time to welcome the era of smart machines.","SummaryShort":"The chess grandmaster explains why humans must welcome artificial intelligence","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a 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bodies like the River Nile touch several countries, which can prompt occasional conflict but also needed cooperation. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Water politics","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/0q/p0560q9z.jpg","Title":"water1.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0560q9z","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0560q9z","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0560q9z","_id":"5982b439543960df95e02e99"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":452789,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/0r/p0560rys.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Bodies of water have always formed natural boundaries between countries, forcing people to figure out ways to share water peaceably. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Water politics","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/0r/p0560rys.jpg","Title":"water5.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0560rys","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0560rys","_id":"59825492543960df95dffcda"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":605666,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/0r/p0560rss.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Droughts and climate change will make water-fuelled diplomacy a crucial exercise in the 21st Century. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Water politics","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/0r/p0560rss.jpg","Title":"water2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0560rss","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0560rss","_id":"598255de543960df95dffd62"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":352149,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/0r/p0560rtq.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Countries with a water surplus export \"virtual water\" around the world - water embedded in products like wheat and meat. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Water politics","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/0r/p0560rtq.jpg","Title":"water3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0560rtq","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0560rtq","_id":"59825493543960df95dffcdc"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":464893,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/0r/p0560rxr.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Governments stay in power by subsidising farmers' livelihoods, and water-deficient countries gladly import the under-priced food. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Water politics","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/0r/p0560rxr.jpg","Title":"water4.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0560rxr","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0560rxr","_id":"59825494543960df95dffcdd"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Bryan Lufkin","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"67534f97-e86d-4c3c-b668-6fa93daa84aa","Id":"wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"bryan-lufkin"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","_id":"5981d0d9543960df95dde2e9"}],"BodyHtml":"The 2008 James Bond film Quantum of Solace pits 007 against an evil criminal syndicate bent on global domination. Sounds par for the course… but this particular network of baddies isn’t using lasers or missiles to cause havoc.No, the Quantum organisation has a uniquely dastardly plan: seizing control of Bolivia’s water supply.While the evil syndicate’s role in the film might not be entirely realistic, this piece of fiction does raise a scenario that is worth considering seriously: what would happen if a country’s water supply was cut off? What would be the global fallout?Think about it: sure, we need water to survive. But it also fuels a country’s commerce, trade, innovation and economic success. This has been the case for time immemorial, from the Nile in Ancient Egypt to the Amazon in the Brazilian rainforest.While bodies of water typically help form natural borders of countries, several nations tend to share access to rivers or lakes – the Nile runs through nearly a dozen countries alone, for example. Given how conflict-prone humankind is, it’s surprising there haven't been more dust-ups of a “hydro-political” nature.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0560rys\"}}Experts agree: if there was no access to water, there would be no world peace. That’s why one of the grand challenges of the next few decades could be maintaining this ultra-sensitive stasis of water management. In the 21st Century, freshwater supplies are drying up, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\">climate change is raising sea levels and altering borders</a>, explosive population growth is straining world resources, and global hyper-nationalism is testing diplomatic relations. Meanwhile, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170412-is-the-world-running-out-of-fresh-water\">water demand is expected to go up 55% between 2000 and 2050</a>. In the coming century, in terms of its value as a global resource, it’s been described as “<a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/jul/27/water-nestle-drink-charge-privatize-companies-stocks\">the next oil</a>.\"So what can we do to guarantee global access to water – and thus global peace?World peace hinges on hydro-politicsWater’s role in shaping politics goes back centuries. “In the ancient world, large bodies of water formed natural boundaries for people and nations,” says Zenia Tata, executive director of global development and international expansion at XPrize, an organisation that’s holding <a href=\"http://water.xprize.org/\">a worldwide competition for innovative water management solutions</a>. “But today’s geopolitical landscape looks very different,” and access to water remains paramount.<blockquote> Experts agree: if there was no access to water, there would be no world peace </blockquote>In many areas of the world, bodies of water run through several countries or brush up against many countries’ borders. That’s where something called \"riparian water rights\" come into play.In the case of a river, upstream countries – where the river originates – enjoy inherent power and leverage over the downstream countries. These kinds of riparian hotspots abound. And they’re often in places that are already fraught.In the Middle East, the Jordan River basin is the primary water source for many regions, including Jordan, Palestine, and Israel, regions of long-standing political tensions. In Syria, meanwhile, the worst drought in close to a millennium has been partly <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/03/science/earth/study-links-syria-conflict-to-drought-caused-by-climate-change.html\">blamed for the country’s generation-defining civil war and radicalisation</a> that led to the formation of so-called Islamic State.Egypt and Ethiopia <a href=\"http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2015/03/tension-ridden-hydro-politics-nile-150331054558626.html\">have sparred over development of water from the River Nile</a> for centuries: the iconic river originates in Ethiopia but ends in Egypt, which sets up an inherently combative relationship. In 2015, Egypt and Ethiopia put enough differences aside to construct the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam on the river, which is Africa’s largest dam and is due to open in July. The countries also <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-32016763\">signed a deal that strives to ensure</a> fair river access.Tata points to many developed or emerging markets that have had similar challenges: “Take the example of <a href=\"http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infopedia/articles/SIP_1533_2009-06-23.html\">Malaysia’s 99-year deal with Singapore</a>, giving them paid access to fresh water from the Johor River,” Tata says. “Singapore is arguably one of the most progressive nations on our planet, but without sufficient fresh water resources within its boundaries, all industry, trade, commerce and culture would all stand still.\"<blockquote> The answer might lie in how countries with more food and water export those supplies to other countries </blockquote>According to the Pacific Institute, a California-based water resource information nonprofit, there have been <a href=\"http://www2.worldwater.org/conflict/list/\">dozens of water-related conflicts worldwide from 2000BC to present day</a>.So how do we make sure everyone gets enough water – and thus keep relative world peace in the 21st Century? The real answer won’t lie in countries controlling others’ water supply in what’s been dubbed so-called \"water wars\" – rather, the answer might lie in how countries with more food and water export those supplies to other countries.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0560rss\"}}Divvying up water suppliesWhile there have been many “water-related” conflicts over the millennia, there have actually been very few in terms of sending water over national boundaries.There are three main issues when it comes to water in the 21st Century, says Aaron Wolf. He’s a professor of geography at Oregon State University who specialises in water resource management and environmental policy.The first issue is the most obvious: water scarcity. A lack of safe, reliable water kills as many people worldwide as malaria and HIV/Aids, he says.The second issue is the political implications of that scarcity. For example, in Syria, that history-making drought drove more people to cities, saw rising food prices, and exacerbated tensions in the country that already existed. They ended up with “climate refugees”, who travel to other countries to seek places that have better water availability, which may in turn stoke the flames of political tension.The third main issue – and perhaps the most underreported, experts say – is that trans-boundary flow of water. In other words: water moving between countries. And that’s where those riparian rights come into play.But here’s the twist – that third part of the puzzle, the hydro-politics, is actually the part to be most optimistic about, says Wolf, since there have been so few violent skirmishes over transboundary water flows.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0560rtq\"}}The grand challenge: building hydro-diplomacyDespite alarmist headlines about “water wars”, the 21st Century is still offering up no shortage of new and unique threats that complicate hydro-diplomacy more than ever before.Population explosions, especially in Asia and Africa, strain resources. Increasing global temperatures have led to some bodies of water drying up. And rising nationalism worldwide may stymie diplomatic efforts across the board.<blockquote> While water presents obvious potential conflict, it could also accelerate global cooperation </blockquote>So that’s why at Oregon State University, Wolf helps organise the Program in Water Conflict Management – where they try to identify where hydro-diplomatic tensions are going to rise in the next three to five years. For example, Afghanistan is an upstream country to many nations in the region, and is trying to use that advantage to develop its economy. For a country that’s been subjected to decade upon decade of war and upheaval, the political power of water sources like the Kabul River could be a boon.That’s why there’s growing academic desire for an increased awareness of not just hydro-politics, but hydro-diplomacy – that while water presents obvious potential conflict, it could also accelerate global cooperation.“We’re building the next generation of hydro-diplomats,” says Wolf.A solution? Pay farmers moreBut amid all these changes in the aqua political landscape, experts urge us to remember that not all water exists in rivers and lakes and even oceans.There’s water in the soil – the soil that farmers use to grow vegetables, crops and feed for livestock. And the water from that soil is transferred into these products – whether it is wheat or beef – before they get shipped from water-surplus nations to deficient ones. This is known as “virtual water”, a phrase coined by John Anthony Allan at King’s College London, whose specialities include water issues, policy and agriculture. \"Virtual water\" is going to play a huge role in the 21st Century.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0560rxr\"}}If you include virtual water in the picture, farmers are managing much of the water in the supply chain. And in countries that are water deficient, that imported embedded water is integral. In Europe alone, <a href=\"https://www.researchgate.net/publication/254859488_National_water_footprint_accounts_The_green_blue_and_grey_water_footprint_of_production_and_consumption\" target=\"_blank\">40% of this \"virtual water\"</a> comes from outside the continent.Here’s the problem: farmers are underpaid for the critical role in that transaction. And by the time the food reaches the destination country, its politicians use subsidies to keep food prices low. The reason? Politicians want to maintain peace among their people – they want their citizens to live under the assumption that they’ll be able go to the store and expect food on the shelves.<blockquote> 160 countries depend on imported food – and the water needed to make it </blockquote>“Governments go to great lengths to make sure there is enough affordable food on the market,” Allan says. “There are forces in places that will bring the prices down – there’s pressure to keep food cheap.\"For water-surplus countries like the United States or Canada, they sell these products to more water-deficient countries at a low price. Over 60% of the around 220 countries in the world are major food importers. In other words, 160 countries depend on imported food – and the water needed to make it.“The world is at peace because we have virtual water trade,” says Allan. “It’s solved silently. Revealing virtual water trade as a solution is something that politicians don’t want to do because they want to appear as they’re managing their country well.”But in reality, the water that goes into the country's food is being brought in from elsewhere. That’s why hydro-diplomacy is one of the great unsung heroes in maintaining global stability that you never hear about.It’s also why water’s next big challenge isn’t just making sure it’s judiciously and peaceably managed between nations to accommodate the world’s ever-burgeoning population. It’s about helping farmers who live in nations that have lots of water do their jobs successfully, and manage that water and how it’s distributed to drier places.Of course countries need low-priced food, especially in places with lower income citizens. But the public needs to know that imports, exports, and hydro-diplomacy are what really keep countries with imbalanced water sources in balance. In our globalised, 21st Century world, it's not just about where countries fall along the flow of a river. It's about working together to share Earth's most vital resource.So while a James Bond-scale water hostage situation isn’t exactly realistic – there’s nothing unrealistic about needing to maintain worldwide access to water. Even as we use it to slake our thirst and grow our crops, the political power of water shouldn’t be forgotten. It's been around for millennia, and it's not going anywhere. --Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now. Follow him on Twitter <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Stories that inspire, intrigue and enlighten","Name":"Best of BBC Future","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Best of BBC Future"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:56:30.095016Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"e6539848-9854-4af2-b3c8-a95e2d9060f3","Id":"wwfuture/column/best-of-bbc-future","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:56:30.095016Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/best-of-bbc-future"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/best-of-bbc-future","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded4e"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d0e5543960df95dded9d"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-16T00:23:11Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Why ‘hydro-politics’ will shape the 21st Century","HeadlineShort":"The most vital resource of the century?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d105543960df95de0236"}],"Intro":"It's been called the 'next oil'. In the coming decades, the supply of water has the potential to influence geopolitics, diplomacy and even conflict.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d336543960df95df2a6f"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"“The world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era in which common infections will once again kill. If current trends continue, sophisticated interventions, like organ transplantation, joint replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and care of pre-term infants, will become more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake. This may even bring the end of modern medicine as we know it.\"That’s what the Director-General of the World Health Organization said last April when she appeared before the United Nations. Dr Margaret Chan wanted to warn of what many deem to be one of the greatest threats to global health today: the increasingly common problem of infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.It sounds alarmist, but it might actually not be alarmist enough.The efficacy of the world’s antibiotics is quickly decaying – the drugs we’re using to treat infections are working less and less. If we continue at this rate without intervention, we may find that there is not a single antibiotic left to treat any type of bacterial infection.“This would really change life as we know it,” says Dr David Weiss, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Center at Emory University. “Consider going to back to an era when a minor accident like a scrape could lead to death.” That’s what a world of total antibiotic resistance could lead to.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p055855n\"}}But there’s good news: we are not likely to continue at this rate. The world is aware of the problem and there are many organisations, governments, and concerned citizens working hard to avoid a worst-case scenario.The bad news is that the issue is extremely complex and widespread. And thanks to the very nature of bacteria and how they work – and the damage we have already done – the world will never be entirely free from resistance.What is resistance?Say you contract a staph infection. In the past that was easily treated with penicillin. But today, it is very possible that your staph infection is actually MRSA – a version resistant to antibiotics (only 10% of current staph infections aren’t MRSA). Penicillin is useless against it. In fact, studies show that two in 100 people are carrying around the MRSA bacteria.Here’s how resistance develops: just like people, bacteria have DNA. And just like in humans, that DNA can mutate or change. Then, when inputs from the outside world interact with those mutations, survival of the fittest means only the strongest variations live on.<blockquote> This would really change life as we know it. Consider going to back to an era when a minor accident like a scrape could lead to death – Dr David Weiss </blockquote>So, when humans use antibiotics to kill off bacteria, in some cases, those bacteria spontaneously mutate their genes, which changes their makeup in such a way that the antibiotics cannot kill them. The bacteria that survive those encounters pass these genes on to other bacteria through simple mating (technically known as '<a href=\"https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/conjugation-prokaryotes-290\">conjugation</a>') – and those resistant bacteria can spread from one living thing to another.The tricky part of this is that bacteria can share these genes with each other across bacterial species – so they don’t even have to be that genetically similar to pass along resistance. Humans and animals, who are teeming with trillions of different types of bacteria, then pass the resistant bugs along to each other. And, on top of it all, we introduce those resistant species to each other inside our own bodies. So, even if a human or an animal has been exposed to an antibiotic just once in their lives they can contain mutant bacteria that can be easily spread.Bacteria, it turns out, don’t care about political borders or immigration policies – for example, researchers have even found drug-resistant bacteria on the rear-ends of seagulls in Lithuania and Argentina.The most important part of this is that bacterial resistance is essentially a numbers game: the more humans try to kill bacteria with antibiotics, and the more different antibiotics they use, the more opportunities bacteria have to develop new genes to resist those antibiotics. The less we use, the less bacteria can develop and share resistance.How big is the problem?It’s hard to say for sure, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in the US alone there are about 23,000 people who die every year from antibiotic-resistant infections. For example, they estimate that resistance to antibiotics that treat Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) causes almost 500,000 infections in the US every year, which lead to about 15,000 deaths. (But Amanda Jezek, a spokesperson specialising in policy and government relations at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a group that represents many of the country’s infectious disease doctors and scientists, says the overall number of deaths is a conservative estimate and likely higher.Meanwhile, <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/dramatic-rise-seen-in-antibiotic-use-1.18383\">a 2015 study published in Nature</a> found that global antibiotic consumption went up 30% between 2000 and 2010.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p055854l\"}}The WHO estimates that with tuberculosis alone there are about 480,000 people worldwide with drug-resistant strains of the disease. In 2014 they estimated that 3.3% of all new cases of TB were resistant to multiple drugs, and in recurring cases, 20% were resistant. They have also tracked cases of resistance (some very common and some less so) in drugs used to treat E. coli, urinary tract infections, HIV, gonorrhea, malaria, pneumonia, and staph infection (the drug resistant version of which is MRSA).And <a href=\"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-antimicrobial-resistance/health-matters-antimicrobial-resistance\">according to Public Health England</a>, the “UK government considers the threat of antibiotic resistance as seriously as a flu pandemic and major flooding.” If left unchecked, antibiotic resistance could lead to 10 million deaths by 2050 worldwide, costing some £66 trillion.How did we get here?Plain and simple, humanity has drastically overused antibiotics.Not only have doctors spent decades handing out antibiotics to any patient that asked (regardless of whether or not they were needed), some countries still consider antibiotics to be over-the-counter medicines – as easy to purchase as Anadin or Tylenol. According to Dr Marc Sprenger, director of the antimicrobial programme at the WHO, much of Europe is three times more likely to use antibiotics than their fellow European countries Sweden or the Netherlands, where they are used only occasionally. “This has nothing to do with more people getting sick. This is a cultural phenomenon,” he says.On top of that, for many decades agricultural pursuits worldwide have fed huge amounts of antibiotics to livestock and food-producing animals – not only as a means to reduce infection, but also as a method to increase growth. And, while humans do not ingest those antibiotics, they do ingest and handle the bacteria that resides within those animals. So if those animals carried drug-resistant bacteria, you potentially could, as well.<blockquote> This has nothing to do with more people getting sick. This is a cultural phenomenon – Dr Marc Sprenger on antibiotic overprescription </blockquote>Until recently antibiotics in the US actually listed animal growth as an indication for use on antibiotic labels and a prescription was not required for farmers to obtain them. To illustrate what a problem this is: just last November a strain of E. coli was discovered in Chinese pigs to be resistant to colistin – a last-resort antibiotic that has only been used in the US in the most dire cases of human infection, untreatable by all other antibiotics. In less than six months the CDC detected that strain of E. coli in a patient in Pennsylvania. So why not just develop new antibiotics that the bacteria can’t resist? It has been several decades since a drug company developed and sold a new antibiotic. “You would like to have new antibiotics to treat infections with resistant bacteria, but if you look at the timeline [of new releases] it is empty for almost 30 years,” Sprenger says.That’s because the process of developing any new drug is extremely expensive and the potential profit in an antibiotic after that massive investment is relatively low. According to Sprenger, “there are no legal instruments to prohibit the use of a new antibiotic.” What that means is if a new antibiotic is released there’s no way to stop the world from overusing it. At current usage levels a new antibiotic, he says, would only have about two years on the market before bacterial resistance to it develops.How do we get ourselves out of this?First, the entire world needs to get on board. Two years ago this essentially happened when member states of the WHO agreed to accept a Global Action Plan – by then, antibiotic resistance was a problem that had already been on the radar for many decades. The plan lays out extensive solutions and best practices that all countries can take to reduce resistance. “That’s historic,” says Sprenger. Before then, he says, the only people actively discussing how to reduce resistance were people within medical circles, for the most part. \"95% of the worldwide population is now living in a country where they have developed a national action plan. All these countries have increased activities in education, training, and prevention control.”<blockquote> In the last couple of decades we’ve seen decreases in prescription to children in the US – Dr Katherine Fleming-Dutra </blockquote>Then, last year, the UN addressed the issue before the General Assembly – only the fourth time in history that a health issue was discussed there. And just this May the G20 leaders signed a declaration on global health that included tackling antibiotic resistance. So it’s definitely a grand challenge that world leaders are taking seriously.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05584qf\"}}Much of the WHO action plan focuses on hospital stewardship and supervision. The CDC is currently working closely with American hospitals to provide guidelines and education for the safe and reasonable prescription of antibiotics. “We have made some progress,” says Dr Katherine Fleming-Dutra, an epidemiologist at the CDC. “In the last couple of decades we’ve seen decreases in prescription to children in the US. We have seen less progress in adults. The rate in adults has been relatively stable.”Once hospitals and physicians get on board with reducing prescriptions the next step is to change regulations around agriculture.Ten years ago the European Union banned antibiotics as growth promoters. And just this January, the US Food and Drug Administration removed growth from the indicated use of antibiotics on drug labelling. According to Dr William Flynn, deputy director for science policy at FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, “There was a real recognition that this was something [farmers] needed to take seriously and respond to. We’re encouraged by the fact that they were engaging and working with us to find ways to make it work.”But other countries need to follow suit – as evidenced by the recent revelations about antibiotic resistance coming out of China.One of the most important steps in tackling resistance is tracking it. The CDC have set up a system called the National Antimicrobial Monitoring System (NARMS). “Surveillance for antibiotic resistant bacteria is a big part of our mission,” says Dr Jean Patel, deputy director of the office of Antimicrobial Resistance at the CDC. “We do this to measure the burden of infection and also characterise the types of resistance we see. This helps us strategise how best to prevent resistance.”<blockquote> We can only really slow the development of resistance. We’re not going to stop it completely. Even appropriate use of antibiotics does contribute to resistance – Amanda Jezek, Vice President for Public Policy and Government Relations, Infectious Diseases Society of America </blockquote>The CDC funds state health departments around the US (and coordinates with laboratories worldwide) to maintain a network of antibiotic resistant bacteria data and samples. Says Patel: “We can use this to give us national estimates of infection rates to see how bacteria are changing, test new drugs against bacteria, and we also have used the bacteria we collect through this to help with vaccine development.” Though, it should be noted, the continued success of the programme could be in jeopardy as US President Donald Trump’s proposed budget suggests cutting funds to the CDC by 17% (or $1.2 billion).But there are also some non-traditional methods being attempted. Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has established a unique Antibiotic Resistance Center. One of its main goals is to build diagnostic tests using mutated bacteria collected by the national surveillance system and physicians in their own clinic that can spot resistant bacteria.“The goal is to have scientists, clinicians, and epidemiologists all working together to address this issue. That’s something that hasn’t traditionally happened. There has been division between what the scientists and clinicians are doing,” says the centre’s director David Weiss. “I’m not a doctor. I need to know from the clinicians a lot of what they’re seeing on the front lines to help guide our research to be as relevant as possible.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p055845l\"}}A comprehensive, collaborative approach could work: last year, the National Health Service of England announced that in 2015, antibiotic prescribing <a href=\"https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/03/antibiotic-prescribing/\">reduced by 5.3%</a> compared to 2014. Public Health England says that more responsible prescribing is key: <a href=\"about:blank\">it says that it advised the NHS in 2015</a> on the development of better practices that aim to slash prescriptions by 10% from 2013 to 2014 levels.Lastly, there need to be incentives that encourage the development of new antibiotics.The US National Institute of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority have set up a biopharmaceutical accelerator called CARB-X. The fund is allotting $48 million to support antibiotic drug discovery projects. “They work with companies in the very early discovery stages to give them funding and technical support to get to the point that they have a product they can do clinical trials with,” says IDSA’s Jezek. Along those same lines, the IDSA is also currently working to develop legislation that would provide funding for clinical trials so that companies can avoid those hefty costs and stand a chance of making a profit from new antibiotics.With all of these programmes working together, and similar efforts taking place around the world, there is a lot of hope that humanity will manage to get a handle on the problem. Still, “we can only really slow the development of resistance. We’re not going to stop it completely,” says Jezek. “Even appropriate use of antibiotics does contribute to resistance.”And that means the challenge will always be immense. As long as there are humans and those humans carry and transmit disease – which they will – the entire world will have to continue fighting for resistance.--Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-08T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How we can stop antibiotic resistance","HeadlineShort":"Is 'the end of modern medicine' near?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"It’s been dubbed “the end of modern medicine”. BBC Future asked experts to explain how we might avoid the worst effects of antibiotic resistance – a grand challenge of our age. ","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"It’s been dubbed “the end of modern medicine”. BBC Future asked experts to explain how we might avoid the worst effects of antibiotic resistance – a grand challenge of our age. ","SummaryShort":"How we can avoid the worst effects of antibiotic resistance","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-08T09:49:30.290191Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"290ad724-8e85-4cd3-bdac-5cb048eba1fd","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170607-how-we-can-stop-antibiotic-resistance","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-06T20:57:35.693706Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170607-how-we-can-stop-antibiotic-resistance"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170607-how-we-can-stop-antibiotic-resistance","_id":"59844e02543960df95e107fd"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Imagine walking into a roomful of strangers. Perhaps you’ve travelled to a new city. You don’t know anyone, and no one knows you. You’re free to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone. How do you feel?Perhaps you feel free of the judgment and scrutiny from acquaintances or associates. Perhaps you feel energised that you can use this opportunity to experience life on your terms, at your own speed. But whatever your feelings would be, you would at least safely assume that you can enter this isolated situation without being monitored or tracked by a far-flung company or individual – right?Wrong. What you’re experiencing as you walk into that room is anonymity: a sociocultural phenomenon that’s afforded privacy and freedom. But in the year 2017, it’s pretty much all but dead. It’s emerging as one of the major challenges of our age: how should we go about both ensuring national security and enhancing our lives through technology, whilst also maintaining a basic right to privacy that feels like it has existed since the beginning of human history?”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn38\"}}The internet made us stop caring Anonymity, which is Greek for “no name,” is a uniquely human psychological experience: it’s the idea that we all have identities to present to the world, but under certain circumstances, can switch the identity off and operate in total secrecy.“We need a public self to navigate the social world of family, friends, peers and co-workers,” says John Suler, professor of psychology at Rider University in New Jersey, and author of The Psychology of Cyberspace. “But we also need a private self – an internal space where we can reflect on our own thoughts and feelings apart from outside influence, where we can just be with our own psyche. Our identity is formed by both. Without one or the other, our wellbeing can easily become disrupted.”Being anonymous allows us to try new things or express ideas without being judged. In 2013, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania published a study in which they <a href=\"http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kiesler/publications/2013/why-people-seek-anonymity-internet-policy-design.pdf\">conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of internet users on four continents</a>. One interviewee, for instance, created an anonymous online community for English learners to practise their language skills. Anonymity helped them better manage certain spheres of their lives. One participant said that he frequented message boards to help people solve technical problems, but sought to avoid unwanted commitments through the detached nature of the internet. Plus, being anonymous in an environment like the internet can help safeguard personal safety.“Our results show that people from all walks of life had reason, at one time or another, to seek anonymity,” the researchers wrote of the 44 interviewees.But according to a <a href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/09/05/anonymity-privacy-and-security-online/\">2013 study from the Pew Research Center</a>, while most internet users would like to remain anonymous, most don’t think it’s entirely possible. The study found that 59% of American internet users believe it is impossible to completely hide your identity online.And while some people are taking basic steps to preserve anonymity, like deleting their browsing history, many users who say they value anonymity aren’t really walking the walk.Earlier this year, <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcom.12276/full\">a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Communication</a> explored something called the “privacy paradox”: the idea that, while people value privacy, they do little in practice to preserve it. Think about it: when was the last time you actually read one of those many, lengthy privacy policy updates before clicking “I agree”? Our attitude toward privacy has become increasingly blasé.One could even argue it’s even detrimental not to divulge at least some info. Career coaches worldwide trumpet the professional importance of having a fleshed-out public LinkedIn photo complete with full name, headshot, full work history and more.Perhaps this is more of a cultural thawing toward previously uptight attitudes. I remember getting on the internet for the first time. It was the 1990s and on my father’s work computer. In those days, internet service providers went to great, paranoid lengths to discourage users from divulging even basic tidbits in their public profiles, like first name, city, even gender.Today? Personal info flies freely and wildly across the web, often on our volition: Instagrammed selfies of ourselves and loved ones, complete with geotagged locations. Social media users engaging in political spats and horrible insults, despite the fact that the target of their harassment could click on their real names and real photos and see who they actually are.<blockquote> People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously – John Suler </blockquote>“People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously – not subject to the same rules and standards as the ‘real’ world,” says Suler. In just the span of a few short years, people’s comfort level with the internet has risen to the point where information-sharing can be careless or reckless.Call it privacy fatigue, but our increased interdependence on our smart devices and social media has given some of us a largely lazy attitude toward staying totally anonymous.But what if you’re one of those people who eschews Facebook, has no social media presence, and goes to great lengths to leave a fleeting digital footprint? Sorry – your anonymity is at risk too.Going off the grid is no fixWhile skipping a Facebook profile is a good way to disconnect, there are still ways people can sleuth out your identity.Paul Ohm, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, says there’s “intentional anonymity” and “inferential anonymity”: the former being what we choose to keep close to the vest, and the latter referring to the data that a Google-savvy sleuth can “infer” from you online – that is, dig up loads of personal information about you using a single fact as a starting point.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn34\"}}“It’s become increasingly clear that it’s a losing game,” Ohm says on achieving total anonymity in 2017. “As long as someone knows something about you, they can probably find other things about you, and do it really successfully – more than they have in the past.”If you’re a social media party pooper, that might mean old flames or long-lost classmates can’t track you down. But that doesn’t mean you’re anonymous from big entities, like corporations or the government.“It’s much harder to be anonymous than it was 20 years ago, at least from the biggest companies and the government,” says Peter Swire, professor of law and ethics at Georgia Institute of Technology, and who served on US President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology.Advertisers track your internet habits across your devices – phone, tablet, laptop – to know where you habitually go, shop, and what kind of websites you visit, and there has been growing controversy about what internet companies should be allowed to track and sell to third parties.Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump signed a law that repealed requirements for internet service providers to get permission from customers before gathering and sharing their personal data, like your web history and what apps you use.Swire says we’re living in a “golden age of surveillance”: If you’re a person of interest in an investigation, looking up details like financial records, medical records, web history or call history is a breeze. And that hints at a larger, serious privacy concern in the age of cybersecurity breaches and digital services that keep your bank information and home addresses on record. It’s hard to go undetected these days.What’s more? Ohm says we’re approaching the “next great frontier in advertising”: your location.Sure, websites can tweak adverts to zero in on your interests based on the web searches you’ve made on the same device, or sites visited. But companies and advertisers are chasing technology and business deals that pinpoint your exact whereabouts in real-time for ‘personalised’ advertising. For example, an advert could flash on your mobile phone’s screen offering a coupon for a store you’re half a mile away from.Unless you’re willing to live without the internet or without any smart device, it’s practically impossible to go completely off the grid.“This is a bad time to be a spy,” Swire says. In other words, even for people whose job it is to be anonymous, it’s hard to be anonymous.Still, there are plenty of instances in which anonymity is problematic, even dangerous. Is its demise actually a blessing for society?{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cmzt\"}}Is the death of anonymity good?Swire says that anonymity is a relatively new construct, and that the rise of cities gave rise to it. So, we’ve spent far more time living without it than living with it.“Anonymity didn’t exist in small towns in the days of yore,” Swire says, where everybody knew everybody’s business. “To some extent, urban living created anonymity. The difference today is that even in a big city, each of us leaves breadcrumbs that an investigator can follow.”Anonymity also has a dark side. In that same Carnegie Mellon study, 53% of interviewees admitted to malicious activities, like hacking or harassing other internet users, or engaging in “socially undesirable activities\", like visiting sites that depicted violence or pornography, or downloading files illegally.There may be signs that, while most people certainly want to keep sensitive information like bank accounts and medical records safe, others may not care about sacrificing true anonymity for a perceived greater good.In <a href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/19/americans-feel-the-tensions-between-privacy-and-security-concerns/\">a 2015 Pew study</a>, Americans who were surveyed felt torn between maintaining privacy rights and ensuring national security: 56% surveyed said that they were more concerned that the government’s anti-terrorism policies hadn’t gone far enough to protect citizens, even if that meant sacrificing some civil liberties, like online privacy.Meanwhile, YouGov, an internet market research firm, found <a href=\"https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/19/tracker-protect-privacy-v-help-security-forces/\">in a survey last year</a> that about nearly half of Britons contacted said that “more should be done to help the security forces combat terrorism, even if this means the privacy of ordinary people suffers.”In any case, efforts to completely anonymise our activities are more or less futile: With the rise of the internet of things, more and more of the devices we use every day will require our personal information to function, and the more they’ll be integrated into our lives.“There is this huge disconnect,” Ohm says. “Do we believe what people say when an interviewer asks them [about privacy], or do we believe their purchasing habits?”Waning anonymity sounds inevitable. Still, if you do want to protect your privacy as best you can, the experts do offer a few tips.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn2t\"}}Best practices you can useEarlier this year, Pew found that <a href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/01/26/americans-and-cybersecurity/\">most Americans don’t trust</a> big institutions like the government or social media sites to protect their personal information – and yet, ironically, most Americans don’t follow best practices to protect their identities online.What are some of those best practices? Keeping your passwords under lock and key, making a different one for each service, and making them hard to guess. But if you’re more concerned about your reputation than hackers, a little common sense goes a long way.<blockquote> Follow the front page test: Don’t put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper </blockquote>“Follow the front page test,” Swire suggests. “Don’t put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper. I give that advice to intelligence agencies, and I give that advice to ordinary people.” Because while some people may not care about third parties or governments tracking their purchasing habits, people will definitely care more about being anonymous when it involves people they interact with on a daily basis.“You might not care if a busy bureaucrat or internet company can access those gossipy emails, but you’d really care if your boss sees them instead,” Swire says. Using encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp make your messages more private and more difficult to trace.But if we’re going to reassign real cultural value to anonymity; to secure it as a basic right people are entitled to, it’s going to take a lot more than just individual action, and a lot more than encryption apps you can load up your phone with.It’s going to take sweeping societal change. It’s going to take governments, advertisers, and tech corporations worldwide to agree on a baseline system of ethics. It’s not just about customers opting out of digital services – it’s about the choice to temporarily opt out of their public-facing identities, as well.“All of us need to keep some private space where our deepest dreams and darkest fantasies are hidden away from other people – it gives us room to develop as humans, to try out different thoughts and different sides of ourselves,” says Swire. “That doesn’t change because of the internet.”--Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now for BBC Future. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-29T19:55:22.77Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The reasons you can't be anonymous anymore","HeadlineShort":"Why you can't be anonymous anymore","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"In today’s hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Is it time we just gave up on the idea altogether?\n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"In today’s hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Is it time we just gave up on the idea altogether?\n","SummaryShort":"The reasons we're creating a world with no privacy","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-30T08:46:19.211245Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"90a8a57c-db2b-4b91-92d6-1e153c44dc13","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-30T11:30:01.25009Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","_id":"5982804b543960df95e013a5"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"With soft, nimble fingers, an arm stretches out to delicately pluck an apple from a shelf and place it gently into a basket.It performs the task again with a bag of limes and again with a pepper, never tiring, never complaining.This is a prototype robotic arm <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-629m-RPyoI\">being tested by Ocado</a>, the British online supermarket. The irregular shape and delicate flesh of these common groceries have meant they tend to be packed by human workers at Ocado’s warehouses. But the company is pursuing robotic technology that could assist these human warehouse workers but still handle produce safely, making the process faster and cheaper for the company.Ocado is far from the only company pursuing automated workers. It is happening in <a href=\"https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=4384\">hospitals</a>, <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/19807d3e-1765-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d\">law firms</a>, the stock market. The list goes on.The question is… how does this affect the human workforce? How might it affect you?BBC Future Now asked a panel of experts for their views, as part of our special series on the ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">Grand Challenges</a>’ facing humanity. We hear a lot about doom-and-gloom surrounding robots stealing our jobs, but what will actually happen? Who’s at risk, and what could your workplace actually look like in five years?The answers might surprise you.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn3b\"}}The middle class is at risk Reports suggest that <a href=\"http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/future-of-employment.pdf\">47% of people employed in the US are at risk of being replaced by machines</a> and 35% of jobs in the UK may similarly be threatened – with even higher threats in developing countries, with <a href=\"http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2017/04/20/2017-wbgimf-spring-meetings-world-bank-group-opening-press-conference-by-president-jim-yong-kim\">two thirds of jobs at risk of being automated</a>.But machines stealing jobs is not new. “Automation has happened before,” says Bhagwan Chowdhry, professor of finance at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chowdhry points to the shifts that took place in factories during the industrial revolution when automatic looms and other machines took over from human weavers.So what’s different this time? “It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers,” says Chowdry. “But also a lot of white collar workers.”<blockquote> It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers </blockquote>Often, we think of low-wage, low-skill jobs being the most at risk, like warehouse workers or cashiers, but automation may also affect middle-income jobs, such as clerks, chefs, office workers, security guards, junior lawyers, inspectors.Those in the firing line are understandably worried. “The concern is more about the transition pains,” says Carl Benedikt Frey, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment. “Most jobs that we will see being automated require different skill sets from those being created. The key challenge will be to make sure that those who experience displacement will find something meaningful to do.”So, should companies seeking to automate jobs have a moral responsibility to help the staff they are replacing to learn new skills?Future-proofing your jobThe answer may go beyond just the companies – it may need to start in school.The way we currently structure education may no longer be fit for purpose in a world where technology is changing so rapidly.“The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up,” warns Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Initiative on the Digital Economy. “We could end up leaving a lot of people behind.”Brynjolfsson and Paul Clarke, chief technology officer at Ocado, both agree that school and college education need to better prepare pupils for a world where robotic and artificial intelligence will be widespread.<blockquote> The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up </blockquote>In the workplace, employees will also continually require new sets of skills rather than using the same ones over their entire career that could just go obsolete anyway.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pncp\"}}“The distinction between work and learning might need to become more amorphous,” says Chowdhry. “We currently have a dichotomy where those who work need not learn, and those who learn do not work. We need to think about getting away from the traditional five day working week to one where I spend 60% of my time doing my job and 40% learning on a regular basis.”For the majority of us, this could be a crucial switch in our thinking.<a href=\"http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation\">Research by management consultants McKinsey and Company</a> suggests that fewer than 5% of occupations can be entirely automated by existing technology. The reason – our jobs are simply too varied and changeable for robots to take on all the tasks.Instead, they predict around 60% of occupations could see a third of the activities they currently do being farmed out to machines. This will mean that most of us will probably be able to cling onto our jobs, but the way we do them is going to change significantly.Robots will complement you, not replace youLearning how to work alongside robots could be essential, too.“We can have cases where machines pick up some of the repetitive work to free up humans to do other more rewarding aspects of their job,” explains James Manyika, senior partner at McKinsey who has led much of their research into the impacts of automation. “This could put a massive downward pressure on wages because the machine is now doing all the hard work. It could also mean more people could do that job aided by the technology, so there is more competition.”There are wider issues at stake here too. With lower incomes and potential unemployment looming for middle-income workers, governments themselves could face some fundamental problems, like lost taxes and dissatisfied voting classes.Luckily, there are some things humans can do that machines just can’t right now.One good example of this comes from some work by researchers in Singapore, who are attempting to teach two autonomous <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.04806v1.pdf\">robotic arms to assemble a flat-packed Ikea chair</a>. Despite using some of the most advanced equipment around, the machines struggle with the most basic tasks.Even identifying different objects from a chaotic mixture of parts is a major challenge for robots. In a recent test, it took the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQ_WW_WsEQ\">two robots more than a minute and half to successful insert a piece of dowelling into one of the chair legs</a>.And that's just one piece of furniture. “The real challenges occur when you want that robot to assemble several items of furniture,” Hawes explains. “A robot might be able to put together an Ikea chest of drawers, but it will struggle to then do a wardrobe from the same line, as the pieces will be different, even if some of the assembly steps are the same. Humans don’t have that problem.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn0w\"}}The human advantageFrom better flexibility to better personalities, there are some things we may always do better than robots.“As we automate a lot of the repetitive work, we are going to see increased demand for creative skills,” says Brynjolfsson. “We are also going to see an increased demand for those with social skills, interpersonal skills, who are nurturing, caring, teaching, persuasive, have negotiating skills, and are good at selling.”Frey thinks there are a few areas where humans have the advantage.“The first is social interactions,” says Frey. “If we think about the variety of complex social interactions we do in our daily jobs – when we negotiate, or try to persuade people, assist others or take care of customers. We manage teams and so on. It is almost inconceivable that computers will intrude upon human workers who do that.”<blockquote> We are going to see increased demand for creative skills </blockquote>Another is creativity. Computers are good at grinding down problems and performing repetitive tasks without getting bored. Humans, however, find this kind of monotonous work tedious.The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy has even set up a <a href=\"https://www.mitinclusiveinnovation.com/\">$1 million challenge</a> aimed at encouraging businesses to make the most of these typically “human traits” alongside technology.“The amount we currently pay people like nannies and carers for the elderly is atrocious,” says McKinsey’s Manyika. “Similarly, there is plenty of artistic and creative work that has never made any money. The challenge is how we pay for and value creative output, or other tasks we are not willing to let machines do.”Alex Harvey, head of research at Ocado Technology, which develops the software and tech for the company's retail arm, points out that the world has been designed and built for humans, and building robots to operate in these naturally complicated environments is a major technical challenge.One of the projects Ocado is working on with universities around Europe is a robotic assistant for maintenance work called SecondHands, which illustrates how humans and robots might collaborate.“It has the ability to lift things to a greater height than a human, for example,” explains Harvey. “It is quite a simple robot in terms of its behavioural repertoire, but it can form a nice team where the human technician is the leader and they can use the muscular power of the robot.”But the closer humans and machines work together, the murkier the ethical waters start to get.The ethics problemAround 1.7 million robots are already in use around the world, but they are largely used in industrial settings where few humans are allowed to set foot. As that number grows, and the roles they perform expand, the likelier humans are to work hand in hand with robots, side by side – increasing the risk of harm.“There needs to be more transparency so we can understand how these things do the things they do and behave the way they do,” urges Mady Delvaux, vice chair of the committee on legal affairs at the European Parliament.She recently led an effort in the parliament to push for <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20170210IPR61808/robots-and-artificial-intelligence-meps-call-for-eu-wide-liability-rules\">rules on robotics and artificial intelligence</a>.A <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/571379/IPOL_STU(2016)571379_EN.pdf\">report compiled for the European Parliament</a> stressed there was urgent need for new legislation on liability should accidents happen. Similar issues of liability arise should a robot take actions that break the law. An AI algorithm, for example, could choose to make a series of financial transactions that achieve its goals, but lie outside the tangled web of regulations that govern the sector.Delvaux and her colleagues also called for a Code of Ethics to help guide our relationship with robots.<blockquote> Recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can develop sexist and racist tendencies </blockquote>“There have to be some things that are respected, like the autonomy of people and their privacy,” says Delvaux.This perhaps also highlights another issue troubling many dealing with artificial intelligence – the problem of bias. Machine learning systems are only as good as the data they are given to learn on, and recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/even-artificial-intelligence-can-acquire-biases-against-race-and-gender\">develop sexist and racist tendencies</a>.Delvaux also points to the people who are writing the algorithms in the first place. The majority of people working in the technology industry are <a href=\"https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/\">white males</a>, with men making up between <a href=\"http://www.techrepublic.com/article/diversity-stats-10-tech-companies-that-have-come-clean/\">70% and 90% of the employees</a> at some of the biggest and most influential companies.Silicon Valley has been rocked over the past couple of years with <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39025288\">scandals about sex discrimination</a>. It has raised fears that robots and machines could display similar discriminatory behaviour.“It is a very thin slice of the population currently designing our technologies,” warns Judy Wajcman, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. “Technology needs to reflect society, so there needs to be a shift in the design and innovation process.”Meanwhile, Bill Gates recently suggested yet another ethical red flag: that robots themselves may have to be <a href=\"https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/\">taxed to make up for lost levies on income</a> from employees. Others have suggested as robots take on more tasks, there could be a <a href=\"http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html\">growing case for universal basic income</a>, where everyone receives state benefits.Much of this, of course, assumes that robots are actually capable of doing the jobs we set them. Despite their apparent intelligence, most robots are still pretty dumb contraptions when compared to our own capabilities.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pmv0\"}}Machines have a ways to goLike the Ikea example, AI leaves a lot of room for improvement.Perhaps one of the greatest issues facing the machine learning and artificial intelligence community currently is understanding how their algorithms work. “Things like artificial intelligence and machine learning are still largely black boxes,” argues Manyika. “We can’t open them up to find out how they got the answer they produce.”This presents a number of issues. Machine learning systems and modern AI are usually trained using large sets of images or data that are fed in to allow them to recognise patterns and trends. They can then use this to spot similar patterns when they are given new data.This might be fine if we want to find CT scans that show signs of disease, for example, but if we use a similar system to identify a suspect from a fragment of CCTV footage, knowing how it did this may be crucial when presenting the evidence to a jury.Even in the field of autonomous vehicles, this ability to generalise remains a considerable challenge.Takeo Kanade, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the pioneers of self-driving vehicles and an expert in computer vision. He says giving robots a “genuine understanding” of the world around them is still a technical challenge that needs to be overcome.“It is not just about identifying where objects are,” he explains, following a lecture at the inaugural Kyoto Prize at Oxford event, where he outlined the problems facing researchers. “The technology has to be able to understand what the world is doing around them.  For example, is that person actually going to cross the road in front of them, or not?”Hawes himself encountered a similar problem with one of his own projects that put <a href=\"http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2016/06/betty-the-autonomous-robot-starts-work-as-trainee-office-manager.aspx\">an autonomous “trainee office manager”</a> into several offices in the UK and Austria.The team programmed the robot, called Betty, to trundle around the offices monitoring for clutter building up, checking whether fire doors were closed, measuring noise and counting workers at their desks outside normal hours.“Things would appear in the environment like chairs moving, people shifting their desks or pot plants,” he says. “Dealing with that without reprogramming the whole robot is challenging.”But even though the robot wasn’t perfect, the humans still found a way of working alongside it.Surprisingly, those working alongside Betty actually responded to their mechanical worker in a positive way, even coming to its aid if the robot ever got stuck in a corner. “People would say hello to it in the morning and said it made the office more interesting to work in,” says Hawes.If we can hand the tedious, repetitive bits of our jobs to machines then it could free us up to some of the things we actually enjoy. “Work has the potential to become more interesting as a result,” says Frey.It is a tantalising thought, that just perhaps, the rise of the machines could make our jobs a lot more human.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">at the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-23T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How automation will affect you – the experts’ view","HeadlineShort":"How automation will affect you","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","SummaryShort":"The myths, misconceptions and reality","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-23T06:44:37.578576Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"68ff2c73-abdc-4cbe-a4cf-92d05dd8eac4","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-23T10:20:11.716207Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","_id":"5982d85c543960df95e040f7"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"It's been called the 'next oil'. In the coming decades, the supply of water has the potential to influence geopolitics, diplomacy and even conflict.","SummaryShort":"It's the 'next oil', and could shape global politics for decades to come","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d40a543960df95dfa4dd"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand 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Meena Kadri/Flickr/CC BY-ND-2.0)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4q/1v/p04q1vpb.jpg","Title":"Dabbaflickr","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04q1vpb","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04q1vpb","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04q1vpb","_id":"598322030b1947497fce0b9c"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[{"Duration":116,"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"videopid","Guid":"","Id":"p04pcc1b","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Thumbnail":[],"Title":"Dabbawala subtitled interview","Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:videopid:p04pcc1b","Vpid":"p04pcc1h","_id":"5985a1da0b1947497fcf5c20"}],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"Read our in-depth feature about the dabbawala: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170114-the-125-year-old-network-that-keeps-mumbai-going\">The unsurpassed 125-year-old network that feeds Mumbai</a>(Photo credit: Meena Kadri/Flickr/CC BY-ND-2.0)Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-01-19T18:40:41.386Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The ingenious codes of India’s ‘dabbawalas’","HeadlineShort":"The ingenious codes of the ‘dabbawalas’","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The dabbawalas of India – possibly the world’s best food delivery service – use a clever numerical code to ensure that lunch is always delivered on-time to the right place in Mumbai’s bustling metropolis. All is explained in the video above.\n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Future Video"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-04-14T09:52:41.441132Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"3be2792f-be99-4a95-9114-639c35b74e02","Id":"tag/future-video","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:32:31.487954Z","Project":"","Slug":"future-video"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/future-video","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4845"}],"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"The dabbawalas of India – possibly the world’s best food delivery service – use a clever numerical code to ensure that lunch is always delivered to the right place.\n","SummaryShort":"How the world's best food delivery service never fails an order","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Future Video","CreationDateTime":"2016-04-14T09:52:41.441132Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"3be2792f-be99-4a95-9114-639c35b74e02","Id":"tag/future-video","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:32:31.487954Z","Project":"","Slug":"future-video"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-04-14T09:52:41.441132Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"3be2792f-be99-4a95-9114-639c35b74e02","Id":"tag/future-video","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:32:31.487954Z","Project":"","Slug":"future-video"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/future-video","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4845"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-19T18:51:44.710859Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"58c4ff74-4b28-4125-aac1-825050be783e","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170119-the-ingenious-codes-of-indias-dabbawalla","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-03T13:15:35.205873Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170119-the-ingenious-codes-of-indias-dabbawalla"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-19T18:51:44.710859Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"58c4ff74-4b28-4125-aac1-825050be783e","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170119-the-ingenious-codes-of-indias-dabbawalla","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-03T13:15:35.205873Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170119-the-ingenious-codes-of-indias-dabbawalla"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170119-the-ingenious-codes-of-indias-dabbawalla","_id":"59855ea10b1947497fcf3a0d"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":171046,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/nh/p056nhlp.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/nh/p056nhlp.jpg","Title":"nuclear8.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056nhlp","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056nhlp","_id":"5981d4dc0b1947497fccca84"}],"AssetImagePromo":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":210217,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/nf/p056nftm.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/nf/p056nftm.jpg","Title":"nuclear1.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056nftm","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056nftm","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056nftm","_id":"5981d4db0b1947497fccc97d"}],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":259585,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/ng/p056nghb.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Not all nuclear rallies are anti. In Tehran, this student holds a sign backing Iran's nuclear programme (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/ng/p056nghb.jpg","Title":"nuclear5.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056nghb","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056nghb","_id":"598573cd0b1947497fcf44f1"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":411855,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/ng/p056ngpy.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"The expensive, hazardous process of decommissioning old nuclear plants has been a grand energy challenge for decades. Will it continue to be? (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/ng/p056ngpy.jpg","Title":"nuclear6.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056ngpy","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056ngpy","_id":"598573cc0b1947497fcf44ef"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":322454,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/nh/p056nh39.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"To help manage the nuclear infrastructure we already have in place, we could use robots to do the dangerous scouting or decontaminating jobs (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/nh/p056nh39.jpg","Title":"nuclear7.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056nh39","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056nh39","_id":"598573ce0b1947497fcf44f2"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":518657,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/ng/p056ng2c.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Humans have lived side-by-side nuclear power for decades. But price, safety, and renewable energy options are changing the conversation (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/ng/p056ng2c.jpg","Title":"nuclear2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056ng2c","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056ng2c","_id":"598573ce0b1947497fcf44f3"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":148332,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/ng/p056ng58.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"In the 1950s, nuclear energy was touted by many as the wonder fuel poised to power the future. But it's ended up fuelling controversy (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/ng/p056ng58.jpg","Title":"nuclear3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056ng58","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056ng58","_id":"598573cc0b1947497fcf44ee"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":557904,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/56/ng/p056ngcn.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Over 800 protesters, including some Fukushima refugees, denounced nuclear energy at this demonstration in Tokyo in March 2016 (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Nuclear","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/56/ng/p056ngcn.jpg","Title":"nuclear4.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p056ngcn","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p056ngcn","_id":"598573cd0b1947497fcf44f0"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"Chris Baraniuk is a science and technology journalist based in\nLondon. He writes for New Scientist, Wired and The Economist among others and\nhas a website at <a href=\"http://chrisbaraniuk.com\">chrisbaraniuk.com</a>. His\nTwitter handle is <a href=\"https://twitter.com/machinestarts\">@machinestarts</a>.","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Chris Baraniuk","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:16:36Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"ed6f09fe-dd94-47e1-9f89-4fe77e95c3cc","Id":"wwfuture/author/chris-baraniuk","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-24T08:58:03.77381Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"chris-baraniuk"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/chris-baraniuk","_id":"5981d23b0b1947497fcb89b5"}],"BodyHtml":"At a quarter to four in the afternoon on Friday, 11 March 2011, a 14-metre tsunami crashed over the defensive seawall at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. But the seawall was only designed to protect the plant, situated on Japan’s eastern coast, from waves no higher than 5.7 metres.What followed was a tragedy that highlighted the grand challenge of managing nuclear energy – a powerful, complicated, expensive source of power.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p056ng2c\"}}Fukushima Daiichi’s own electricity supply had been shut down about an hour earlier that day, after the 9.0 magnitude earthquake that caused the waves. Cooling of the reactors – needed to stop them overheating  – was therefore reliant on diesel generators. But the 14-metre wave disabled most of these, washing fuel tanks away. Three reactors went into meltdown as a result.<a href=\"http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/safety-and-security/safety-of-plants/fukushima-accident.aspx\">The earthquake and tsunami claimed the lives of three workers</a> of the plant – and nearly 16,000 lives of people in the region. More than 100,000 local people were evacuated and the plant is still the subject of <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/09/fukushima-nuclear-cleanup-falters-six-years-after-tsunami\">a large and troubled clean-up project</a> – which <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-38131248\">has been estimated</a> to cost $100bn.“I was at the [US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] during the Fukushima disaster,” recalls William Magwood IV, Director-General of the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA).“Anyone in our organisation that day would tell you it didn’t feel like it was in Japan, it felt like it was in the US. We took it very personally.”Nuclear energy has long struggled to convince sceptics, fearful of accidents and the long-term hazards of radioactive waste.But these issues are now compounded with market forces currently favouring cheap fossil fuels, like natural gas, over the high cost of installing new nuclear power stations. Can atom-splitting keep up? Will nuclear energy survive the 21st Century?{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p056ng58\"}}One-time energy poster childAfter Fukushima, the industry “rallied”, adds Magwood, pointing out that ever since, regulators and technicians have been working on nuclear safety and plant design to try and ensure a similar accident cannot happen again.But it’s important not to understate the impact Fukushima had on the nuclear industry. Partly as a result of the disaster, Germany decided to <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-13592208\">phase out nuclear power altogether by 2022</a>. And some places closer to Fukushima geographically were even more disturbed by the incident. Even South Korea, which has spent years building up its nuclear energy industry, is <a href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/seoul-nuclear-energy_us_57d03babe4b03d2d4597b38e\">now considering scaling back</a>. Public opinion of nuclear power <a href=\"https://theconversation.com/six-years-after-fukushima-much-of-japan-has-lost-faith-in-nuclear-power-73042\">in Japan itself has been severely rocked</a>, too.<blockquote> Nuclear energy has long struggled to convince sceptics, fearful of accidents and the long-term hazards of radioactive waste </blockquote>“I was in Hawaii after [the Fukushima incident] and there were extreme fears in Hawaii of radiation getting to us,” remembers Robert Rapier at green energy firm <a href=\"http://www.agigreentech.com/\">Advanced Green Innovations</a>.“If you asked in Hawaii whether they want a nuclear plant, they would say, ‘Absolutely not, not anywhere near’.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p056ngcn\"}}It is a far cry from the hype of the 1950s, when <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mz1XNp2rjV0\">promotional films about nuclear power</a> told people that it might provide a practically endless energy supply. It could even routinely power ships, planes and trains – not just giant power stations supplying entire cities. It was a time when nuclear power was still being theorised as a large-scale energy source, but scientists already knew the power of nuclear fission. The possibilities seemed endless.But today, in some places, it seems like nuclear just can’t catch a break. <a href=\"http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-swiss-energy-idUKKBN18H0HM\">The Swiss recently voted</a> to ban nuclear power plants and invest in renewable energy instead – a sign that in some markets at least, renewables are winning over the public.And yet, many countries have by no means given up on nuclear power.Some nations remain undeterredThis year, China plans to finish building <a href=\"http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP-China-sets-out-nuclear-plans-for-2017-0203174.html\">five new reactors – and start working on eight more</a>. France is still hugely reliant on nuclear since <a href=\"http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/france.aspx\">it provides roughly 75% of its energy</a>. And the UK recently approved the construction of <a href=\"https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/hpc_building_britains_low-carbon_future_-_july_2016.pdf\">Hinkley Point C, a 3.2 gigawatt plant</a>, which will be the country’s largest in terms of generating capacity.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p056nghb\"}}Those who argue that it is a bad idea to dismiss nuclear power – <a href=\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/nuclear-power-must-make-a-comeback-for-climate-s-sake/\">including former Nasa climate scientist James Hansen</a> – point out that the variability of renewable energy makes it very difficult for large, developed countries in particular to rely on. The late Prof Sir David MacKay, the UK’s former chief scientific adviser, also said that wind, solar and biomass from plant-based sources <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/03/idea-of-renewables-powering-uk-is-an-appalling-delusion-david-mackay\">would need to cover huge swathes of Britain’s land and sea</a> – and cost too much – to provide all of the nation’s energy.These projections continue to be the subject of some debate, but those who back nuclear energy believe it is practically the only way of providing a reliable base load – the minimum energy requirements for a country – without excessive carbon emissions or other forms of pollution.<blockquote> The variability of renewable energy makes it very difficult for large, developed countries in particular to rely on </blockquote>Nuclear energy still has something of an image problem. Keen observers like Rapier say the plants could be designed to be safer than they are today. He advocates “fail-safe” systems, where even catastrophic loss of power and back-up generation would not stop reactors from being able to cool themselves or enter a safer state of operation. Reactors <a href=\"https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602051/fail-safe-nuclear-power/\">cooled with molten salt are currently being researched</a> at the Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, for example. In theory, they can’t suffer the disastrous meltdowns that can occur in traditional designs.This is because the fuel in the reactor is dissolved into molten salt, which reaches very high temperatures of around 700C. As this fuel expands during nuclear fission, some of it is pushed away into a circulation loop away from the main reaction. That keeps a check on activity in the reactor.Sky-high costsA more immediate concern for many in the industry, perhaps, is the high cost of nuclear energy when compared to cheaper alternatives– notably natural gas, <a href=\"http://oilprice.com/Energy/Gas-Prices/Natural-Gas-Bulls-Crushed-As-Prices-Tank.html\">the price of which has recently crashed</a>. In the US for example, it was recently reported that the energy cost per kilowatt hour from a new nuclear power plant <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/05/16/natural-gas-is-replacing-nuclear-power-not-renewables/#469be872cdb6\">is 2 cents higher</a> than that from a new natural gas plant. That’s a big enough difference to deter investors, especially because new nuclear facilities cost much more to build than natural gas stations.Nuclear proponents like Matthew Wald at the <a href=\"https://www.nei.org/\">US Nuclear Energy Institute</a> argue that goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions must be combined with investment in nuclear infrastructure.“We disagree that the market is working because among the benefits that the market wants but does not presently pay for is clean air,” he explains. “In some [US] states there is an explicit goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.”He suggests that grid regional transmission organisations (which decide how electricity supplies are routed between states) in the US could, for example, adjust electricity prices based on carbon emissions so that cleaner resources become more competitive. That would likely take a lot of political will, however.Magwood says the market is essentially “dysfunctional” in many developed countries, due to the short-term attitude of those eyeing fossil fuel investments. He suggests this effect has helped to stall nuclear, though he acknowledges the extremely high cost of building new plants. The plants may last between 50 and 100 years in the end, but they remain difficult for investors to stomach, thanks to energy sources like new gas-fired facilities being comparatively cheap to set up.To take an example: Hinkley Point C, the UK’s latest nuclear project, could end up costing £37bn ($47bn) to build and run, <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/07/hinkley-point-c-nuclear-plant-costs-up-to-37bn\">some have estimated</a>.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p056ngpy\"}}The challenge of dismantlingAnd then there is the cost of dismantling a plant once it can no longer be used to generate electricity. This process, decommissioning, takes decades and has many of its own safety risks due to radiation and the complexity of the structures.Kym Jarvis, a scientist and entrepreneur at <a href=\"http://www.viridian-tc.co.uk/News/ArtMID/432/ArticleID/5/Professor-Kym-Jarvis-is-among-34-female-entrepreneurs-shortlisted-for-Innovate-UK%E2%80%99s-infocus-awards\">Viridian Consultants</a> has helped to develop new technology that may help those working in such conditions to eventually decommission nuclear plants in the future. It’s called the Viridiscope and allows small pieces of, for example, a concrete wall to be removed – or ablated – with a laser, so they can then be analysed for radioactivity. It can even be mounted on a robot to quickly reach areas higher up without the need to erect scaffolding. The Viridiscope will be trialled at five nuclear sites in the UK by spring 2018.Jarvis and her colleagues are working on tools like this that they hope will make the decommissioning process safer and faster. That might sustain nuclear energy’s appeal in the 21st Century, but she notes that the nuclear industry, traditionally, has not adopted new technologies very quickly.<blockquote> Decommissioning takes decades and has many of its own safety risks due to radiation and the complexity of the structures </blockquote>“It doesn’t take on innovation and change very well and I think it knows that,” she says. “We’ve noticed in the past 12 to 18 months that the willingness to look at new innovation is becoming much better.”But there are all sorts of snags when working in this highly complicated area that businesses elsewhere don’t have to think about.“There is the possibility that our equipment will become contaminated and we can never have it back again – and we can’t get insurance for that,” explains Jarvis, pointing out one example.Prices need to dropThe cost of nuclear infrastructure will have to come down, says Kirsty Gogan, an environmental campaigner at <a href=\"http://energyforhumanity.org/en/about-efh/\">Energy for Humanity</a>. She suggests moving towards reactors or reactor components that can be more easily and cheaply mass produced in factories.Smaller, “modular” reactors have recently been proposed as a potential way to achieve this. Perhaps they will help nuclear facilities survive as a more sustainable option in the 21st Century.Companies behind the <a href=\"https://www.sciencealert.com/miniature-modular-nuclear-power-plants-are-being-implemented-in-the-us\">development of these devices, including NuScale</a>, argue that they would be easier to produce and install – and also perhaps safer because the designs might be well understood across the industry.There’s the possibility that they could be more easily exported to other countries and shipped to emerging markets, as well. But <a href=\"http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-a-environment/166609-the-problems-with-small-nuclear-reactors\">there are downsides</a>.These smaller, easier-to-install movable reactors still need to be contained safely, and the cost of building multiple containments for small reactors at many different sites would be very great.On the other hand, containing more than a few at a single site could make the project comparable in cost and complexity to existing, larger reactor designs, some say.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p056nh39\"}}New reactor design?Research into novel reactor designs continues, however. Another option is the Travelling Wave Reactor (TWR), which would use deleted uranium - a byproduct of the <a href=\"http://www.world-nuclear.org/nuclear-basics/how-is-uranium-ore-made-into-nuclear-fuel.aspx\" target=\"_blank\">process of enrichment</a> (enrichment increases the proportion of Uranium-235 in the material so it can be used in conventional reactors). In a TWR, a small amount of Uranium-235, which is able to undergo nuclear fission, is inserted within a mass of Uranium-238. Proponents believe that makes it a more efficient and more dependable energy source“It starts to breed fissionable material – and it consumes that fuel as it builds up,” says John Gilleland, <a href=\"http://terrapower.com/people/john-gilleland\">chief technical officer of TerraPower</a>, pointing out that this might reduce the need for enrichment plants. That could make the nuclear fuel supply chain simpler and less expensive. “This goes on indefinitely.”In fact, the reaction could continue for a few decades. Gilleland says TerraPower is in a position to start construction on a working reactor within a couple of years from now.What to do with waste?Of course, there remains the issue of what to do with nuclear waste. Nuclear fuel – say, a uranium rod – becomes waste when the atoms within it have been bombarded with neutrons. Some of those atoms within the rod get broken up in this process, changing the element in the material and forming highly radioactive isotopes.Spent fuel and radioactive power plant materials remain dangerous for thousands of years.Many experts agree that deep geological repositories, into which tightly sealed containers of waste can be buried within concrete and rock, are the best solution. Finland and Germany are two countries pushing ahead with plans for these. But the long-term stability of such facilities has never been tested – which understandably <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170216-the-ambitious-plan-to-bury-nuclear-waste-in-an-old-mine\">can cause concern to those living near them</a>.The short-term energy market may not be very favourable to nuclear energy right now in some places, but clean energy advocates have started to take the industry under their wing. A good case-in-point is California, where protestors recently called for the Diablo Canyon <a href=\"https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/06/21/pro-nuclear-march-from-san-francisco-to-sacramento-on-june-24th/#2b62a8b16da4\">nuclear power plant to remain open</a>.The costs of opening a new plant remain prohibitive and there are investment risks involved that surely put many off these projects – hence industry desire for governments to roll out nuclear-friendly policy.But the enthusiasts make a good point. A nuclear power plant lasts much longer than many renewable energy assets like wind turbines.Plus, if carefully designed and managed, it can actually be a very clean and safe source of power. For many, that’s just what the future needs.“You’re building an asset that could run for 80 years,” says Wald, “You have to be thinking far ahead.”--Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">special series</a>, Future Now takes a close look at the biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T11:16:12.756515Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3f52a790-5ab8-424b-928b-263e268e37b9","Id":"wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:17:22.643245Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb9200"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-23T17:02:26Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How should we manage nuclear energy?","HeadlineShort":"Is nuclear power worth it?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"The promise of the 1950s, that nuclear energy would supply practically all of our energy, has faded. What's the future of the expensive, powerful, complicated energy source?","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The promise of the 1950s - that nuclear energy would supply practically all of our energy - has faded. What's the future of this expensive, powerful, complicated energy source?","SummaryShort":"The challenge of managing the powerful, complicated energy source","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d5c50b1947497fcd49b0"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-23T09:18:59.891557Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"4add57b3-681b-4a62-b3c1-5b1a5ba7c6ee","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-10T20:36:53.699063Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-23T09:18:59.891557Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"4add57b3-681b-4a62-b3c1-5b1a5ba7c6ee","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-10T20:36:53.699063Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170622-how-will-we-manage-nuclear-energy-in-the-21st-century","_id":"598573ce0b1947497fcf44f4"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":186172,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/57/vv/p057vvsm.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Climate change","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/vv/p057vvsm.jpg","Title":"climate4.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p057vvsm","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p057vvsm","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p057vvsm","_id":"5981d4dc0b1947497fccc9d8"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":436657,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/57/vv/p057vvsz.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Climate change is forcing us to pivot to renewable energies like solar, which fuels job demand in those sectors (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Climate change","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/vv/p057vvsz.jpg","Title":"climate2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p057vvsz","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p057vvsz","_id":"5985ee640b1947497fcf852d"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":254963,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/57/vv/p057vvwl.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"French president Emmanuel Macron has voiced interest in attracting scientists, researchers and other highly skilled workers to France to fight climate change (Credit: Getty)","SynopsisShort":"Climate change","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/vv/p057vvwl.jpg","Title":"climate3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p057vvwl","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p057vvwl","_id":"5985ee650b1947497fcf852f"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":414273,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/57/vv/p057vvv5.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Seawalls are being built and repaired in coastal areas that face rising sea levels due to climate change - which requires able-bodied workers (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Climate change","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/57/vv/p057vvv5.jpg","Title":"climate1.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p057vvv5","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p057vvv5","_id":"5985ee640b1947497fcf852e"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"The editor of <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/britain\">BBC Britain</a>, Amanda Ruggeri is a journalist who has written for the Globe & Mail, Guardian, New York Times, New York Magazine, National Geographic Traveler and the Atlantic. ","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Amanda Ruggeri","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-06-17T15:59:58.147018Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"d4c5cf67-cd24-46b3-8dc1-17b77b9bf385","Id":"wwfuture/author/amanda-ruggeri","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-06-17T16:07:42.931965Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"amanda-ruggeri"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/amanda-ruggeri","_id":"5981d2390b1947497fcb873c"}],"BodyHtml":"When we think of climate change, most of us think of environmental consequences like rising sea levels, elevated temperatures and melting glaciers.In some parts of the world, like <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise\">south Florida</a> or <a href=\"https://psmag.com/news/thanks-to-climate-change-the-alps-are-losing-snow\">the mountains of Switzerland</a>, those shifts already are affecting daily life. In Miami, for example, wastewater treatment plants are being re-built higher, seawalls raised and car parks designed with flood gates – not only in response to flooding today, but with an eye to the sea levels of tomorrow.But experts say that those effects may only be the tip of the (melting) iceberg. Climate change is shaking up everything from finance to health. As a result, it isn’t only urban planners in at-risk areas who will have to shift their framework for planning for the future. From financial planners to farmers, civil engineers to doctors, an increasingly wide range of other professionals are likely to find their industries affected.That means there may be another consequence of climate change that often gets overlooked: what it means for your career.“Everyone is going to need to understand [climate change] the same way you’d assume everyone in business needs to have some fluency in social media today, or that everyone would able to use a computer 20 years ago,” says Andrew Winston, author of the book <a href=\"http://www.andrewwinston.com/books/\">The Big Pivot: Radically Practical Strategies for a Hotter, Scarcer, and More Open World</a>.<blockquote> Everyone is going to need to understand [climate change] the same way you’d assume everyone in business needs to have some fluency in social media today - Andrew Winston, author </blockquote>Because it is difficult to know exactly how dramatic the effects of climate change will be, it is hard to know just how much it will affect various industries. But some of the changes already are being seen. Climate-related disasters like droughts and hurricanes, for example, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe\">are hitting pocketbooks and insurance premiums</a> – even for people living on the other side of the world. Meanwhile, the complicated supply chains of a globalised retail industry mean that a disruption in one place can cause consequences elsewhere. <a href=\"http://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-quake-toyota-idUSKCN0XE08O\">That was shown recently when earthquakes hit Japan in April 2016,</a> damaging plants that sold parts to Toyota and forcing the auto giant to suspend production.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p057vvsz\"}}Even the health industry may be affected. As well as affecting the availability of clean water and food, warmer weather is increasing the vulnerability of areas already at risk of diseases like malaria and dengue. The <a href=\"https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/el-nino-and-global-warming-blamed-for-zika-spread/\">recent Zika epidemic may have been exacerbated</a> by warmer weather patterns. Between 2030 and 2050, <a href=\"http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/\">the World Health Organisation predicts</a> that climate change will cause roughly 250,000 additional deaths per year.“One of the most interesting things that hasn’t been talked a lot about, but that there’s a lot of work on in WHO and NIH, is what’s coming at us in terms of disease, and how the weather is changing and spreading diseases and epidemics faster,” says Michelle DePass, dean of the Milano School of International Affairs, Management, and Urban Policy at the New School in New York. “We might listen to the BBC to hear all about Ebola and other things, and not quite grasp that we are very, very vulnerable to [these kinds of epidemics] here in the United States, as well, because of what’s happening with climate.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p057vvwl\"}}In fact, this year, the <a href=\"http://reports.weforum.org/global-risks-2017/\">World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report</a>, which draws on assessments from 750 experts, found that one of the five biggest risks faced by the world in 2017, in terms of potential impact, is weapons of mass destruction. All of the four others are climate-related: extreme weather events, water crises, major natural disasters, and failure of climate-change mitigation and adaptation.<blockquote> We don’t have the right people with the right skills in the right places - Daniel Kreeger, executive director, Association of Climate Change Officers </blockquote>Despite the size of the challenge, fewer employees are trained in incorporating climate patterns in their planning for the future than should be, says Daniel Kreeger, executive director of the nonprofit <a href=\"https://accoonline.org/\">Association of Climate Change Officers</a>. (One of ACCO’s initiatives is to run training and credentialing programmes in climate-related skills). “We don’t have the right people with the right skills in the right places,” he says.He points to one example: civil engineering. “We don’t expect to get monster inundations of rain, and then drought for six months. We expect to get periodic, smaller amounts of rain. So our systems aren’t equipped to deal with larger rainfalls,” Kreeger says. “When those parameters change, you need a workforce to deal with those changes.“Well, our civil engineers haven’t been trained to deal with climate change in their training. Our urban planners, our city managers, our architects. Nobody’s been taught this stuff.”Hiring climate Right now, <a href=\"https://blog.linkedin.com/2016/10/20/top-skills-2016-week-of-learning-linkedin\">the top 10 most-desired skills for getting hired</a>, according to LinkedIn’s data analysis, all have to do with tech: think cloud computing, SEO marketing and web architecture. In the same way tech has transformed today’s workforce, some say that climate change could transform tomorrow’s.  One industry that already shows some of that evolution is energy. According to data provided by job listings search engine <a href=\"http://www.indeed.com/\">Indeed</a>, in the first quarter of 2014 in the UK, job postings in the renewable energy sector – made up of bioenergy, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, and wind – accounted for a third (32.9%) of all energy-sector job postings in the first quarter of 2014. In 2017, that had risen to over half of all energy sector job postings, or 51.5%.<blockquote> Our civil engineers haven’t been trained to deal with climate change in their training. Our urban planners, our city managers, our architects. Nobody’s been taught this stuff - Daniel Kreeger </blockquote>Although these numbers are UK-specific, the same pattern of a shift to renewables was seen worldwide, says Tara Sinclair, Indeed’s senior fellow and an economist at George Washington University.Those changes have been the result of a variety of factors, including the fall in oil prices and <a href=\"http://www.newsweek.com/coal-industry-dying-no-matter-trump-507079\">competitiveness of natural gas</a>: over the same three years, job postings for oil and coal in the UK fell from two-thirds (66.5%) of the energy sector to under half (47.7%).But it’s also a result of how both employers and job-seekers are becoming interested in mitigating emissions and climate change, says Sinclair. After oil prices declined several years ago, she says, jobs in the oil industry dropped off, as did job-seekers’ interest in them.“Part of it is there are fewer opportunities, and people respond to that they know what the landscape of the labour market is, broadly,” she says. “But also there does seem to be this increasing attractiveness of green economy jobs.”In the same way that many people from the oil and gas industry have been able to transition into green energy, says Sinclair, many employees already should have skills which are transferable to climate change-specific issues. Take production and supply chains.<blockquote> Many employees already should have skills which are transferable to climate change-specific issues </blockquote>“Generally, planning production differently around potentially volatile weather phenomena, etc, is going to be a piece of the skill set you’d be required to have”, Sinclair says. “But I don’t see that that’s so much different than planning around other sorts of destructive phenomena, whether they be political or anything else. I don’t think that as new skill we haven’t seen before.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p057vvv5\"}}Money talksIt remains to be seen how much climate change will affect the expected skill sets for employees in industries less immediately affected by climate change than, say, civil engineering or catastrophe bonds.But even companies in industries that would appear to be less directly affected by climate change are tuning into the issue.Winston, who consults with a variety of businesses to help them get ahead of global trends – one of which is climate change – points to Unilever. The mega-corporation, which makes everything from Dove soap to Magnum ice cream, <a href=\"https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/values-and-values/\">has pledged serious action on a variety of sustainability initiatives</a> – including <a href=\"https://www.unilever.com/sustainable-living/reducing-environmental-impact/greenhouse-gases/our-carbon-positive-ambition/#244-423341\">sourcing 100% of its energy</a> for production from renewable sources by 2030 (it already cut its carbon emissions by 43% from 2008 to 2016). Other companies are working on similarly ambitious initiatives: Coca-Cola, Ikea and Walmart also have committed to 100% renewable energy.If it seems odd that companies seem to be talking the kind of talk heard more at NGOs, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35430228\">it shouldn’t</a>. For one, it appeals to consumers. <a href=\"http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2017-csr-study\">Recent research</a> by Cone Communications, a PR agency for consumer brands, found that 87% of Americans said they would purchase a product because of a company’s alignment on an issue they cared about. It also attracts would-be workers: <a href=\"http://www.conecomm.com/research-blog/2016-millennial-employee-engagement-study\">nearly two-thirds of millennials</a> – the generation that will make up half of all US employees by 2020 – said they take a company’s social and environmental commitments into account when weighing a job offer.But it isn’t just about brand appeal. As Unilever outlines on its site, cutting waste and energy use, for example, means cutting both costs and exposure to price volatility. (The company says it already has shaved €700 million in costs since 2008 in this area alone).Corporate interest in climate change mitigation is also, of course, out of concern for global economic health. <a href=\"http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1010539514568711\">One 2016 study</a> found that simply the effect of rising temperatures on workers’ productivity, particularly in already-warm climates like Asia and Africa, could cost the global economy more than $2 trillion by 2030.“The change in discussions in corporate boardrooms, and companies in general, on climate has been pretty profound,” says Winston. “There isn’t a large company in the world that isn’t talking about sustainability or climate. It’s just not possible to operate your business without talking about this.”Those factors may help explain why <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-40116301\">executives of companies from Goldman Sachs to Facebook expressed anger</a> at President Trump’s announcement to withdraw the US from the Paris Climate Agreement. Some US CEOs, including Walt Disney’s Bob Iger and Tesla’s Elon Musk, <a href=\"https://qz.com/997738/all-the-ceos-who-are-staying-on-trumps-elite-advisory-board-after-the-paris-climate-decision/\">resigned from the president’s advisory board</a> in protest.Another signifier of how much corporations are not only taking climate change seriously, but also valuing climate-related skills, is in the salaries they’re paying people with that kind of expertise.In 2016, <a href=\"https://crsalarysurvey.com/\">a survey of employees</a> working in the corporate responsibility and sustainability sector, most of whom were in North America or Europe, found that the average salary was £61,000 ($87,000 in 2016 values); 12% of respondents earned £100,000 ($143,000) or more. Even in the UK, where the average salary was under that at £57,000, the average corporate responsibility professional pulled in twice the amount of the average full-time UK employee – <a href=\"https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/bulletins/annualsurveyofhoursandearnings/2016provisionalresults#average-earnings\">who in 2016 made £28,000.</a><blockquote> Another signifier of how much corporations are not only taking climate change seriously, but also valuing climate-related skills, is in the salaries they’re paying people with that kind of expertise </blockquote>Still, 63% of the same professionals in the study had a master’s or doctorate. “Frankly, they are underpaid relative to the expertise and value that they offer,” writes director of SystemiQ Jeremy Oppenheim in the study. One explanation, he says, is that “not enough companies still fully appreciate the economic value which the sustainability team brings to their business.”Similarly, says Winston, in their search for potential employees, most human resources departments, particularly in the US, seem to be behind in terms of how much they are weighing potential employees’ climate change competencies. “It’s lagging given the scale of the challenge. That’s because, for so many years, people thought it was political. You wouldn’t get in trouble saying ‘Hey, everyone should be trained in social media’, but you could if you were saying, ‘Hey, everyone should be trained in climate change,” he says.“But,” Winston adds, “that’s changing.” And that shift is already happening, he says – with or without US participation in the Paris Agreement. --Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":null,"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-07-10T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How climate change will transform business and the workforce","HeadlineShort":"How climate change will transform work","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"Our planet is already feeling the effects of climate change, but it’s also poised to cause irreversible shifts in the ways we work, and the skills that employers need. ","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"In a conference room overlooking downtown Miami, British executives are talking about why they know south Florida’s streets so well. It isn’t because of the sunshine. It’s because of the area’s risk for disasters like hurricanes and flooding.“There are hundreds of my colleagues… who know the zip codes of these counties in this part of the world almost as well as the residents here,” says Rowan Douglas, head of capital, science and policy at the London-based risk management group and insurance broker Willis Towers Watson. “This area of the world is protected to some degree by a global community of everyone else who buys their insurance policy. My mother-in-law in northwest Spain is sharing risk with Florida.\"<ul> <li>ALSO READ: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\">Miami's fight against rising seas</a></li> </ul>No policy or premium stands alone. Our global economy is so intertwined that if you buy insurance, you’re helping to cover the fallout from far-away crises, whether an earthquake in Mexico or flood in Louisiana. As a result, nearly everyone’s pocketbook is affected by one simple fact: rebuilding after a major catastrophe nearly always costs more than preparing for it in the first place.And climate-related disasters (like droughts and tropical storms) are getting more common. From 2005 to 2015, the UN found there were 335 weather-related disasters each year across the globe, <a href=\"https://www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf\">almost twice the number seen from 1985-1994</a>. The average catastrophe also is getting more expensive. While the inflation-adjusted cost of natural disasters was about $30 billion annually in the 1980s, <a href=\"http://media.swissre.com/documents/Closing_the_Gap_2015_FINAL.pdf\">it’s now more than six times that</a>: an average of $182 billion a year.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0530hl8\"}}Governments have improved at implementing policies that protect against some types of disasters. For example, zoning laws can restrict the population living in hurricane-prone areas. But it hasn’t been enough. From 2003 to 2013 alone, <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5128e.pdf\">natural disasters caused $1.5 trillion in damages</a>, killed more than 1.1 million people and affected more than 2 billion. At the same time, it’s not as if governments are finding they have more room in their budgets to clean up a crisis – or to build the resilience measures that could help prevent them.Enter a new idea that could transform not only the global economy, but how disasters affect us: a resilience bond. As well as guaranteeing help to communities after a catastrophe, it would help fund projects and strategies they need to become less vulnerable to begin with. “Resilience bonds are, in my view, the next exciting and innovative frontier in infrastructure and resilience finance,” says Samantha Medlock, former senior advisor to the Obama White House on resilience and now senior vice president at Willis Towers Watson.The concept is part of an overall trend, experts say, that could transform how communities work: as risk modelling has become more and more sophisticated, the private sector is getting closer to being able to turn not only risk, but resilience, into numbers.It’s like a life insurance company being able to tell you not only how likely you, specifically, are to have a heart attack in the next five years, but also exactly how much walking a half hour a day or cutting out red meat could reduce that risk… and <a href=\"http://www.rms.com/perils/liferisks\">what that increase in health is likely to be worth</a>, in cash, to your future.<blockquote> It will be a financial and scientific revolution, and it will save billions of dollars and thousands, if not millions, around the world of lives – Rowan Douglas </blockquote>That ability to put ‘hard numbers’ on what previously have been seen as ‘soft’ concepts, like the value of resilience, is huge, industry insiders say. “It will be a financial and scientific revolution, and it will save billions of dollars and thousands, if not millions, around the world of lives,” says Douglas.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0531j9b\"}}Fix-it mentalityWhen it comes to preparing for future disasters, humanity tends to be woefully optimistic. In the same way that it’s difficult to convince individuals to fork out money for a life insurance policy, it’s tough to get governments to carve out spending for just-in-case scenarios when they also need to prioritise streets and schools.Worldwide, <a href=\"http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/01/17/438996.htm\">just 26% of economic losses</a> due to natural disasters were covered by insurance in 2016. “That means people dying or suffering, and governments and aid agencies and charity and philanthropy filling that gap. Or not filling that gap, as the case may be,” says Daniel Stander, managing director of consulting company <a href=\"http://www.rms.com/\">Risk Management Solutions</a> (RMS), which works with companies and governments to model and manage catastrophe risk.Buying insurance for your household (or city) is one thing. Another is making your community resilient to begin with. Here’s the problem: it’s difficult to pay for something when the risk of doing nothing is hard to quantify.In other words, it’s not enough to only determine how likely a city is to experience a magnitude eight earthquake at a specific depth. You also have to know how many buildings that would destroy, lives it would disrupt – and the likelihood and extent of that financial loss. Without figuring out both the cost and the probability of risk, you can’t determine the value of resilience – like adopting an earthquake-resistant building code.The resulting lack of hard numbers means communities historically haven’t been rewarded upfront for thinking ahead – whether by credit ratings agencies, insurance companies or even their own central governments. And that’s made it difficult to decide to spend on resilience now… rather than kicking the decision to the next mayor or CEO and hoping a disaster won’t happen on your watch.<blockquote> Buying insurance for your household (or city) is one thing. Another is making your community resilient to begin with </blockquote>But that tends to be a bad move long-term – especially as for major crises, making the needed changes now tends to be cheaper than rebuilding after. <a href=\"https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.nibs.org/resource/resmgr/MMC/hms_vol1.pdf\">One recent study</a> reported that each dollar spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) on disaster preparedness in the US saved $4 later. Other cases can be more extreme. One <a href=\"http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pdacp539.pdf\">analysis of flood prevention measures in Kinshasha</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that every dollar spent on measures like constructing small dams, cleaning drainage canals and seeding watersheds with grass saved at least $45.58 during the following rainy season.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05317yw\"}}But with a fix-it ethos still more common than a plan-ahead one, it’s no wonder that governments have found themselves vulnerable to big financial losses. In the US, flooding is the largest source of financial exposure for the federal government after only Medicare and social security. That has led to struggles. In 2011, the worst global natural catastrophe loss year on record, the country had $116 billion in damage claims. Fema’s National Flood Insurance Programme (NFIP), which provides insurance to flood-prone communities, is more than $24 billion in debt. But it wasn’t until September 2016 that NFIP bought its own re-insurance programme, effectively transferring more than $1 billion of risk out of taxpayers’ wallets and into the reinsurance market.People will have to shift their entire thinking about how disaster recovery is funded – and by whom, experts say. “There’s a perception that, following a disaster, the federal government’s role is to make you whole and rebuild homes and infrastructure and community at the federal taxpayer’s expense. And that is simply not true,” Medlock says. “There are limits to what the federal government can – and should – do.”Fat catThe insurance industry itself, which dates back at least 14th-Century Genoa, may make sense for helping to cover that gap. “No one understands the risk of loss from climate hazards better, I would argue, than the insurance industry,” Stander says. “They’ve become experts at translating hazard into damage, and then damage into cold, hard cash.”But many traditional insurance products aren’t quite right for governments. Take a homeowner’s policy. You pay an insurer, who keeps your money, just in case of, say, a burglary. If you do get burgled, you tell the insurer what you lost and they pay back the value of the items. But as anyone who has had to make a claim knows, that process can take weeks or months. You also run the risk that the insurer could argue over the value… or decide to not pay out at all, as New York University found out to its detriment after a 2015 flood, <a href=\"https://www.nyunews.com/2015/11/03/nyu-sues-for-1-47-billion-over-denied-sandy-insurance-coverage/\">leading it to sue its insurer for $1.5 billion in denied coverage</a>.Governments can’t run the risk of losing taxpayers’ money. And when it comes to disaster response, no one wants a delay – not least of all because, with each passing day, losses can escalate. Medlock points out Hurricane Sandy. After it hit the east coast of the US in 2012, it took the US Congress about 90 days to agree on an appropriations package for federal disaster assistance. “That three-month delay is very inefficient,” Medlock says. “It creates tremendous uncertainty for survivors, for communities – and for regional economies.”<blockquote> With a fix-it ethos still more common than a plan-ahead one, it’s no wonder that governments have found themselves vulnerable to big financial losses </blockquote>One innovation developed in response is a parametric catastrophe (or ‘cat’) bond. When you buy a cat bond, the insurer doesn’t hold the money in their bank account – it sits in an account beyond their control, so there’s no chance of it disappearing when you need it. There’s another twist, too: whenever there’s a crisis, you don’t have to tell the insurer (let alone prove) exactly what was lost. Instead, the payout happens automatically as soon as a certain parameter is reached – often as quickly as 48 hours later. For a storm cat bond, it might be when storm surge reaches a certain height. That was the trigger chosen by <a href=\"http://www.mta.info/press-release/mta-headquarters/mta-secures-200-million-insurance-protection-future-sandy-storms\">New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) for its first cat bond</a>, which it issued in response to Hurricane Sandy in 2013. (According to reports, <a href=\"http://www.artemis.bm/blog/2017/05/02/new-york-mta-targets-125m-parametric-metrocat-re-2017-1-cat-bond/\">the MTA is now issuing its second cat bond</a>). It's worth noting that to have an immediate payout, the parameters that trigger a cat bond, like minimum strength of the storm, require certainty and clarity -- a lesson learned, according to reports, after a Mexican cat band took more than three months to pay out after Hurricane Patricia in 2015.The <a href=\"http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/crm/mexico_making_measurable_difference.html\">first federal government to purchase a cat bond was Mexico</a>, which bought a parametric bond in 2006 that was structured by reinsurer Swiss Re to cover damage from earthquakes (and later, hurricanes). Today, says Nikhil da Victoria Lobo, Swiss Re’s Americas leader for global partnerships, some 40 federal governments worldwide have purchased similar protection. “When we started this discussion in 2006, it was about one risk – earthquakes; one country – Mexico; and one transaction – Mexico’s first cat bond. Today, there are so many sovereign nations doing this,” he says.But that’s still only one-quarter of countries worldwide. And whenever governments are unprepared for a catastrophe, the consequences get even worse. The knock-on effect of a disaster can include everything from disrupting supply chains to a power outage that stops production. So far, most entities have been able to manage disruptions, Standard & Poor wrote in a recent <a href=\"https://www.environmental-finance.com/assets/files/How%20Environmental%20And%20Climate%20Risks%20Factor%20Into%20Global%20Corporate%20Ratings%20Oct%2021%202015%20(2).pdf\">report</a>. But “looking ahead,” it added, “the picture is less certain.”If a disaster causes an economic cascade effect, S&P wrote, <a href=\"https://www.agefi.com/uploads/media/S_P_The_Heat_Is_On_How_Climate_Change_Can_Impact_Sovereign_Ratings_25-11-2015.pdf\">in the most extreme cases</a>, certain governments could see a downgrade of four-to-five notches in their credit rating – the equivalent of moving from investment-grade to junk bond status. By affecting everything from car insurance payments to homeowners’ insurance, that’s enough to send a country’s economy into a tailspin.The trick is to prevent disasters from becoming so deadly and damaging to begin with. And that’s where the resilience bond comes in.Pilot projectA <a href=\"http://www.refocuspartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/RE.bound-Program-Report-December-2015.pdf\">resilience bond</a> is “an innovative variation on the cat bond”, says Medlock. It would work like this: imagine City X wants to build higher seawalls or fix its levee, but doesn’t have access to funds. When it goes to buy a multiyear, parametric cat bond for flooding, the insurer takes the expected impact of that planned investment into account and lowers the premium the city has to pay. With that cost saving in the budget, City X now has the money to fund its seawalls and levee – even if no disaster ever occurs.At the moment, this hasn’t happened yet. But it’s close. “We’re probably not years away from this sort of a concept becoming real,” says Medlock. “We could be months away.”One government leader interested in piloting the concept is Greg Guibert, the chief resilience officer of Boulder, Colorado. He recently partnered with the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative for a workshop on innovative solutions for resilience finance. Just a few days later, he says “my head is kind of spinning” from the potential tools he was introduced to – especially the concept of a parametric resilience bond.Like many other local leaders, Guibert has had difficulty with funding resilience. Disaster recovery money came in after a devastating 2013 flood, he says, “but the federal funds have dried up. So we’re looking at more innovative avenues for financing.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05310tk\"}}A resilience bond appeals because you could use a dividend from a resilience bond to capitalise even less infrastructure-based types of resilience programmes, like community-building exercises that strengthen disaster response by encouraging neighbours to look out for one another. “I’m never going to be able to add enough zeros to a city budget required to achieve that otherwise,” Guibert says.But as long as a resilience bond remains untested, it can be a hard sell to others at the local level.“The ultimate value of local government is to protect the residents and property,” says Guibert. “So if you make a large alteration in how you do that, you really want some assurance that you’re making an appropriate choice for our citizens. That can be a hard leap when we’re talking about really major investments.”It isn’t just local governments that would need to come on board before the first resilience bond actually makes a trade. Other entities that are integral for providing financing – like the US Government Finance Officers Association, or rating agencies – will have to agree in the innovation’s merit, too. “Until those people give credit to that decision-maker, and thereby bring down their financing costs, you’re never going to create a tangible and monetised cash flow” to fund the project, says da Victoria Lobo.But from the amount of excitement around the products to <a href=\"https://www.spratings.com/en_US/topic/-/render/topic-detail/climate-change-assessing-the-potential-long-term-effects\">S&P’s increasing recognition of climate change</a>, da Victoria Lobo says, “I think we’re a lot closer than we think we are.”No one knows exactly how much of an effect a product like this could have on encouraging resilience investment. But with both the number and the expense of natural disasters on the rise, it seems fair to say that this kind of incentive won’t come a moment too soon.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>. If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-16T00:01:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"‘Resilience bonds’: A secret weapon against catastrophe","HeadlineShort":"A secret weapon against catastrophe","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The costs of natural disasters are becoming too much to bear – and it’s driving up premiums no matter where you live. The solution may be a transformative type of insurance never seen before.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The costs of natural disasters are becoming too much to bear – and it’s driving up premiums no matter where you live. The solution may be a type of insurance never seen before.","SummaryShort":"A new type of insurance could transform how the world prepares for disasters","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-16T05:23:43.86671Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"63c87aa1-f443-4cb8-8daa-542b9a9da9ae","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-16T06:10:20.334296Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170515-resilience-bonds-a-secret-weapon-against-catastrophe","_id":"5983b8670b1947497fce5dd8"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"The first time my father’s basement flooded, it was shortly after he moved in. The building was an ocean-front high-rise in a small city north of Miami called Sunny Isles Beach. The marble lobby had a waterfall that never stopped running; crisp-shirted valets parked your car for you. For the residents who lived in the more lavish flats, these cars were often BMWs and Mercedes. But no matter their value, the cars all wound up in the same place: the basement.When I called, I’d ask my dad how the building was doing. “The basement flooded again a couple weeks ago,” he’d sometimes say. Or: “It’s getting worse.” It’s not only his building: he’s also driven through a foot of water on a main road a couple of towns over and is used to tiptoeing around pools in the local supermarket’s car park.Ask nearly anyone in the Miami area about flooding and they’ll have an anecdote to share. Many will also tell you that it’s happening more and more frequently. The data backs them up.It’s easy to think that the only communities suffering from sea level rise are far-flung and remote. And while places like the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36255749\">Solomon Islands</a> and <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/world/asia/climate-change-kiribati.html?_r=0\">Kiribati</a> are indeed facing particularly dramatic challenges, they aren’t the only ones being forced to grapple with the issue. Sea levels are rising around the world, and in the US, south Florida is ground zero – as much for the adaptation strategies it is attempting as for the risk that it bears.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykt1\"}}One reason is that water levels here are rising especially quickly. The <a href=\"http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Compact-Unified-Sea-Level-Rise-Projection.pdf\">most frequently-used range of estimates</a> puts the likely range between 15-25cm (6-10in) above 1992 levels by 2030, and 79-155cm (31-61in) by 2100. With tides higher than they have been in decades – and far higher than when this swampy, tropical corner of the US began to be drained and built on a century ago – many of south Florida’s drainage systems and seawalls are no longer enough. That means not only more flooding, but challenges for the infrastructure that residents depend on every day, from septic tanks to wells. “The consequences of sea level rise are going to occur way before the high tide reaches your doorstep,” says William Sweet, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).The flooding would be a challenge for any community, but it poses particular risks here. One <a href=\"https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Changing-Tides_FINAL_LOW-RES-081516.ashx\">recent report</a> estimated that Miami has the most to lose in terms of financial assets of any coastal city in the world, just above Guangzhou, China and New York City. This 120-mile (193km) corridor running up the coast from Homestead to Jupiter – taking in major cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach – is the eighth most populous metropolitan area in the US. It’s also booming. In 2015, the US Census Bureau found that the population of all three counties here was growing – along with the rest of Florida – <a href=\"https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/12011,12086\">at around 8%,</a> roughly twice the pace of the US average. Recent studies have shown that <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/nclimate2961.html\">Florida has more residents at risk from climate change</a> than any other US state.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykpp\"}}It has <a href=\"http://riskybusiness.org/report/come-heat-and-high-water-climate-risk-in-the-southeastern-u-s-and-texas/\">more property at risk, too</a>. In Miami-Dade County, <a href=\"http://www.miamidade.gov/business/library/reports/real-estate-market/2016/04-apr-through-06-jun.pdf\">developers had 1.6 million sq ft</a> (149,000 sq m) of office space and 1.8 million of retail space under construction in the second quarter of 2016 alone. Sunny Isles Beach, home to 20,300 people, has eight high-rise buildings under construction; swing a seagull in the air, and you’ll hit a crane. As you might imagine, the value of development in this sun-soaked part of the country is high, too. Property in Sunny Isles alone is now worth more than $10 billion. Many of the wealthiest people in the US reside in Florida, including <a href=\"http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/personalfinance/among-forbes-400-billionaires-florida-gaining-favor-as-a-place-to-call-home/2296459)\">40 billionaires</a> on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans; on a recent week, <a href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/2017/02/06/54m-palm-beach-compound-is-weeks-most-expensive-new-listing.print.html\">the most expensive real estate listing</a> in the US was a $54 million mansion in Palm Beach.Despite <a href=\"http://www.newsweek.com/timeline-every-ridiculous-thing-trump-has-said-about-climate-change-576238\">his history of referring to climate change as a “hoax”</a> and his <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39415631\">recent rollback of emissions-slashing initiatives</a>, President Donald Trump is one of these property owners with a stake in the issue. The president frequently visits his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, 75 miles (121km) north of Miami, which is itself an area <a href=\"http://weatherplus.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2016/10/13/king-tides-rise-again-south-florida-under-a-coastal-flood-advisory/\">experiencing flooding from high tides</a>. There also are six Trump-branded residential buildings in Sunny Isles, one of which still provides the president with income, and a Trump-branded condominium complex in Hollywood.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykfv\"}}Look beyond all the glass and steel, though, and – despite the federal government’s sidelining of the issue – there’s another thrum of activity. It’s the wastewater treatment plant constructing new buildings five feet higher than the old ones. The 105 miles (169km) of roads being raised in Miami Beach. The new shopping mall built with flood gates. The 116 tidal valves installed in Fort Lauderdale. The seawalls being raised and repaired. And the worried conversations between more and more residents every year about what the sea-rise models predict – and what to do about it.The communities aren’t short of solutions. “Nobody’s doing better adaptation work in the country than south Florida,” says Daniel Kreeger, executive director of the nonprofit <a href=\"https://accoonline.org/\">Association of Climate Change Officers</a>. But the question isn’t whether this work will save every community: it won’t. Even those tasked with making their cities resilient admit that, at some point in the future, certain areas here will no longer be “viable” places to live. Rather, the challenge is to do enough to ensure that the economy as a whole continues to thrive and that tourists still come to enjoy the sun, sand – and swelling sea.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykd2\"}}It’s a challenge that many officials and experts are determined to meet. Getting there, though, requires a shift in how everyone from mayors to taxpayers, insurers to engineers, property developers to urban planners thinks about their communities – and the everyday decisions that shape them. The eyes of the world are on them: if one of the richest communities on the planet can’t step up, what hope is there for everyone else?“If the science is correct on this – which it is going to be – the question is, ‘How extreme are the implications?’” says Kreeger. “We are literally going to have to rewrite how businesses function, and how cities are designed. Everything’s going to change. And that’s particularly going to be exacerbated in coastal communities.“This would be no different than if I came to you and said ‘Hey, in 40 years, gravity’s going to change. I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be. But let’s assume roughly between 50% and 80% stronger or weaker than it is now.’ You’d look around and say ‘Shoot, what’s that going to affect?’\"And the answer is: it affects everything.”* Sea level rise is global. But due to a variety of factors – including, for this part of the Atlantic coast, a likely weakening of the Gulf Stream, itself potentially a result of the melting of Greenland’s ice caps – south Floridians are feeling the effects more than many others. While there has been a mean rise of a little more than 3mm per year worldwide since the 1990s, in the last decade, the <a href=\"https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8723214\">NOAA Virginia Key tide gauge</a> just south of Miami Beach has measured a 9mm rise annually.That may not sound like much. But as an average, it doesn’t tell the whole story of what residents see – including more extreme events like king tides (extremely high tides), which have been getting dramatically higher. What’s more, when you’re talking about places like Miami Beach – where, as chief resiliency officer Susanne Torriente jokes, the elevation ranges between “flat and flatter” – every millimetre counts. Most of Miami Beach’s built environment sits at an elevation of 60-120cm (2-6ft). And across the region, underground infrastructure – like aquifers or septic tanks – lies even closer to the water table.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk9v\"}}On a nearly two-hour tour of Fort Lauderdale’s adaptation strategies, the city’s head of sustainability, Nancy Gassman, points out incremental differences in elevation: slight rolls in the sidewalk or paving that usually go unnoticed. “That might seem weird that I’m pointing out a couple of feet difference,” she says. “But a couple feet in south Florida – it’s time. Elevation is time for us.”Not only are sea levels rising, but <a href=\"https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level\">the pace seems to be accelerating</a>. That’s been noted before – but what it means for south Florida was only recently brought home in a <a href=\"https://www.rsmas.miami.edu/users/swdowinski/publications/Wdowinski-et-al-OCM-2016.pdf\">University of Miami study</a>. “After 2006, sea level rose faster than before – and much faster than the global rate,” says the lead author Shimon Wdowinski, who is now with Miami’s Florida International University. From 3mm per year from 1998 to 2005, the rise off Miami Beach tripled to that 9mm rate from 2006.An uptick also happened between the 1930s and 1950s, says Wdowinski, making some question whether this is a similar oscillation. But that’s probably wishful thinking. “It’s not necessarily what we see now. This warming of the planet has been growing for a while,” he says. “It’s probably a different process than what happened 60 years ago.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk6p\"}}“Can we definitely say it’s the ocean warming?” says Sweet, who has authored several sea-level rise studies. “No. But is it indicative of what we’d expect to see? Yes.”Modelling specific future scenarios is difficult – partly because scientists are still collecting and analysing data, partly because there are so many variables. What if the US or China reverses its trend on stabilising emissions? What if a major volcano erupts? What if a glacier melts more quickly than expected? But enough credible projections have been done to put together a range of scenarios that researchers are confident about.One graph compiled in 2015 by the <a href=\"http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/\">Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact</a>, a non-partisan initiative that collates expertise and coordinates efforts across Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties, is especially revealing (see below). At the bottom is a dotted green line, which rises slowly. Before you get optimistic, the footnote is firm: “This scenario would require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in order to be plausible and does not reflect current emissions trends.” More probable is the range in the middle, shaded blue, which shows that a 6-10in (15-25cm) rise above 1992 levels is likely by 2030. At the top, the orange line is more severe still, going off the chart – to 81 inches (206cm) – by the end of the century.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk14\"}}But as more data comes in, even the worst-case estimates may turn out to be too low: for example, researchers recently discovered that ice is melting more rapidly than expected from both Antarctica and Greenland, plus gained a <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145.epdf\">better understanding of how melting ice sheets actually</a> affect sea-level rise. “The unlikely scenarios are now, all of a sudden, becoming more probable than they once were thought to be,” says Sweet.The most dramatic impacts may not be felt for 50 or 100 years. But coastal communities are already experiencing more storms and extremely high tides known as king tides. In the same study, Wdowinski found there were a total of 16 flood events in Miami Beach from 1998 to 2005. From 2006 to 2013, there were 33.Although the <a href=\"https://www.epa.gov/cre/king-tides-and-climate-change\">timing of king tides</a> results from the positions of the Sun, Moon and Earth, rising seas heighten their effect. At extreme high tides, water levels have surged to an inch below the Intracoastal Waterway, says Jennifer Jurado, Broward County’s chief resiliency officer. “Once that’s breached, you’re open to the ocean – the supply of water is endless. The system is really at capacity. These are flood conditions, even with just the high tide and supermoon… You see men in business suits trying to trudge through water.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjx5\"}}Even without floods, the rising water table affects everything. The cities here are built on porous limestone. The water doesn’t just come over seawalls; it seeps up from beneath the streets. Nearly <a href=\"http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/concepts/gwater/aquifer.htm\">90% of the drinking water in south Florida comes from aquifers</a>, and these are finding their fresh water pushed further and further inland as the salt water exerts more and more pressure. Take Hallandale Beach, a small city of just under 40,000 residents. Saltwater already has breached five of the eight freshwater wells that the city draws from, says Vice Mayor Keith London. And around a quarter of Miami-Dade residents use septic tanks. If these don’t remain above the water table, the result could be thoroughly unpleasant.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjvm\"}}Another issue is beach erosion. Florida’s sand may be one of its biggest draws for tourist dollars, but <a href=\"http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/17/13660014/miami-beach-sand-erosion-nourishment-climate-change\">it, too, is vulnerable</a>: though sand never stays put, rising sea levels and worsening storms mean the need to replenish is intensifying. A massive town-by-town project is currently underway; Miami Beach (which, famously, <a href=\"http://miamibeach.org/directory/living/history-of-miami-beach\">was manmade from the start</a>) <a href=\"http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2017/03/28/fyi-miami-march-30-2017/\">just wrapped up</a> its 3,000ft (914m) section, to the tune of $11.9 million.Of course, another part of the problem is that south Florida is built on a swamp. “The only reason we live here is we learned how to drain it, we learned how to kill mosquitos, and we created air conditioning,” says Jim Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade County. Residents cut canals to drain inland areas, using the fill to raise the land and build properties. These canals are now open doors for tidal flooding and storm surge. They also cut down mangrove forests and levelled sand dunes – both natural barriers to flooding.“There is going to need to be a very serious conversation about how we deal with this,” says George Vallejo, the mayor of North Miami Beach. “The development that has happened here over the last 40 or 50 years has not been helpful to this situation. We’ve paved over a lot of the Everglades, we’ve paved over a lot of greenage.“We’ve done a lot of things that, in retrospect, we would have done differently, knowing what we know now.”*That’s the bad news. But there’s good news, says Gassman, whose no-nonsense demeanour and doctorate in marine biology (with a focus on coastal ecosystems) makes her particularly convincing. “That’s all if nothing changes. I think that’s another thing that the public doesn’t necessarily understand: the predictions that they’re hearing, time and time again, are if we do nothing. But we’re not doing nothing.”That’s point one. Point two is that the topography of the area isn’t quite what you’d expect. She brings out a map of Fort Lauderdale dotted with squares of purple and orange. Purple means an area is likely to be underwater at 2ft (61cm) of sea level rise; orange means it’s possible. A surprisingly small amount of the map is splashed with colour. And the at-risk areas – which are mostly by the bay, not the ocean – aren’t where you might think. “It’s not the whole city,” she says. “While there are problems in some areas, we’ll have to adjust, but these areas are not in places you’d expect – and we’ll have time to address some of these issues.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjjq\"}}Not every community might be so lucky. Play the inundation game with <a href=\"https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/beta\">Noaa’s perversely addictive mapping tool</a> in Hollywood, just 10 miles (16km) south of Fort Lauderdale, and you’ll find that the same 2ft (61cm) rise could put streets and most properties of an entire square-mile swathe underwater – not insignificant for a city measuring just 30 sq miles (78 sq km). (Hollywood also has its own intervention programme underway, including the installation of 18 flap gates to keep seawater from coming up through the drainage system). Still, it’s a good reminder that the problem, as overwhelming as it seems, can be broken down into smaller pieces.Which is exactly what Gassman and others are trying to do. Touring the city with Gassman is to see it in an entirely new way: not just a city of graceful mansions and pretty canals, but of seawalls that are leaking or too short, fire hydrants that are made of iron (“a fundamental, emergency-based infrastructure that’s made out of a material that’s potentially corrosive from saltwater”), drains that are overflowing and electrical boxes that need to be raised.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjdx\"}}“See, those cars are disappearing from view,” she says, pointing to the dip in the road in front of us. We turn onto Isle of Capri Drive. “Look what’s happening. Look how far I’m going to go down. This area floods all the time.”Fort Lauderdale is dubbed the Venice of America. That’s supposed to be because of its 165 miles (266km) of canals, but recent flooding has made the nickname more on the nose than residents would like.For both Fort Lauderdale and other communities across south Florida, the main problem is drainage. The systems here were designed to let stormwater drain into the ocean when it rains. Because homes and gardens are higher than the crown of the road, the streets flood first in a storm, by design. Water runs into the storm drain and is piped into the ocean or waterways that lead there.At least, that’s what is supposed to happen. With sea levels now often higher than the exits to the run-off pipes, saltwater is instead running up through the system and into the streets. To make matters worse, when the sea gets even higher, it can breach the seawall, flood people’s yards and flow down to the road – where it stays.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjcz\"}}Since 2013, Fort Lauderdale has been installing tidal valves to deal with the problem. Each of the one-way valves, which allows stormwater through but not saltwater, looks like a big rubber tube and can be attached inside the storm drains. Gassman pulls one out to show me. “If you stick your hand in there and push a little bit, see how it opens?” I do. “Right there, you were fresh water. Now you’re about to be salt water.” She flips the valve around. I push: sure enough, it’s a no-go.In some areas, the valves alone have been enough. But there’s a catch: the floodwater still can’t leave if the tide is above the level of the outflow pipes. That happened early on at one of the first places they installed a valve, Gassman says. A king tide came over the tops of the seawalls, flooded the street – and then remained higher than the outfall. “The valve wouldn’t open. So the roads stayed flooded 24/7,” she says. “We have had complaints that the valves aren’t working. But no. The valves are working.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjbs\"}}Despite the limitations of the valves, it doesn’t take an engineer to figure out that raising seawalls would fix flooding that resulted from high sea levels, if not from rain. But until recently, Fort Lauderdale had a height requirement for seawalls that was a maximum, not a minimum – for aesthetic reasons. Though some now do specify a minimum height, enforcement remains difficult. A new seawall runs from $600 to $2,000 for a linear foot; adding a 12in (30cm) cap costs about $60 per foot. For the average homeowner, a seawall measures 75-100ft (23-30m). “How are you going to force everyone to put in money?” asks Gassman.It turns out you can’t, at least for now. Last year, Fort Lauderdale proposed that everyone should be made to raise their seawalls to a certain height by 2035. Thanks to opposition from the public, the proposal failed. Instead, property owners are required to keep their seawalls in a state of good repair. Someone can be reported to the authorities if their seawall is breached by the tide, but <a href=\"http://gyr.fortlauderdale.gov/greener-government/climate-resiliency/seawall-maintenance\">the specific new height requirement only kicks in</a> if someone came to ask for the permit – which is required to do significant repairs, or to build a new wall. And Fort Lauderdale makes an interesting test case: if costs seem prohibitive in this relatively well-off area, it’s not going to work in south Florida’s less affluent communities – some of which also are suffering from similar flooding.Despite Fort Lauderdale’s best efforts, seawalls here remain a patchwork of heights and states of repair. At Cordova Road, Gassman and I look over the finger isles pointing into the Stranahan River. Across the road from the marina, one house has bright-green grass: it’s new, put down after a flood last spring swamped their property with salt water.Gassman points to an older house on the corner. Their seawall is about a foot lower than their neighbour’s. “That foot of difference allows water to run over their property and flood the road,” she says. “That one property, if we could fix that seawall, we could reduce a lot of flooding, right here.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj6h\"}}It’s not just residents who need to make changes. The city also owns a seawall along this stretch; it, too, was breached recently. Replacing the nearly half-mile stretch could cost up to $5 million. But getting the funds is just the first challenge. The end of the seawall meets a bridge. If you raise the seawall two more feet, what do you do with that bridge to protect it? And what about the docks that residents are currently allowed to have here, all of which will have to be re-done? “The people that live here want a solution and they want it now,” says Gassman. “But there’s both a public and a private cost. And changing one piece of infrastructure starts to domino into needing to change all sorts of things.”As well as seawalls, cities are investing in pumps. Many have put pump stations in the worst-hit neighbourhoods. But only Miami Beach has adopted an integrated, major pumping system as part of an aggressive overall defence strategy. Starting in 2013, the programme – which Torriente estimates will cost between $400 and $500 million – is multi-pronged. Pump stations have sprouted across Sunset Harbour, an industrial-turned-hip neighbourhood on the barrier island’s bay side, and are moving south.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj30\"}}Roads are being raised, too, sometimes by up to 2ft (61cm), to an elevation which the Southeast Florida Climate Compact’s projections put as a likely sea level height around 2065. Seawalls are being raised to a new minimum – something that residents in Miami Beach were more amenable to than in Fort Lauderdale. The city also is requiring that all new properties build their first floor higher.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj1r\"}}It’s an ambitious agenda. And it’s one that’s working. Areas where roads have been raised and pumps installed have been much drier. But, as Gassman noted, it’s not enough to change one piece of infrastructure without changing everything else. In this case, what happens when you raise a road without raising all of the properties around it? Water can go into the properties.That’s not supposed to happen when the pumps work. But they can fail. Antonio Gallo’s Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante is one of a number of businesses that have found their ground floors are now below the current road and sidewalk height. Last year, the pumps failed to kick in after a brief period of rain; the restaurant flooded, with diners stuck inside. When Gallo went to file his insurance claim, it was turned down. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which runs a national flood insurance programme for at-risk business and property owners like Gallo, anything below street level is considered a basement. Until Fema changes their policy, that includes all of the businesses now below the raised streets. Miami Beach is working closely with Fema to get not only Gallo’s situation, but the general basement classification, re-assessed.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhw8\"}}Miami Beach’s efforts are the most aggressive. But resilience also can be built into existing projects. A lot of public infrastructure is built to last for at least 50 or 75 years, and that means planning for what the world will look like then. This is where the Compact’s range of scenarios comes in handy. If you’re laying down something easily replaceable, like a sidewalk, you could build for one of the more optimistic scenarios. An airport? It’s a good idea to go for a higher-risk scenario.Murley, the chief resilience officer of Miami-Dade County (the county's first), points to a 4,200ft-long (1280m) <a href=\"http://www.portofmiamitunnel.com/\">tunnel that runs from the Port of Miami to highway I395</a>. Opened in 2014, its main objective was to re-route lorries that previously went through downtown Miami. But the tunnel was also given a huge gate that, in a hurricane, drops down to seal it at both ends. “That’s an example of resilience. We wouldn’t have built that 10 years ago,” says Murley. “We would have built the tunnel, but it would have had an open front. We might have had sand bags.”A larger-scale example of built-in resilience is going on at the Central District Wastewater and Treatment Plant on Virginia Key, a barrier island where Biscayne Bay and the ocean meet, just east of downtown Miami. It is one of three wastewater treatment plants run by the largest utility in Florida, which serves 2.3 million of the county’s 2.6 million residents. Like the other two, it sits right by the water.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhnr\"}}The plant already had a $500 million project on the go, making changes to comply with new <a href=\"https://www.miamidade.gov/water/library/reports/consent-decree/resolution-approving.pdf\">Clean Water Act requirements</a>. But because parts of the facility are expected to last 75 years or more, resilience to higher sea levels and storm surge has been baked into the design. Analysts ran what would be needed in a worst-case scenario: a category five hurricane during a king tide, with maximum rainfall. “What the results told us was that we ought to be building stuff at 17-20ft (5-6m) above sea level on the coast. Our current facilities, by and large, range from 10-15ft (3-4.5m),” says Doug Yoder, deputy director of Miami-Dade’s water and sewer department. The new design standards prioritise building at those elevations first for parts of the plants that convey flow – like the electrical wiring and pumps. “At least we won’t have raw sewage flooding the streets,” says Yoder.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhll\"}}Private developers will need to think about these issues, too. According to the non-partisan research organisation Risky Business, <a href=\"https://riskybusiness.org/site/assets/uploads/2015/09/RiskyBusiness_Report_WEB_09_08_14.pdf\">current projections put between $15 billion and $23 billion of existing Florida property</a> underwater by 2050. By the end of the century, that leaps to between $53 and $208 billion.But many developers aren’t thinking to 2050 or 2100. Their focus is on the time from construction to sale. In a hot real estate market like south Florida, where a lot of investors are foreign or periodic visitors, that timeframe is far shorter – a few years at most.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyh7v\"}}Until regulations enforce common building standards, few private developers are likely to adopt resilient designs. “I think it’s very hard for a developer or builder to do something the code or government doesn’t require in their zoning or building code,” says Wayne Pathman, a Miami-based land use and zoning attorney and the chairman of the new <a href=\"http://miamigov.com/sealevelrise/\">City of Miami Sea Level Rise committee</a>.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyh4g\"}}One exception is <a href=\"http://brickellcitycentre.com/\">Brickell City Centre</a>, a $1 billion, 9-acre complex of stores, restaurants, offices, condominiums and hotel in Brickell, a corner of downtown Miami filled with cranes and skyscrapers. Developed by Hong Kong-based Swire Properties, the complex is sleek and airy – and, says Chris Gandolfo, vice president of development for Swire’s US operations, resilient. “Starting years ago, Swire was progressive in its thinking on rising tides,” he says.Gandolfo ticks off some of the adaptation strategies that were used: building higher than the current flood plain; flood gates that can seal off the underground car park; an elevated seawall. It also has sustainable features like green roofs, native plants and what the developers have dubbed a “climate ribbon” – a walkway that captures the bay winds to cool the structure and lower energy costs, and works as a cistern to re-use rainwater for irrigation. “We may not make immediate returns,” Gandolfo says. “But I think it’ll have long-term returns.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygyp\"}}All of this puts a catch-22 at the heart of south Florida’s development. The state levies no personal or business income taxes and has a low corporate income tax, meaning property taxes provide a major source of revenue. But unless it is managed very carefully, new development brings new challenges.“Every one of these buildings that goes up expands your vulnerability and magnitude of risk,” says Kreeger. “On the flip side, you’re not getting help from the state, because the state legislature and governor are in total denial about climate change. So you’re bringing in money today which is going to help you. But you’re also bringing a bigger problem tomorrow.”*Thinking about any of this is a relatively new trend. Although scientists began speaking about sea level rise for several decades, the topic only saw real traction among local governments and businesses a few years ago.Part of the reason is that the issue was being ignored by so many others. Most officials say that the Compact, signed in 2010, has been a major driver in helping local governments collect the data they need and coordinate together on what to do about it – and it was signed after the realisation that, despite concrete problems that had to be solved today, state, federal and international governments weren’t doing what was needed to address them.The Florida governor is a climate change sceptic and has directed attention away from the issue. Former employees have said they even were told <a href=\"http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article12983720.html\">not to utter</a> the phrase “climate change”. Ignoring the issue now appears to pervade the highest levels of US government: the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39221092\">doubts whether carbon dioxide plays a primary role</a> in climate change, while President Trump recently <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39415631\">signed an executive order</a> overturning emissions-slashing regulations. Draft versions of the White House budget propose <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/budget-reflects-trumps-vow-to-cut-epa-in-almost-every-form/2017/03/15/0611db20-09a5-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.9dc6b02f6063\">cutting the EPA budget</a> by 31% and employee numbers by 20%, as well as steep cuts to Noaa – including <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/\">26% of the funds from its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research</a> and entirely eliminating the <a href=\"https://www.flseagrant.org/about/strategicplan/\">Sea Grant programme</a>, whose Florida section brings together 17 different universities to study sea level rise challenges and solutions.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygnl\"}}Local governments are forging on, but such circumstances make the challenge even greater. With budgets that run in the tens of millions, not billions, local governments already need to be fiscally creative. Meanwhile, planning depends on up-to-date data – there’s no point in raising seawalls if you don’t know how high they need to be. And some of the most reliable projection scenarios, as well as sea level rise data, is gathered from Noaa.Yet the impact from these changes won’t stop at party lines. Even President Trump’s family isn’t immune. Three feet of sea level rise – which the range of predictions put together by Compact estimates is likely to happen within the next 60 years – will flood Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican commissioner when a neighbour calls you and tells you that their lawn is flooded,” says Gassman. “The water doesn’t care about politics. The water goes where the water goes. And someone who has a flooding problem that’s impacting their quality of life or their property values, they don’t care what flavour their politician is. What they care about is that the city is thinking about it, and that they’re planning to do something about it.”*Some of the communities in south Florida doing the most to adapt to the effects of sea level rise are doing so largely because of public pressure. In 1993, Miami-Dade put together its first plan to reduce carbon emissions. Hardly anyone came out for the committee hearing, Yoder says. Fast-forward to 2015: a hearing on the county’s budget was dominated by one resident after another asking why the county wasn’t doing more about sea level rise.So much so, in fact, that the county decided to hire Murley, its first resilience officer. One of his immediate tasks was to look into getting onto the <a href=\"http://www.100resilientcities.org/\">Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities</a> programme. Accepted cities receive funding and tailored guidance on how to make themselves adaptable to future challenges, from high unemployment to earthquakes and sea-level rise.Greater Miami is just at the start of the process, Murley says. But he’s not the only one hoping that the resources made available will help guide the area far into the future. When I try to get in touch with the commissioners or mayor of Sunny Isles, I get a call back from Brian Andrews, a crisis PR consultant. He says sea level rise is something the city is aware of, but that “we’re waiting for the county” to gather data and send guidelines for an action plan. “They’re getting millions and millions from the Rockefeller Foundation for this,” he says. “We’re a little city. We couldn’t do it on our own.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygjp\"}}Despite how awareness of the issue has grown in some communities – particularly those, like Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, that have seen the most flooding – it’s still common for sea-level rise to get shunted to the end of the list of priorities. “As an elected official, when I go knock on doors, resiliency and sea level rise is never discussed,” says Esteban Bovo, chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission. “It’s never talked about. It’s crime, how much we’re going to invest in police, how much we’re going to invest in traffic, how much we’re going to invest in public safety, libraries – those are the topics of conversation.”* Later, I find myself playing with the Noaa sea-level tool again. I zoom in on Sunny Isles. At 1ft, the low-lying mangrove swamps of the Oleta River State Park, just over the water, are submerged and the wooded backyard of the Intracoastal Yacht Club disappears. At 2ft, the St Tropez Condominiums and the newly-built Town Center Park are underwater, as are many shops around 172nd Street. At 3ft, things start to get serious. Blue blots out the entire shopping plaza and the Epicure Market. At 4ft, the entire west side of Sunny Isles is uninhabitable. At 6ft, it’s gone. Only the spine near the beach – where my father lives – remains.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygcl\"}}It’s easy to look at Compact’s range of estimates and think that, since a 3ft or 4ft rise may remain fairly far off, everything will be fine for a few more generations. But it’s not. With public infrastructure – from fresh water to flushing toilets to roads – woven between communities, if just one area gets affected, others may suffer. Meanwhile, resilience is only one piece. As shown by the Compact chart’s steep orange line, if emissions continue to rise, adaptation will become increasingly difficult – if not impossible. And unlike raising seawalls or installing tidal valves, that, of course, can’t be controlled by a community or region alone. “Climate change mitigation to reduce greenhouse gases is a global issue and has to be dealt with globally,” says Gassman. “Adaptation to the inevitable effects of climate change is a local issue.”Later, peering out the window as my plane takes off over Miami, I no longer see the dense green squares of the city's western edge, the sharp skyscrapers downtown and the surprisingly slender line of barrier islands. Instead, I see what might be lost. From here, the ocean looks vast.But as the plane climbs, I remind myself that human innovation was enough to drain the swamp and make Florida what it is today. It was great enough to get me here, 15,000ft in the air. And it just might be enough to save what I see below.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-04-04T00:15:20Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Miami’s fight against rising seas","HeadlineShort":"Miami’s fight against rising seas","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"Just down the coast from Donald Trump's weekend retreat, the residents and businesses of south Florida are experiencing regular episodes of water in the streets. In the battle against rising seas, the region – which has more to lose than almost anywhere else in the world – is becoming ground zero.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Just down the coast from Donald Trump's weekend retreat, the residents and businesses of south Florida are experiencing regular episodes of water in the streets as sea levels rise.","SummaryShort":"‘The water doesn’t care about politics’","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-04-04T09:19:02.015567Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"1c1ef5bc-6b25-4e85-9b19-cd2f6f751e11","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-02T06:36:19.799891Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise","_id":"598525250b1947497fcf1c67"}],"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"Climate change tag","LinkUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://dbpedialite.org/things/47512","Name":"Climate change"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:13:17Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"a2a677db-ad10-41f4-a778-b4c3f8354e62","Id":"tag/climatechange","ModifiedDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:13:17Z","Project":"","Slug":"climatechange"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/climatechange","_id":"5981d5c70b1947497fcd4ae3"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Our planet is already feeling the effects of climate change, but it’s also poised to cause irreversible shifts in the ways we work, and the skills that employers need. ","SummaryShort":"The next big thing to transform the way we work is the climate","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":null,"CreationDateTime":"2017-07-10T08:30:49.331135Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"947f87bc-a3d8-4259-a3dd-d2bc72470311","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170705-how-climate-change-could-transform-the-work-force","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-10T16:08:20.509358Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170705-how-climate-change-could-transform-the-work-force"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-07-10T08:30:49.331135Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"947f87bc-a3d8-4259-a3dd-d2bc72470311","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170705-how-climate-change-could-transform-the-work-force","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-10T16:08:20.509358Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170705-how-climate-change-could-transform-the-work-force"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170705-how-climate-change-could-transform-the-work-force","_id":"5985ee650b1947497fcf8530"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":549114,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/55/84/p05584vc.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Antibiotic resistance","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/84/p05584vc.jpg","Title":"anti2.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05584vc","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05584vc","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p05584vc","_id":"5981d4dd0b1947497fcccb6c"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":177690,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/55/85/p055855n.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"A combination of over-prescribing medications and a cultural dependence on antibiotics has led us to where we are today. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Antibiotic resistance","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/85/p055855n.jpg","Title":"anti1.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p055855n","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p055855n","_id":"59844dff0b1947497fceacbe"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":282649,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/55/85/p055854l.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"A world of total antibiotic resistance could change life as we know it, experts warn, making even minor ailments life-threatening. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Antibiotic resistance","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/85/p055854l.jpg","Title":"anti3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p055854l","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p055854l","_id":"59844e010b1947497fceacc1"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":218876,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/55/84/p05584qf.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Worldwide consumption of antibiotics has skyrocketed in recent years: One study found that global consumption went up 30% between 2000 and 2010. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Antibiotic resistance","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/84/p05584qf.jpg","Title":"anti4.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05584qf","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p05584qf","_id":"59844e000b1947497fceacc0"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":428591,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/55/84/p055845l.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Animals also develop antibiotic resistance, which means they could pass their drug-resistant bacteria onto you, too. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Antibiotic resistance","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/55/84/p055845l.jpg","Title":"anti5.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p055845l","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p055845l","_id":"5985c8b50b1947497fcf7123"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Erin Biba","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-06-07T18:50:40.138455Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"01cc71ba-4c1d-411d-8931-e27beb442a22","Id":"wwfuture/author/erin-biba","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-07T18:50:40.138455Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"erin-biba"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/erin-biba","_id":"5981d2390b1947497fcb8625"}],"BodyHtml":"“The world is heading towards a post-antibiotic era in which common infections will once again kill. If current trends continue, sophisticated interventions, like organ transplantation, joint replacements, cancer chemotherapy, and care of pre-term infants, will become more difficult or even too dangerous to undertake. This may even bring the end of modern medicine as we know it.\"That’s what the Director-General of the World Health Organization said last April when she appeared before the United Nations. Dr Margaret Chan wanted to warn of what many deem to be one of the greatest threats to global health today: the increasingly common problem of infections that do not respond to antibiotic treatment.It sounds alarmist, but it might actually not be alarmist enough.The efficacy of the world’s antibiotics is quickly decaying – the drugs we’re using to treat infections are working less and less. If we continue at this rate without intervention, we may find that there is not a single antibiotic left to treat any type of bacterial infection.“This would really change life as we know it,” says Dr David Weiss, director of the Antibiotic Resistance Center at Emory University. “Consider going to back to an era when a minor accident like a scrape could lead to death.” That’s what a world of total antibiotic resistance could lead to.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p055855n\"}}But there’s good news: we are not likely to continue at this rate. The world is aware of the problem and there are many organisations, governments, and concerned citizens working hard to avoid a worst-case scenario.The bad news is that the issue is extremely complex and widespread. And thanks to the very nature of bacteria and how they work – and the damage we have already done – the world will never be entirely free from resistance.What is resistance?Say you contract a staph infection. In the past that was easily treated with penicillin. But today, it is very possible that your staph infection is actually MRSA – a version resistant to antibiotics (only 10% of current staph infections aren’t MRSA). Penicillin is useless against it. In fact, studies show that two in 100 people are carrying around the MRSA bacteria.Here’s how resistance develops: just like people, bacteria have DNA. And just like in humans, that DNA can mutate or change. Then, when inputs from the outside world interact with those mutations, survival of the fittest means only the strongest variations live on.<blockquote> This would really change life as we know it. Consider going to back to an era when a minor accident like a scrape could lead to death – Dr David Weiss </blockquote>So, when humans use antibiotics to kill off bacteria, in some cases, those bacteria spontaneously mutate their genes, which changes their makeup in such a way that the antibiotics cannot kill them. The bacteria that survive those encounters pass these genes on to other bacteria through simple mating (technically known as '<a href=\"https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/conjugation-prokaryotes-290\">conjugation</a>') – and those resistant bacteria can spread from one living thing to another.The tricky part of this is that bacteria can share these genes with each other across bacterial species – so they don’t even have to be that genetically similar to pass along resistance. Humans and animals, who are teeming with trillions of different types of bacteria, then pass the resistant bugs along to each other. And, on top of it all, we introduce those resistant species to each other inside our own bodies. So, even if a human or an animal has been exposed to an antibiotic just once in their lives they can contain mutant bacteria that can be easily spread.Bacteria, it turns out, don’t care about political borders or immigration policies – for example, researchers have even found drug-resistant bacteria on the rear-ends of seagulls in Lithuania and Argentina.The most important part of this is that bacterial resistance is essentially a numbers game: the more humans try to kill bacteria with antibiotics, and the more different antibiotics they use, the more opportunities bacteria have to develop new genes to resist those antibiotics. The less we use, the less bacteria can develop and share resistance.How big is the problem?It’s hard to say for sure, but the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that in the US alone there are about 23,000 people who die every year from antibiotic-resistant infections. For example, they estimate that resistance to antibiotics that treat Clostridium difficile (C. difficile) causes almost 500,000 infections in the US every year, which lead to about 15,000 deaths. (But Amanda Jezek, a spokesperson specialising in policy and government relations at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, a group that represents many of the country’s infectious disease doctors and scientists, says the overall number of deaths is a conservative estimate and likely higher.Meanwhile, <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/news/dramatic-rise-seen-in-antibiotic-use-1.18383\">a 2015 study published in Nature</a> found that global antibiotic consumption went up 30% between 2000 and 2010.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p055854l\"}}The WHO estimates that with tuberculosis alone there are about 480,000 people worldwide with drug-resistant strains of the disease. In 2014 they estimated that 3.3% of all new cases of TB were resistant to multiple drugs, and in recurring cases, 20% were resistant. They have also tracked cases of resistance (some very common and some less so) in drugs used to treat E. coli, urinary tract infections, HIV, gonorrhea, malaria, pneumonia, and staph infection (the drug resistant version of which is MRSA).And <a href=\"https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/health-matters-antimicrobial-resistance/health-matters-antimicrobial-resistance\">according to Public Health England</a>, the “UK government considers the threat of antibiotic resistance as seriously as a flu pandemic and major flooding.” If left unchecked, antibiotic resistance could lead to 10 million deaths by 2050 worldwide, costing some £66 trillion.How did we get here?Plain and simple, humanity has drastically overused antibiotics.Not only have doctors spent decades handing out antibiotics to any patient that asked (regardless of whether or not they were needed), some countries still consider antibiotics to be over-the-counter medicines – as easy to purchase as Anadin or Tylenol. According to Dr Marc Sprenger, director of the antimicrobial programme at the WHO, much of Europe is three times more likely to use antibiotics than their fellow European countries Sweden or the Netherlands, where they are used only occasionally. “This has nothing to do with more people getting sick. This is a cultural phenomenon,” he says.On top of that, for many decades agricultural pursuits worldwide have fed huge amounts of antibiotics to livestock and food-producing animals – not only as a means to reduce infection, but also as a method to increase growth. And, while humans do not ingest those antibiotics, they do ingest and handle the bacteria that resides within those animals. So if those animals carried drug-resistant bacteria, you potentially could, as well.<blockquote> This has nothing to do with more people getting sick. This is a cultural phenomenon – Dr Marc Sprenger on antibiotic overprescription </blockquote>Until recently antibiotics in the US actually listed animal growth as an indication for use on antibiotic labels and a prescription was not required for farmers to obtain them. To illustrate what a problem this is: just last November a strain of E. coli was discovered in Chinese pigs to be resistant to colistin – a last-resort antibiotic that has only been used in the US in the most dire cases of human infection, untreatable by all other antibiotics. In less than six months the CDC detected that strain of E. coli in a patient in Pennsylvania. So why not just develop new antibiotics that the bacteria can’t resist? It has been several decades since a drug company developed and sold a new antibiotic. “You would like to have new antibiotics to treat infections with resistant bacteria, but if you look at the timeline [of new releases] it is empty for almost 30 years,” Sprenger says.That’s because the process of developing any new drug is extremely expensive and the potential profit in an antibiotic after that massive investment is relatively low. According to Sprenger, “there are no legal instruments to prohibit the use of a new antibiotic.” What that means is if a new antibiotic is released there’s no way to stop the world from overusing it. At current usage levels a new antibiotic, he says, would only have about two years on the market before bacterial resistance to it develops.How do we get ourselves out of this?First, the entire world needs to get on board. Two years ago this essentially happened when member states of the WHO agreed to accept a Global Action Plan – by then, antibiotic resistance was a problem that had already been on the radar for many decades. The plan lays out extensive solutions and best practices that all countries can take to reduce resistance. “That’s historic,” says Sprenger. Before then, he says, the only people actively discussing how to reduce resistance were people within medical circles, for the most part. \"95% of the worldwide population is now living in a country where they have developed a national action plan. All these countries have increased activities in education, training, and prevention control.”<blockquote> In the last couple of decades we’ve seen decreases in prescription to children in the US – Dr Katherine Fleming-Dutra </blockquote>Then, last year, the UN addressed the issue before the General Assembly – only the fourth time in history that a health issue was discussed there. And just this May the G20 leaders signed a declaration on global health that included tackling antibiotic resistance. So it’s definitely a grand challenge that world leaders are taking seriously.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05584qf\"}}Much of the WHO action plan focuses on hospital stewardship and supervision. The CDC is currently working closely with American hospitals to provide guidelines and education for the safe and reasonable prescription of antibiotics. “We have made some progress,” says Dr Katherine Fleming-Dutra, an epidemiologist at the CDC. “In the last couple of decades we’ve seen decreases in prescription to children in the US. We have seen less progress in adults. The rate in adults has been relatively stable.”Once hospitals and physicians get on board with reducing prescriptions the next step is to change regulations around agriculture.Ten years ago the European Union banned antibiotics as growth promoters. And just this January, the US Food and Drug Administration removed growth from the indicated use of antibiotics on drug labelling. According to Dr William Flynn, deputy director for science policy at FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine, “There was a real recognition that this was something [farmers] needed to take seriously and respond to. We’re encouraged by the fact that they were engaging and working with us to find ways to make it work.”But other countries need to follow suit – as evidenced by the recent revelations about antibiotic resistance coming out of China.One of the most important steps in tackling resistance is tracking it. The CDC have set up a system called the National Antimicrobial Monitoring System (NARMS). “Surveillance for antibiotic resistant bacteria is a big part of our mission,” says Dr Jean Patel, deputy director of the office of Antimicrobial Resistance at the CDC. “We do this to measure the burden of infection and also characterise the types of resistance we see. This helps us strategise how best to prevent resistance.”<blockquote> We can only really slow the development of resistance. We’re not going to stop it completely. Even appropriate use of antibiotics does contribute to resistance – Amanda Jezek, Vice President for Public Policy and Government Relations, Infectious Diseases Society of America </blockquote>The CDC funds state health departments around the US (and coordinates with laboratories worldwide) to maintain a network of antibiotic resistant bacteria data and samples. Says Patel: “We can use this to give us national estimates of infection rates to see how bacteria are changing, test new drugs against bacteria, and we also have used the bacteria we collect through this to help with vaccine development.” Though, it should be noted, the continued success of the programme could be in jeopardy as US President Donald Trump’s proposed budget suggests cutting funds to the CDC by 17% (or $1.2 billion).But there are also some non-traditional methods being attempted. Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, has established a unique Antibiotic Resistance Center. One of its main goals is to build diagnostic tests using mutated bacteria collected by the national surveillance system and physicians in their own clinic that can spot resistant bacteria.“The goal is to have scientists, clinicians, and epidemiologists all working together to address this issue. That’s something that hasn’t traditionally happened. There has been division between what the scientists and clinicians are doing,” says the centre’s director David Weiss. “I’m not a doctor. I need to know from the clinicians a lot of what they’re seeing on the front lines to help guide our research to be as relevant as possible.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p055845l\"}}A comprehensive, collaborative approach could work: last year, the National Health Service of England announced that in 2015, antibiotic prescribing <a href=\"https://www.england.nhs.uk/2016/03/antibiotic-prescribing/\">reduced by 5.3%</a> compared to 2014. Public Health England says that more responsible prescribing is key: <a href=\"about:blank\">it says that it advised the NHS in 2015</a> on the development of better practices that aim to slash prescriptions by 10% from 2013 to 2014 levels.Lastly, there need to be incentives that encourage the development of new antibiotics.The US National Institute of Health and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority have set up a biopharmaceutical accelerator called CARB-X. The fund is allotting $48 million to support antibiotic drug discovery projects. “They work with companies in the very early discovery stages to give them funding and technical support to get to the point that they have a product they can do clinical trials with,” says IDSA’s Jezek. Along those same lines, the IDSA is also currently working to develop legislation that would provide funding for clinical trials so that companies can avoid those hefty costs and stand a chance of making a profit from new antibiotics.With all of these programmes working together, and similar efforts taking place around the world, there is a lot of hope that humanity will manage to get a handle on the problem. Still, “we can only really slow the development of resistance. We’re not going to stop it completely,” says Jezek. “Even appropriate use of antibiotics does contribute to resistance.”And that means the challenge will always be immense. As long as there are humans and those humans carry and transmit disease – which they will – the entire world will have to continue fighting for resistance.--Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Stories that inspire, intrigue and enlighten","Name":"Best of BBC Future","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Best of BBC Future"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:56:30.095016Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"e6539848-9854-4af2-b3c8-a95e2d9060f3","Id":"wwfuture/column/best-of-bbc-future","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-05-02T06:56:30.095016Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/best-of-bbc-future"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/best-of-bbc-future","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb9185"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-06-08T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How we can stop antibiotic resistance","HeadlineShort":"Is 'the end of modern medicine' near?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"It’s been dubbed “the end of modern medicine”. BBC Future asked experts to explain how we might avoid the worst effects of antibiotic resistance – a grand challenge of our age. ","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Earlier this year, BBC Future Now published a series called <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">the Grand Challenges</a>: addressing some of the world’s biggest, most pressing problems that demand solutions in the very near future.But the future is a complicated subject in 2017. Now more than ever, it’s fast-moving, complicated, increasingly immediate. We can’t keep thinking about the future as a far-off intangible. Today, things move so quickly, that the future already is happening, and already affecting us. And in many ways, we’re struggling to adapt quickly enough.<blockquote> A comprehensive guide to today’s big problems and mega-trends </blockquote>That’s why today, we’re launching Grand Challenges II – a continuation of our original series; a comprehensive guide to today’s big problems and mega-trends. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore more of humankind’s biggest, most urgent issues, what they mean for you, and what’s being done to combat them, complete with deep reportage from BBC journalists and insight from experts, scientists and influencers from across the globe.<ul> <li>READ MORE: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century\">50 grand challenges for the 21st Century</a></li> </ul>This time around, we’ll tackle issues like water – and not just how climate change is threatening our most fundamental resource for survival. We’ll also explore the unexpected ways water is a social issue, a political issue, an energy issue, even a gender issue – and how clean water scarcity triggers a host of problems, from disease outbreaks to government feuds.We will also examine our eroding sense of privacy, especially living in what some call a “golden age of surveillance.” As more and more humans get internet access worldwide, and as more and more of our devices are connected to other devices – and to the databases of huge corporations – the right to a sense of anonymity is at risk. We’ll tell you how most people don’t exercise best practices when it comes to safeguarding their identity – and what you can do better protect your own.And this week, we’ll take a probing look into the topic of automation – and what it actually means for you, beyond the familiar, sensational headlines of job-stealing robots. We’ll talk about the ethical concerns of who’s programming this technology, the safety concerns of working alongside machines with minds of their own, and the surprising benefits that being a human has when it comes to outperforming even the cleverest, most precise, number-crunching superbot.But that’s only the beginning. The near future also demands greater attention to a range of rapidly-evolving issues: an explosively growing global population, the complicated relationship between governments and nuclear power, the fight for worldwide gender equality, and more.We live in a rapidly-changing era of almost infinite potential. But to make sure we will fulfil that potential, we need to fully understand the challenges we face. Stay tuned to this special series from BBC Future Now, and stay up to speed.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century</a>.\nFrom now until July, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges you'll face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"middle","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-22T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Your guide to Earth’s biggest problems","HeadlineShort":"Your guide to Earth’s biggest problems","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"BBC Future Now is extending our series about the grandest challenges faced by humankind.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"BBC Future Now is extending our series about the grandest challenges faced by humankind.","SummaryShort":"Privacy threats, water shortages, smart robots – how will we cope?","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-22T09:15:54.843065Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"316f64cb-59e8-42d8-a23e-275ecfb847e2","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-22T19:16:24.957314Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems","_id":"598396230b1947497fce4c06"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"With soft, nimble fingers, an arm stretches out to delicately pluck an apple from a shelf and place it gently into a basket.It performs the task again with a bag of limes and again with a pepper, never tiring, never complaining.This is a prototype robotic arm <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-629m-RPyoI\">being tested by Ocado</a>, the British online supermarket. The irregular shape and delicate flesh of these common groceries have meant they tend to be packed by human workers at Ocado’s warehouses. But the company is pursuing robotic technology that could assist these human warehouse workers but still handle produce safely, making the process faster and cheaper for the company.Ocado is far from the only company pursuing automated workers. It is happening in <a href=\"https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=4384\">hospitals</a>, <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/19807d3e-1765-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d\">law firms</a>, the stock market. The list goes on.The question is… how does this affect the human workforce? How might it affect you?BBC Future Now asked a panel of experts for their views, as part of our special series on the ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">Grand Challenges</a>’ facing humanity. We hear a lot about doom-and-gloom surrounding robots stealing our jobs, but what will actually happen? Who’s at risk, and what could your workplace actually look like in five years?The answers might surprise you.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn3b\"}}The middle class is at risk Reports suggest that <a href=\"http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/future-of-employment.pdf\">47% of people employed in the US are at risk of being replaced by machines</a> and 35% of jobs in the UK may similarly be threatened – with even higher threats in developing countries, with <a href=\"http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2017/04/20/2017-wbgimf-spring-meetings-world-bank-group-opening-press-conference-by-president-jim-yong-kim\">two thirds of jobs at risk of being automated</a>.But machines stealing jobs is not new. “Automation has happened before,” says Bhagwan Chowdhry, professor of finance at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chowdhry points to the shifts that took place in factories during the industrial revolution when automatic looms and other machines took over from human weavers.So what’s different this time? “It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers,” says Chowdry. “But also a lot of white collar workers.”<blockquote> It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers </blockquote>Often, we think of low-wage, low-skill jobs being the most at risk, like warehouse workers or cashiers, but automation may also affect middle-income jobs, such as clerks, chefs, office workers, security guards, junior lawyers, inspectors.Those in the firing line are understandably worried. “The concern is more about the transition pains,” says Carl Benedikt Frey, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment. “Most jobs that we will see being automated require different skill sets from those being created. The key challenge will be to make sure that those who experience displacement will find something meaningful to do.”So, should companies seeking to automate jobs have a moral responsibility to help the staff they are replacing to learn new skills?Future-proofing your jobThe answer may go beyond just the companies – it may need to start in school.The way we currently structure education may no longer be fit for purpose in a world where technology is changing so rapidly.“The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up,” warns Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Initiative on the Digital Economy. “We could end up leaving a lot of people behind.”Brynjolfsson and Paul Clarke, chief technology officer at Ocado, both agree that school and college education need to better prepare pupils for a world where robotic and artificial intelligence will be widespread.<blockquote> The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up </blockquote>In the workplace, employees will also continually require new sets of skills rather than using the same ones over their entire career that could just go obsolete anyway.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pncp\"}}“The distinction between work and learning might need to become more amorphous,” says Chowdhry. “We currently have a dichotomy where those who work need not learn, and those who learn do not work. We need to think about getting away from the traditional five day working week to one where I spend 60% of my time doing my job and 40% learning on a regular basis.”For the majority of us, this could be a crucial switch in our thinking.<a href=\"http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation\">Research by management consultants McKinsey and Company</a> suggests that fewer than 5% of occupations can be entirely automated by existing technology. The reason – our jobs are simply too varied and changeable for robots to take on all the tasks.Instead, they predict around 60% of occupations could see a third of the activities they currently do being farmed out to machines. This will mean that most of us will probably be able to cling onto our jobs, but the way we do them is going to change significantly.Robots will complement you, not replace youLearning how to work alongside robots could be essential, too.“We can have cases where machines pick up some of the repetitive work to free up humans to do other more rewarding aspects of their job,” explains James Manyika, senior partner at McKinsey who has led much of their research into the impacts of automation. “This could put a massive downward pressure on wages because the machine is now doing all the hard work. It could also mean more people could do that job aided by the technology, so there is more competition.”There are wider issues at stake here too. With lower incomes and potential unemployment looming for middle-income workers, governments themselves could face some fundamental problems, like lost taxes and dissatisfied voting classes.Luckily, there are some things humans can do that machines just can’t right now.One good example of this comes from some work by researchers in Singapore, who are attempting to teach two autonomous <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.04806v1.pdf\">robotic arms to assemble a flat-packed Ikea chair</a>. Despite using some of the most advanced equipment around, the machines struggle with the most basic tasks.Even identifying different objects from a chaotic mixture of parts is a major challenge for robots. In a recent test, it took the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQ_WW_WsEQ\">two robots more than a minute and half to successful insert a piece of dowelling into one of the chair legs</a>.And that's just one piece of furniture. “The real challenges occur when you want that robot to assemble several items of furniture,” Hawes explains. “A robot might be able to put together an Ikea chest of drawers, but it will struggle to then do a wardrobe from the same line, as the pieces will be different, even if some of the assembly steps are the same. Humans don’t have that problem.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn0w\"}}The human advantageFrom better flexibility to better personalities, there are some things we may always do better than robots.“As we automate a lot of the repetitive work, we are going to see increased demand for creative skills,” says Brynjolfsson. “We are also going to see an increased demand for those with social skills, interpersonal skills, who are nurturing, caring, teaching, persuasive, have negotiating skills, and are good at selling.”Frey thinks there are a few areas where humans have the advantage.“The first is social interactions,” says Frey. “If we think about the variety of complex social interactions we do in our daily jobs – when we negotiate, or try to persuade people, assist others or take care of customers. We manage teams and so on. It is almost inconceivable that computers will intrude upon human workers who do that.”<blockquote> We are going to see increased demand for creative skills </blockquote>Another is creativity. Computers are good at grinding down problems and performing repetitive tasks without getting bored. Humans, however, find this kind of monotonous work tedious.The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy has even set up a <a href=\"https://www.mitinclusiveinnovation.com/\">$1 million challenge</a> aimed at encouraging businesses to make the most of these typically “human traits” alongside technology.“The amount we currently pay people like nannies and carers for the elderly is atrocious,” says McKinsey’s Manyika. “Similarly, there is plenty of artistic and creative work that has never made any money. The challenge is how we pay for and value creative output, or other tasks we are not willing to let machines do.”Alex Harvey, head of research at Ocado Technology, which develops the software and tech for the company's retail arm, points out that the world has been designed and built for humans, and building robots to operate in these naturally complicated environments is a major technical challenge.One of the projects Ocado is working on with universities around Europe is a robotic assistant for maintenance work called SecondHands, which illustrates how humans and robots might collaborate.“It has the ability to lift things to a greater height than a human, for example,” explains Harvey. “It is quite a simple robot in terms of its behavioural repertoire, but it can form a nice team where the human technician is the leader and they can use the muscular power of the robot.”But the closer humans and machines work together, the murkier the ethical waters start to get.The ethics problemAround 1.7 million robots are already in use around the world, but they are largely used in industrial settings where few humans are allowed to set foot. As that number grows, and the roles they perform expand, the likelier humans are to work hand in hand with robots, side by side – increasing the risk of harm.“There needs to be more transparency so we can understand how these things do the things they do and behave the way they do,” urges Mady Delvaux, vice chair of the committee on legal affairs at the European Parliament.She recently led an effort in the parliament to push for <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20170210IPR61808/robots-and-artificial-intelligence-meps-call-for-eu-wide-liability-rules\">rules on robotics and artificial intelligence</a>.A <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/571379/IPOL_STU(2016)571379_EN.pdf\">report compiled for the European Parliament</a> stressed there was urgent need for new legislation on liability should accidents happen. Similar issues of liability arise should a robot take actions that break the law. An AI algorithm, for example, could choose to make a series of financial transactions that achieve its goals, but lie outside the tangled web of regulations that govern the sector.Delvaux and her colleagues also called for a Code of Ethics to help guide our relationship with robots.<blockquote> Recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can develop sexist and racist tendencies </blockquote>“There have to be some things that are respected, like the autonomy of people and their privacy,” says Delvaux.This perhaps also highlights another issue troubling many dealing with artificial intelligence – the problem of bias. Machine learning systems are only as good as the data they are given to learn on, and recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/even-artificial-intelligence-can-acquire-biases-against-race-and-gender\">develop sexist and racist tendencies</a>.Delvaux also points to the people who are writing the algorithms in the first place. The majority of people working in the technology industry are <a href=\"https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/\">white males</a>, with men making up between <a href=\"http://www.techrepublic.com/article/diversity-stats-10-tech-companies-that-have-come-clean/\">70% and 90% of the employees</a> at some of the biggest and most influential companies.Silicon Valley has been rocked over the past couple of years with <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39025288\">scandals about sex discrimination</a>. It has raised fears that robots and machines could display similar discriminatory behaviour.“It is a very thin slice of the population currently designing our technologies,” warns Judy Wajcman, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. “Technology needs to reflect society, so there needs to be a shift in the design and innovation process.”Meanwhile, Bill Gates recently suggested yet another ethical red flag: that robots themselves may have to be <a href=\"https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/\">taxed to make up for lost levies on income</a> from employees. Others have suggested as robots take on more tasks, there could be a <a href=\"http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html\">growing case for universal basic income</a>, where everyone receives state benefits.Much of this, of course, assumes that robots are actually capable of doing the jobs we set them. Despite their apparent intelligence, most robots are still pretty dumb contraptions when compared to our own capabilities.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pmv0\"}}Machines have a ways to goLike the Ikea example, AI leaves a lot of room for improvement.Perhaps one of the greatest issues facing the machine learning and artificial intelligence community currently is understanding how their algorithms work. “Things like artificial intelligence and machine learning are still largely black boxes,” argues Manyika. “We can’t open them up to find out how they got the answer they produce.”This presents a number of issues. Machine learning systems and modern AI are usually trained using large sets of images or data that are fed in to allow them to recognise patterns and trends. They can then use this to spot similar patterns when they are given new data.This might be fine if we want to find CT scans that show signs of disease, for example, but if we use a similar system to identify a suspect from a fragment of CCTV footage, knowing how it did this may be crucial when presenting the evidence to a jury.Even in the field of autonomous vehicles, this ability to generalise remains a considerable challenge.Takeo Kanade, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the pioneers of self-driving vehicles and an expert in computer vision. He says giving robots a “genuine understanding” of the world around them is still a technical challenge that needs to be overcome.“It is not just about identifying where objects are,” he explains, following a lecture at the inaugural Kyoto Prize at Oxford event, where he outlined the problems facing researchers. “The technology has to be able to understand what the world is doing around them.  For example, is that person actually going to cross the road in front of them, or not?”Hawes himself encountered a similar problem with one of his own projects that put <a href=\"http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2016/06/betty-the-autonomous-robot-starts-work-as-trainee-office-manager.aspx\">an autonomous “trainee office manager”</a> into several offices in the UK and Austria.The team programmed the robot, called Betty, to trundle around the offices monitoring for clutter building up, checking whether fire doors were closed, measuring noise and counting workers at their desks outside normal hours.“Things would appear in the environment like chairs moving, people shifting their desks or pot plants,” he says. “Dealing with that without reprogramming the whole robot is challenging.”But even though the robot wasn’t perfect, the humans still found a way of working alongside it.Surprisingly, those working alongside Betty actually responded to their mechanical worker in a positive way, even coming to its aid if the robot ever got stuck in a corner. “People would say hello to it in the morning and said it made the office more interesting to work in,” says Hawes.If we can hand the tedious, repetitive bits of our jobs to machines then it could free us up to some of the things we actually enjoy. “Work has the potential to become more interesting as a result,” says Frey.It is a tantalising thought, that just perhaps, the rise of the machines could make our jobs a lot more human.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">at the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-23T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How automation will affect you – the experts’ view","HeadlineShort":"How automation will affect you","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","SummaryShort":"The myths, misconceptions and reality","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-23T06:44:37.578576Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"68ff2c73-abdc-4cbe-a4cf-92d05dd8eac4","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-23T10:20:11.716207Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","_id":"5982d85b0b1947497fcde5bc"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Imagine walking into a roomful of strangers. Perhaps you’ve travelled to a new city. You don’t know anyone, and no one knows you. You’re free to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone. How do you feel?Perhaps you feel free of the judgment and scrutiny from acquaintances or associates. Perhaps you feel energised that you can use this opportunity to experience life on your terms, at your own speed. But whatever your feelings would be, you would at least safely assume that you can enter this isolated situation without being monitored or tracked by a far-flung company or individual – right?Wrong. What you’re experiencing as you walk into that room is anonymity: a sociocultural phenomenon that’s afforded privacy and freedom. But in the year 2017, it’s pretty much all but dead. It’s emerging as one of the major challenges of our age: how should we go about both ensuring national security and enhancing our lives through technology, whilst also maintaining a basic right to privacy that feels like it has existed since the beginning of human history?”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn38\"}}The internet made us stop caring Anonymity, which is Greek for “no name,” is a uniquely human psychological experience: it’s the idea that we all have identities to present to the world, but under certain circumstances, can switch the identity off and operate in total secrecy.“We need a public self to navigate the social world of family, friends, peers and co-workers,” says John Suler, professor of psychology at Rider University in New Jersey, and author of The Psychology of Cyberspace. “But we also need a private self – an internal space where we can reflect on our own thoughts and feelings apart from outside influence, where we can just be with our own psyche. Our identity is formed by both. Without one or the other, our wellbeing can easily become disrupted.”Being anonymous allows us to try new things or express ideas without being judged. In 2013, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania published a study in which they <a href=\"http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kiesler/publications/2013/why-people-seek-anonymity-internet-policy-design.pdf\">conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of internet users on four continents</a>. One interviewee, for instance, created an anonymous online community for English learners to practise their language skills. Anonymity helped them better manage certain spheres of their lives. One participant said that he frequented message boards to help people solve technical problems, but sought to avoid unwanted commitments through the detached nature of the internet. Plus, being anonymous in an environment like the internet can help safeguard personal safety.“Our results show that people from all walks of life had reason, at one time or another, to seek anonymity,” the researchers wrote of the 44 interviewees.But according to a <a href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/09/05/anonymity-privacy-and-security-online/\">2013 study from the Pew Research Center</a>, while most internet users would like to remain anonymous, most don’t think it’s entirely possible. The study found that 59% of American internet users believe it is impossible to completely hide your identity online.And while some people are taking basic steps to preserve anonymity, like deleting their browsing history, many users who say they value anonymity aren’t really walking the walk.Earlier this year, <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcom.12276/full\">a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Communication</a> explored something called the “privacy paradox”: the idea that, while people value privacy, they do little in practice to preserve it. Think about it: when was the last time you actually read one of those many, lengthy privacy policy updates before clicking “I agree”? Our attitude toward privacy has become increasingly blasé.One could even argue it’s even detrimental not to divulge at least some info. Career coaches worldwide trumpet the professional importance of having a fleshed-out public LinkedIn photo complete with full name, headshot, full work history and more.Perhaps this is more of a cultural thawing toward previously uptight attitudes. I remember getting on the internet for the first time. It was the 1990s and on my father’s work computer. In those days, internet service providers went to great, paranoid lengths to discourage users from divulging even basic tidbits in their public profiles, like first name, city, even gender.Today? Personal info flies freely and wildly across the web, often on our volition: Instagrammed selfies of ourselves and loved ones, complete with geotagged locations. Social media users engaging in political spats and horrible insults, despite the fact that the target of their harassment could click on their real names and real photos and see who they actually are.<blockquote> People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously – John Suler </blockquote>“People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously – not subject to the same rules and standards as the ‘real’ world,” says Suler. In just the span of a few short years, people’s comfort level with the internet has risen to the point where information-sharing can be careless or reckless.Call it privacy fatigue, but our increased interdependence on our smart devices and social media has given some of us a largely lazy attitude toward staying totally anonymous.But what if you’re one of those people who eschews Facebook, has no social media presence, and goes to great lengths to leave a fleeting digital footprint? Sorry – your anonymity is at risk too.Going off the grid is no fixWhile skipping a Facebook profile is a good way to disconnect, there are still ways people can sleuth out your identity.Paul Ohm, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, says there’s “intentional anonymity” and “inferential anonymity”: the former being what we choose to keep close to the vest, and the latter referring to the data that a Google-savvy sleuth can “infer” from you online – that is, dig up loads of personal information about you using a single fact as a starting point.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn34\"}}“It’s become increasingly clear that it’s a losing game,” Ohm says on achieving total anonymity in 2017. “As long as someone knows something about you, they can probably find other things about you, and do it really successfully – more than they have in the past.”If you’re a social media party pooper, that might mean old flames or long-lost classmates can’t track you down. But that doesn’t mean you’re anonymous from big entities, like corporations or the government.“It’s much harder to be anonymous than it was 20 years ago, at least from the biggest companies and the government,” says Peter Swire, professor of law and ethics at Georgia Institute of Technology, and who served on US President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology.Advertisers track your internet habits across your devices – phone, tablet, laptop – to know where you habitually go, shop, and what kind of websites you visit, and there has been growing controversy about what internet companies should be allowed to track and sell to third parties.Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump signed a law that repealed requirements for internet service providers to get permission from customers before gathering and sharing their personal data, like your web history and what apps you use.Swire says we’re living in a “golden age of surveillance”: If you’re a person of interest in an investigation, looking up details like financial records, medical records, web history or call history is a breeze. And that hints at a larger, serious privacy concern in the age of cybersecurity breaches and digital services that keep your bank information and home addresses on record. It’s hard to go undetected these days.What’s more? Ohm says we’re approaching the “next great frontier in advertising”: your location.Sure, websites can tweak adverts to zero in on your interests based on the web searches you’ve made on the same device, or sites visited. But companies and advertisers are chasing technology and business deals that pinpoint your exact whereabouts in real-time for ‘personalised’ advertising. For example, an advert could flash on your mobile phone’s screen offering a coupon for a store you’re half a mile away from.Unless you’re willing to live without the internet or without any smart device, it’s practically impossible to go completely off the grid.“This is a bad time to be a spy,” Swire says. In other words, even for people whose job it is to be anonymous, it’s hard to be anonymous.Still, there are plenty of instances in which anonymity is problematic, even dangerous. Is its demise actually a blessing for society?{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cmzt\"}}Is the death of anonymity good?Swire says that anonymity is a relatively new construct, and that the rise of cities gave rise to it. So, we’ve spent far more time living without it than living with it.“Anonymity didn’t exist in small towns in the days of yore,” Swire says, where everybody knew everybody’s business. “To some extent, urban living created anonymity. The difference today is that even in a big city, each of us leaves breadcrumbs that an investigator can follow.”Anonymity also has a dark side. In that same Carnegie Mellon study, 53% of interviewees admitted to malicious activities, like hacking or harassing other internet users, or engaging in “socially undesirable activities\", like visiting sites that depicted violence or pornography, or downloading files illegally.There may be signs that, while most people certainly want to keep sensitive information like bank accounts and medical records safe, others may not care about sacrificing true anonymity for a perceived greater good.In <a href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/19/americans-feel-the-tensions-between-privacy-and-security-concerns/\">a 2015 Pew study</a>, Americans who were surveyed felt torn between maintaining privacy rights and ensuring national security: 56% surveyed said that they were more concerned that the government’s anti-terrorism policies hadn’t gone far enough to protect citizens, even if that meant sacrificing some civil liberties, like online privacy.Meanwhile, YouGov, an internet market research firm, found <a href=\"https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/19/tracker-protect-privacy-v-help-security-forces/\">in a survey last year</a> that about nearly half of Britons contacted said that “more should be done to help the security forces combat terrorism, even if this means the privacy of ordinary people suffers.”In any case, efforts to completely anonymise our activities are more or less futile: With the rise of the internet of things, more and more of the devices we use every day will require our personal information to function, and the more they’ll be integrated into our lives.“There is this huge disconnect,” Ohm says. “Do we believe what people say when an interviewer asks them [about privacy], or do we believe their purchasing habits?”Waning anonymity sounds inevitable. Still, if you do want to protect your privacy as best you can, the experts do offer a few tips.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn2t\"}}Best practices you can useEarlier this year, Pew found that <a href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/01/26/americans-and-cybersecurity/\">most Americans don’t trust</a> big institutions like the government or social media sites to protect their personal information – and yet, ironically, most Americans don’t follow best practices to protect their identities online.What are some of those best practices? Keeping your passwords under lock and key, making a different one for each service, and making them hard to guess. But if you’re more concerned about your reputation than hackers, a little common sense goes a long way.<blockquote> Follow the front page test: Don’t put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper </blockquote>“Follow the front page test,” Swire suggests. “Don’t put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper. I give that advice to intelligence agencies, and I give that advice to ordinary people.” Because while some people may not care about third parties or governments tracking their purchasing habits, people will definitely care more about being anonymous when it involves people they interact with on a daily basis.“You might not care if a busy bureaucrat or internet company can access those gossipy emails, but you’d really care if your boss sees them instead,” Swire says. Using encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp make your messages more private and more difficult to trace.But if we’re going to reassign real cultural value to anonymity; to secure it as a basic right people are entitled to, it’s going to take a lot more than just individual action, and a lot more than encryption apps you can load up your phone with.It’s going to take sweeping societal change. It’s going to take governments, advertisers, and tech corporations worldwide to agree on a baseline system of ethics. It’s not just about customers opting out of digital services – it’s about the choice to temporarily opt out of their public-facing identities, as well.“All of us need to keep some private space where our deepest dreams and darkest fantasies are hidden away from other people – it gives us room to develop as humans, to try out different thoughts and different sides of ourselves,” says Swire. “That doesn’t change because of the internet.”--Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now for BBC Future. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-29T19:55:22.77Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The reasons you can't be anonymous anymore","HeadlineShort":"Why you can't be anonymous anymore","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"In today’s hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Is it time we just gave up on the idea altogether?\n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"In today’s hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Is it time we just gave up on the idea altogether?\n","SummaryShort":"The reasons we're creating a world with no privacy","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-30T08:46:19.211245Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"90a8a57c-db2b-4b91-92d6-1e153c44dc13","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-30T11:30:01.25009Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","_id":"5982804a0b1947497fcdb86a"}],"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d5c50b1947497fcd49b0"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"It’s been dubbed “the end of modern medicine”. BBC Future asked experts to explain how we might avoid the worst effects of antibiotic resistance – a grand challenge of our age. ","SummaryShort":"How we can avoid the worst effects of antibiotic resistance","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand 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addiction","Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:videopid:p04vkphs","Vpid":"p04vkphv","_id":"59851ff40b1947497fcf1992"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":523619,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1688,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/4v/j4/p04vj4hs.jpg","SourceWidth":3000,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Staten Island, a New York City borough, is in the grip of a heroin crisis which has claimed hundreds of lives (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"(Credit: Getty Images)","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/4v/j4/p04vj4hs.jpg","Title":"GettyImages-614695720.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p04vj4hs","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p04vj4hs","_id":"59851ff40b1947497fcf1993"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Chelsea Clinton","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-02T10:02:33.887487Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"77ec00d1-781f-4701-b224-fae206d5d356","Id":"wwfuture/author/chelsea-clinton","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-02T11:03:18.509087Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"chelsea-clinton"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/chelsea-clinton","_id":"5981d23b0b1947497fcb89ad"}],"BodyHtml":"Many of the global health challenges I see in 2017 were painfully present and widely acknowledged as challenges in 2016. This is true of specific demographic questions, such as how to help protect public health for refugees and provide refugees health care. It’s also true of methodological questions, such as how to ensure that health is a meaningful part of conversations in other areas, such as climate change, economic development and women’s rights, including the right to a safe and healthy pregnancy and delivery.It’s true when we think about the resources available to global health overall, and the resources allocated to address ‘new’ health threats like Zika, and more ‘familiar’ health threats, including polio or malaria. And, finally, it’s true when we think about questions of governance, of determining what’s on the global health agenda, how that agenda will be addressed and financed, who will do the work, how will that work be judged and how will those judgments hold those doing the work and in charge accountable.Questions of resource allocation and governance are even more salient in 2017 given a new Director-General will assume leadership at the World Health Organisation (WHO) later this year and donor governments around the world are questioning the value of development assistance, including in health.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vj4hs\"}}There is a challenge that – while acknowledged in 2016 – only began to claw its way up the global and domestic agenda last year and deserves a more prominent place in 2017: opioid addiction and overdose. The US Centers for Disease Control recognises that our country is gripped by an ‘<a href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/\">opioid overdose epidemic</a>,’ and various studies estimate that <a href=\"http://www.drugfree.org/news-service/80-percent-opioid-use-disorders-dont-receive-treatment/\">80%</a> of those struggling with opioid use don’t get the help they need. The global gap between need and access to treatment is even greater; the WHO estimates <a href=\"http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/information-sheet/en/\">90%</a> of those who need treatment don’t get it.Over the past few years, the Clinton Foundation has worked with researchers at Johns Hopkins University to study the opioid epidemic that has ravaged families and communities across the US.<blockquote> We can save thousands of lives - Chelsea Clinton   </blockquote>We learned that by decreasing stigma around addiction and increasing access while normalising attitudes to life-saving Naloxone – an antidote for opioid overdose – we can save thousands of lives. We’re working with partners to make Naloxone widely affordable (and at times free) and accessible to EMTs, police officers, educators, and community first responders, so that they know how to use Naloxone and are ready to use it whenever needed to save someone’s life – at a school, in a park, on a street, in a home.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vj55v\"}}No longer is this first a criminal justice issue. Rather, it is a public health and awareness issue and is widely beginning to be acknowledged as such. It is also a moral issue – we know now that Naloxone has the chance to save thousands of lives.The next question is what role can Naloxone play in saving lives around the world? We hope the Clinton Foundation’s early work in changing markets and distribution systems around HIV/AIDS medicines may provide a model and we know we need new partners in the mental health, health systems and education spaces, among others, to help shape any future global opioid addiction work. And, of course, we need research to inform potential global work as it has in the US. There is always more data to be collected, more assumptions to be challenged, more stories to be inspired by.No one should die of an opioid overdose in 2017 in America, or anywhere – as in all areas where we know how to prevent such deaths, we have an obligation to save lives and work toward zero.Chelsea Clinton is Vice Chair of the Clinton Foundation--------------------------------------- AMERICA’S OPIOID ADDICTION Analysis by Bryan Lufkin, BBC Future In the United States, opioid addiction has become an epidemic, according to national health organisations.The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that 91 Americans die a day from opioid dependence, totalling 33,000 deaths in 2015 – more than any year on record. In fact, such <a href=\"https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm\">drugs now kill more Americans than guns or car accidents</a>.<blockquote> Opioids now kill more Americans than guns or car accidents </blockquote>Opioids are synthetic drugs that mimic the effects of the opium from poppy plants. Since ancient times, opium has yielded pleasure and deadened pain in humans, interacting with the nervous system and nerve cells in the brain. But that’s also what makes it addictive.Today, opioids take the form of prescription painkillers and illicit substances like heroin. Sales of prescription opioids <a href=\"http://www.asam.org/docs/default-source/advocacy/opioid-addiction-disease-facts-figures.pdf\">quadrupled</a> in the US from 1999 to 2010.According to the World Health Organisation, 15 million people worldwide suffer from addiction to opium-derived drugs, and each year they kill 69,000 people.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vj4wy\"}}But why is a huge chunk of that number in the US? Prescriptions of opioid medications have soared in the country since the late 1990s. Some point to doctors over-prescribing powerful opioid painkillers to their patients, and those medications — like OxyContin and Vicodin — often “serve as gateway drugs to heroin, which has a nearly identical chemical makeup and is cheaper and sometimes easier to obtain,” <a href=\"http://www.nsc.org/RxDrugOverdoseDocuments/Prescription-Nation-2016-American-Drug-Epidemic.pdf\">according to the US National Security Council.</a> (Heroin-related deaths have tripled in the US since 2010.) Last year, the BBC <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37224075\">investigated the phenomenon</a> in the rural American heartland, where the epidemic has hit the country hard.<ul> <li>More from BBC News - <a style=\"font-size: 12px;\" href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-37992809\">America's heroin trail: A new generation of addicts</a></li> </ul>So, what’s being done about it? Last year, a group called the Coalition to Stop Opioid Overdose launched in Washington, DC, and other health organisations are pivoting to make finding a solution a priority. They’re pursuing a push to increase the availability of Naloxone, a prescription drug that reverses the effects of an opiate overdose. And last year, the US Food & Drug Administration began requiring opioid painkillers’ boxes to feature labels that warn of abuse and overdose risks. Educating doctors and changing prescribing guidelines will also play a role.The sooner strategies are worked out, the better. Opioid addiction is on the rise worldwide, but it’s significantly more pressing in the US. <a href=\"https://www.asipp.org/documents/ASIPPFactSheet101111.pdf\">According to the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians</a>, the US makes up less than 5% of the global population – but consumes 80% of the world’s opioids.Watch an animation about the opioid epidemic:{\"video\":{ \"pid\": \"p04vkphs\",\"encoding\": \"ib2\" }}  Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"We may have things better than ever – but we’ve also never faced such world-changing challenges. That’s why <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the key challenges in their area.\nThe range of different responses demonstrate the richness and complexity of the modern world. Inspired by these responses, over the next month we will be publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">the biggest challenges we face today.</a>","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"A guide to the issues that define our age","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T11:16:12.756515Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3f52a790-5ab8-424b-928b-263e268e37b9","Id":"wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:17:22.643245Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb9200"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-02T10:01:45.779Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Chelsea Clinton: America is suffering an opioid epidemic","HeadlineShort":"Chelsea Clinton: The US opioid epidemic","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"What are the biggest public health challenges in 2017? Chelsea Clinton writes about the issues she believes will matter in the year ahead – and argues for urgent work to tackle America’s disproportionate problem with opioid addiction. \n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"What’s the biggest challenge facing the world today? In many ways, we stand at a special point in history. The world has never been richer, humans have never lived such long, productive and healthy lives, and we have brought technology to the point where our machines could soon help us solve many of our remaining problems.<blockquote> We may have things better than ever – but we’ve never faced such world-changing challenges   </blockquote>On the other hand, we could also be on the brink of disaster. The economies and industries that have given us unprecedented wealth and wellbeing have come at enormous cost to the planet. As a result of our actions, half of all species alive today could disappear over the next century – an irreplaceable network of life that sustains our own existence by sequestering carbon and producing oxygen, among myriad other subtle effects. Global warming could make crowded parts of the world uninhabitable – or at least unable to produce the food that we need.Other things give cause for concern too. The wealth of the West lifts the global average, but the gap between rich and poor has never been greater – even within single countries. Modern medicine has conquered many diseases – but overuse of antibiotics has created the risk of drug-resistant superbugs that could prove unstoppable. And international travel makes global epidemics more likely.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04v9r8x\"}}Finally, computers have brought untold benefit to our lives – making the world tick more smoothly, keeping us connected and helping us solve problems that once seemed intractable. But this success could see them replace human workers in ever greater numbers – especially with the rapid rise of artificially intelligent systems. Their impact will be felt well beyond the workplace too. As AI decision-makers start to play more central roles in industries from banking to healthcare, big events in our lives – securing a loan, getting a medical diagnosis, finding a romantic partner – will be orchestrated more and more by software. Learning how to work with these systems – and ensure that ever smarter machines continue to work in our interest – is still an open issue.We may have things better than ever – but we’ve never faced such world-changing challenges either. Getting to grips with these is the defining task of our times.Expert viewsThat’s why Future Now asked 50 experts – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the biggest challenge facing their area today. The range of different responses demonstrate the richness and complexity of the modern world.Inspired by these responses, over the next month we will be publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at the big topics, including energy, artificial intelligence, the future of democracy and more.This week, we’re featuring an original article from Chelsea Clinton on the challenge of tackling opioid addiction, and why society needs to change its approach to people struggling with a dependency. We’ll also be exploring the pressing problem of ‘fake news’, and asking our experts for their insights on how to ensure trustworthy information reaches people in an age of multiple, competing sources.Stay tuned. We hope you enjoy the Grand Challenges special to come – and get in touch on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a> if you’d like to add challenges of your own.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04v9qrh\"}}Our panel:GLOBAL HEALTHNicholas Agar, Professor of Ethics at the Victoria University of WellingtonLuke Alphey, Visiting Professor, Department of Zoology, University of OxfordElizabeth Bradley, Professor of Grand Strategy, Head of Branford College, Professor of Public Health and Faculty Director of the Yale Global Health Leadership InstituteChelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton FoundationJennifer Doudna, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, co-inventor of CRISPR-Cas9 technologyJoel Garreau, author, journalist, Professor of Law, Culture and Values, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State UniversityLaurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign RelationsTim Jinks, Head of Drug Resistant Infections at Wellcome TrustAnit Mukherjee, policy fellow at the Center for Global DevelopmentPardis Sabeti, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard UniversityRobert Sparrow, Adjunct Professor, Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash UniversityEric Topol, Director of the Scripps Transatlantic Science InstituteMike Turner, Head of Infection and Immunobiology at the Wellcome TrustGavin Yamey, Professor of the Practice of Global Health, Duke University Global Health InstituteARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & TECHNOLOGYdanah boyd, Principal Researcher, Microsoft ResearchMissy Cummings, Professor, Humans and Autonomy Lab, Duke UniversityKate Darling, Research Specialist, MIT Lab; Fellow, Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & SocietyEzekiel Emanuel, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and Chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of PennsylvaniaPeter Norvig, Director of Research, GoogleRichard Alan Peters, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt UniversityBruce Schneier, Chief Technology Officer of Resilient, an IBM company, fellow at Harvard's Berkman CenterTomotaka Takahashi, founder of Kyoto University’s Robo GarageJonathan Zittrain, Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Director of the Harvard Law School Library, and Faculty Director of the Berkman Center for Internet & SocietyCITIES AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENTMary Barra, CEO, General MotorsNootan Bharani, Lead Design Manager, Place Lab, University of ChicagoLarry Burns, former Corporate Vice President of Research and Development for General MotorsVishaan Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Practice at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and PreservationLucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction for the United States Geological SurveyRochelle Kopp, founder and Managing Principal of Japan Intercultural CounselingChris Leinberger, Nonresident Senior Fellow of Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings InstituteEdward Paice, Director, Africa Research InstituteNick Reed, Academy Director at the Transport Research LaboratoryShin-pei Tsay, &lrm;Executive Director, Gehl InstituteENERGYHomi Kharas, Senior Fellow and Deputy Director of Brookings Institute’s Global ProgramCarey King, Assistant Director, University of Texas at Austin Energy InstituteVijay Padmanabhan, Asian Development Bank, Technical Advisor (Urban)William Ryerson, founder and President, the Population Institute and Population Media CenterJim Watson, Director of the UK Energy Research CentreFUTURE OF THE INTERNET / DEMOCRACYPeter Barron, VP Communications, EMEA, GoogleRohit Chandra, VP Engineering, YahooEddie Copeland, Director of Government Innovation at NestaNonny de la Peña, virtual reality journalist and CEO of Emblematic GroupBen Fletcher, Senior Software Engineer at IBM Watson ResearchKevin Kelly, founding Executive Editor of Wired MagazineStephan Lewandowsky, psychologist at University of BristolAlexios Mantzarlis, Chair of the International Fact Checking NetworkWill Moy, Director of Full Fact, an independent fact checking organisation based in the UKPaul Resnick, Professor of Information at the University of MichiganVictoria Rubin, Director of the Language and Information Technology Research lab at Western University, Ontario, CanadaViktor Mayer-Schönberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford Internet InstituteLet us know the “grand challenge” that matters to you on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-02-28T12:19:40.729Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"A guide to humanity’s greatest challenges","HeadlineShort":"Humanity’s greatest challenges","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"Over the next month, BBC Future Now will explore the biggest issues of our age – informed by a panel of 50 experts.\n","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Over the next month, BBC Future Now will explore the biggest issues of our age – informed by a panel of 50 experts.\n","SummaryShort":"The issues that matter in 2017 and beyond","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-28T12:40:03.567511Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"f061eafb-b1dc-4a91-a792-3587bf5667a3","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-17T14:26:43.368053Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges","_id":"5983b1ad0b1947497fce5a25"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Who was the first black president of America? It’s a fairly simple question with a straightforward answer. Or so you would think. But plug the query into a search engine and the facts get a little fuzzy.When I checked Google, the first result – given special prominence in a box at the top of the page – informed me that the first black president was a man called John Hanson in 1781. Apparently, the US has had seven black presidents, including Thomas Jefferson and Dwight Eisenhower. Other search engines do little better. The top results on Yahoo and Bing pointed me to articles about Hanson as well.Welcome to the world of “alternative facts”. It is a bewildering maze of claim and counterclaim, where hoaxes spread with frightening speed on social media and spark angry backlashes from people who take what they read at face value. Controversial, fringe views about US presidents can be thrown centre stage by the power of search engines. It is an environment where the mainstream media is accused of peddling “fake news” by the most powerful man in the world. Voters are seemingly misled by the very politicians they elected and even scientific research - long considered a reliable basis for decisions - is dismissed as having little value.For a special series launching this week, BBC Future Now asked a panel of experts about <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\">the grand challenges we face in the 21st Century</a> – and many named the breakdown of trusted sources of information as one of the most pressing problems today. In some ways, it’s a challenge that trumps all others. Without a common starting point – a set of facts that people with otherwise different viewpoints can agree on – it will be hard to address any of the problems that the world now faces.<blockquote> Having a large number of people in a society who are misinformed is absolutely devastating and extremely difficult to cope with – Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol </blockquote>The example at the start of this article may seem a minor, frothy controversy, but there is something greater at stake here. Leading researchers, tech companies and fact-checkers we contacted say the threat posed by the spread of misinformation should not be underestimated.Take another example. In the run-up to the US presidential elections last year, a made-up story spread on social media claimed a paedophile ring involving high-profile members of the Democratic Party was operating out of the basement of a pizza restaurant in Washington DC. In early December a man walked into the restaurant - which does not have a basement - and fired an assault rifle. Remarkably, no one was hurt.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vf25q\"}}Some warn that “fake news” threatens the democratic process itself. “On page one of any political science textbook it will say that democracy relies on people being informed about the issues so they can have a debate and make a decision,” says Stephan Lewandowsky, a cognitive scientist at the University of Bristol in the UK, who studies the persistence and spread of misinformation. “Having a large number of people in a society who are misinformed and have their own set of facts is absolutely devastating and extremely difficult to cope with.”A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center towards the end of last year found that <a href=\"http://www.journalism.org/2016/12/15/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion/\">64% of American adults said made-up news stories were causing confusion about the basic facts of current issues and events</a>.Alternative historiesWorking out who to trust and who not to believe has been a facet of human life since our ancestors began living in complex societies. Politics has always bred those who will mislead to get ahead.But the difference today is how we get our information. “The internet has made it possible for many voices to be heard that could not make it through the bottleneck that controlled what would be distributed before,” says Paul Resnick, professor of information at the University of Michigan. “Initially, when they saw the prospect of this, many people were excited about this opening up to multiple voices. Now we are seeing some of those voices are saying things we don’t like and there is great concern about how we control the dissemination of things that seem to be untrue.”<blockquote> There is great concern about how we control the dissemination of things that seem to be untrue – Paul Resnick, University of Michigan </blockquote>We need a new way to decide what is trustworthy. “I think it is going to be not figuring out what to believe but who to believe,” says Resnick. “It is going to come down to the reputations of the sources of the information. They don’t have to be the ones we had in the past.”We’re seeing that shift already. The UK’s Daily Mail newspaper has been a trusted source of news for many people for decades. But last month editors of Wikipedia <a href=\"https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard&oldid=764880426#Daily_Mail_RfC\">voted to stop using the Daily Mail as a source for information</a> on the basis that it was “generally unreliable”.Yet Wikipedia itself - which can be edited by anyone but uses teams of volunteer editors to weed out inaccuracies - is far from perfect. Inaccurate information is a regular feature on the website and requires careful checking for anyone wanting to use it.For example, the Wikipedia page for the comedian Ronnie Corbett once stated that during his long career he played a Teletubby in the children’s TV series. This is false but when he died the statement cropped up <a href=\"https://www.rte.ie/entertainment/2016/0331/778565-comedian-ronnie-corbett-dies-at-the-age-of-85/\">in some of his obituaries</a> when writers resorted to Wikipedia for help.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vf2t6\"}}Other than causing offense or embarrassment – and ultimately eroding a news organisation’s standing - these sorts of errors do little long-term harm. There are some who care little for reputation, however. They are simply in it for the money. Last year, links to websites masquerading as reputable sources started appearing on social media sites like Facebook. Stories about <a href=\"http://www.factcheck.org/2016/10/did-the-pope-endorse-trump/\">the Pope endorsing Donald Trump’s candidacy </a>and Hillary Clinton being indicted for crimes related to her email scandal were shared widely despite being completely made up.“The major new challenge in reporting news is the new shape of truth,” says Kevin Kelly, a technology author and co-founder of Wired magazine. “Truth is no longer dictated by authorities, but is networked by peers. For every fact there is a counterfact. All those counterfacts and facts look identical online, which is confusing to most people.”<blockquote> For every fact there is a counterfact and all those counterfacts and facts look identical online – Kevin Kelly, co-founder Wired magazine </blockquote>For those behind the made-up stories, the ability to share them widely on social media means a slice of the advertising revenue that comes from clicks as people follow the links to their webpages. It was found that many of the stories were coming from <a href=\"https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo?utm_term=.ebnL4blay#.ehYL61kOv\">a small town in Macedonia where young people were using it as a get-rich scheme</a>, paying Facebook to promote their posts and reaping the rewards of the huge number visits to their websites.“The difference that social media has made is the scale and the ability to find others who share your world view,” says Will Moy, director of Full Fact, an independent fact-checking organisation based in the UK. “In the past it was harder for relatively fringe opinions to get their views reinforced. If we were chatting around the kitchen table or in the pub, often there would be a debate.”But such debates are happening less and less. Information spreads around the world in seconds, with the potential to reach billions of people. But it can also be dismissed with a flick of the finger. What we choose to engage with is self-reinforcing and we get shown more of the same. It results in an exaggerated “echo chamber” effect.<blockquote> People are quicker to assume they are being lied to but less quick to assume people they agree with are lying, which is a dangerous tendency – Will Moy, director of Full Fact </blockquote>“What is noticeable about the two recent referendums in the UK - Scottish independence and EU membership - is that people seem to be clubbing together with people they agreed with and all making one another angrier,” says Moy. “The debate becomes more partisan, more angry and people are quicker to assume they are being lied to but less quick to assume people they agree with are lying. That is a dangerous tendency.”The challenge here is how to burst these bubbles. One approach that has been tried is to challenge facts and claims when they appear on social media. Organisations like Full Fact, for example, look at persistent claims made by politicians or in the media, and try to correct them. (The BBC also has its own fact-checking unit, called <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/267ada11-b730-4344-b404-63067c032c65/reality-check\">Reality Check</a>.)Research by Resnick suggests this approach may not be working on social media, however. He has been building software that <a href=\"http://www.www2015.it/documents/proceedings/proceedings/p1395.pdf\">can automatically track rumours on Twitter</a>, dividing people into those that spread misinformation and those that correct it. “For the rumours we looked at, the number of followers of people who tweeted the rumour was much larger than the number of followers of those who corrected it,” he says. “The audiences were also largely disjointed. Even when a correction reached a lot of people and a rumour reached a lot of people, they were usually not the same people. The problem is, corrections do not spread very well.”<blockquote> The problem is that corrections do not spread very well – Paul Resnick, University of Michigan </blockquote>One example of this that Resnick and his team found was a mistake that appeared in a leaked draft of a World Health Organisation report that stated many people in Greece who had HIV had infected themselves in an attempt to get welfare benefits. The <a href=\"http://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/communicable-diseases/hivaids/news/news/2013/11/correction-to-hiv-case-study-in-greece-featured-in-whoeurope-report-on-social-determinants-of-health\">WHO put out a correction</a>, but even so, the initial mistake reached far more people than the correction did. Another rumour suggested the rapper Jay Z had died and reached 900,000 people on Twitter. Around half that number were exposed to the correction. But only a tiny proportion were <a href=\"http://compute-cuj.org/cj-2014/cj2014_session2_paper3.pdf\">exposed to both the rumour and correction</a>.This lack of overlap is a specific challenge when it comes to political issues. Moy fears the traditional watchdogs and safeguards put in place to ensure those in power are honest are being circumvented by social media.“On Facebook political bodies can put something out, pay for advertising, put it in front of millions of people, yet it is hard for those not being targeted to know they have done that,” says Moy. “They can target people based on how old they are, where they live, what skin colour they have, what gender they are. We shouldn’t think of social media as just peer-to-peer communication - it is also the most powerful advertising platform there has ever been.”<blockquote> We shouldn’t think of social media as just peer-to-peer communication, it is also the most powerful advertising platform there has ever been – Will Moy, director of Full Fact </blockquote>But it may count for little. “We have never had a time when it has been so easy to advertise to millions of people and not have the other millions of us notice,” he says.Twitter and Facebook both insist they have strict rules on what can be advertised and particularly on political advertising. Regardless, the use of social media adverts in politics can have a major impact. During the run up to the EU referendum, the Vote Leave campaign paid for nearly <a href=\"https://dominiccummings.wordpress.com/2016/10/29/on-the-referendum-20-the-campaign-physics-and-data-science-vote-leaves-voter-intention-collection-system-vics-now-available-for-all/\">a billion targeted digital adverts</a>, mostly on Facebook, <a href=\"http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2017/01/dominic-cummings-brexit-referendum-won/\">according to one of its campaign managers</a>. One of those was the claim that the <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/voteleave/posts/582486851928243\">UK pays £350m a week to the EU</a> - a figure Sir Andrew Dilnot, the chair of the UK Statistics Authority, described as misleading. In fact the UK pays around £276m a week to the EU because of a rebate.“We need some transparency about who is using social media advertising when they are in election campaigns and referendum campaigns,” says Moy. “We need to be more equipped to deal with this - we need watchdogs that will go around and say, ‘Hang on, this doesn’t stack up’ and ask for the record to be corrected.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04vf2jd\"}}Social media sites themselves are already taking steps. Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, recently spelled out his concerns about the spread of hoaxes, misinformation and polarisation on social media in a <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/notes/mark-zuckerberg/building-global-community/10103508221158471/?pnref=story\">6,000-word letter he posted online</a>. In it he said Facebook would work to reduce sensationalism in its news feed on its site by looking at whether people have read content before sharing it. It has also <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/zuck/posts/10103269806149061\">updated its advertising policies</a> to reduce spam sites that profit off fake stories, and added tools to let users flag fake articles.Other tech giants also claim to be taking the problem seriously. Apple’s <a href=\"http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/02/10/fake-news-killing-peoples-minds-says-apple-boss-tim-cook/\">Tim Cook recently raised concerns about fake news</a>, and Google says it is working on ways to improve its algorithms so they take accuracy into account when displaying search results. “Judging which pages on the web best answer a query is a challenging problem and we don’t always get it right,” says Peter Barron, vice president of communications for Europe, Middle East and Asia at Google.“When non-authoritative information ranks too high in our search results, we develop scalable, automated approaches to fix the problems, rather than manually removing these one by one. We recently made improvements to our algorithm that will help surface more high quality, credible content on the web. We’ll continue to change our algorithms over time in order to tackle these challenges.”<blockquote> Judging which pages on the web best answer a query is a challenging problem and we don’t always get it right – Peter Barron, Google </blockquote>For Rohit Chandra, vice president of engineering at Yahoo, more humans in the loop would help. “I see a need in the market to develop standards,” he says. \"We can’t fact-check every story, but there must be enough eyes on the content that we know the quality bar stays high.” Google is also helping fact-checking organisations like Full Fact, which is developing new technologies that can identify and even correct false claims. Full Fact is <a href=\"https://fullfact.org/automated\">creating an automated fact-checker </a>that will monitor claims made on TV, in newspapers, in parliament or on the internet.Initially it will be targeting claims that have already been fact-checked by humans and send out corrections automatically in an attempt to shut down rumours before they get started. As artificial intelligence gets smarter, the system will also do some fact-checking of its own.“For a claim like ‘crime is rising’, it is relatively easy for a computer to check,” says Moy. “We know where to get the crime figures and we can write an algorithm that can make a judgement about whether crime is rising. We did a demonstration project last summer to prove we can automate the checking of claims like that. The challenge is going to be writing tools that can check specific types of claims, but over time it will become more powerful.”What would Watson do?It is an approach being attempted by a number of different groups around the world. Researchers at the University of Mississippi and Indiana University are both working on an automated fact-checking system. One of the world’s most advanced AIs has also had a crack at tackling this problem. IBM has spent several years working on ways that its <a href=\"https://www.poynter.org/2016/whats-does-the-future-of-automated-fact-checking-look-like/404937/\">Watson AI could help internet users distinguish fact from fiction</a>. They built a fact-checker app that could sit in a browser and use Watson’s language skills to scan the page and give a percentage likelihood of whether it was true. But according to Ben Fletcher, senior software engineer at IBM Watson Research who built the system, it was unsuccessful in tests - but not because it couldn’t spot a lie.“We got a lot of feedback that people did not want to be told what was true or not,” he says. “At the heart of what they want, was actually the ability to see all sides and make the decision for themselves. A major issue most people face without knowing it is the bubble they live in. If they were shown views outside that bubble they would be much more open to talking about them.”<blockquote> We got a lot of feedback that people did not want to be told what was true or not – Ben Fletcher, IBM Watson Research </blockquote>This idea of helping break through the isolated information bubbles that many of us now live in comes up again and again. By presenting people with accurate facts it should be possible to at least get a debate going. But telling people what is true and what is not does not seem to work. For this reason, IBM shelved its plans for a fact-checker.“There is a large proportion of the population in the US living in what we would regard as an alternative reality,” says Lewandowsky. “They share things with each other that are completely false. Any attempt to break through these bubbles is fraught with difficulty as you are being dismissed as being part of a conspiracy simply for trying to correct what people believe. It is why you have Republicans and Democrats disagreeing over something as fundamental as how many people appear in a photograph.”One approach Lewandowsky suggests is to make search engines that offer up information that may subtly conflict with a user’s world view. Similarly, firms like Amazon could offer up films and books that provide an alternative viewpoint to the products a person normally buys.<blockquote> There is a large proportion of the population living in what we would regard as an alternative reality – Stephan Lewandowsky, University of Bristol </blockquote>“By suggesting things to people that are outside their comfort zone but not so far outside they would never look at it you can keep people from self-radicalising in these bubbles,” says Lewandowsky. “That sort of technological solution is one good way forward. I think we have to work on that.”Google is already doing this to some degree. It operates a <a href=\"https://www.google.com/grants/\">little known grant scheme</a> that allows certain NGOs to place high-ranking adverts in response to certain searches. It is used by groups like the Samaritans so their pages rank highly in a search by someone looking for information about suicide, for example. But Google says <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/feb/02/google-pilot-extremist-anti-radicalisation-information\">anti-radicalisation charities could also seek to promote their message</a> on searches about so-called Islamic State, for example.But there are understandable fears about powerful internet companies filtering what people see - even within these organisations themselves. For those leading the push to fact-check information, better tagging of accurate information online would be a better approach by allowing people to make up their own minds about the information.<blockquote> Search algorithms are as flawed as the people who develop them – Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network </blockquote>“Search algorithms are as flawed as the people who develop them,” says Alexios Mantzarlis, director of the International Fact-Checking Network. “We should think about adding layers of credibility to sources. We need to tag and structure quality content in effective ways.”Mantzarlis believes part of the solution will be providing people with the resources to fact-check information for themselves. He is planning to develop a database of sources that professional fact-checkers use and intends to make it freely available.But what if people don’t agree with official sources of information at all? This is a problem that governments around the world are facing as the public views what they tell them with increasing scepticism.Nesta, a UK-based charity that supports innovation, has been looking at some of the challenges that face democracy in the digital era and <a href=\"http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/digital-democracy-tools-transforming-political-engagement\">how the internet can be harnessed to get people more engaged.</a> Eddie Copeland, director of government innovation at Nesta, points to an example in Taiwan where members of the public can propose ideas and help formulate them into legislation. “The first stage in that is crowdsourcing facts,” he says. “So before you have a debate, you come up with the commonly accepted facts that people can debate from.”<blockquote> When people say they are worried about people being misled, what they are really worried about is other people being misled – Paul Resnick, University of Michigan </blockquote>But that means facing up to our own bad habits. “There is an unwillingness to bend one’s mind around facts that don’t agree with one’s own viewpoint,” says Victoria Rubin, director of the language and information technology research lab at Western University in Ontario, Canada. She and her team have been working to identify fake news on the internet since 2015. Will Moy agrees. He argues that by slipping into lazy cynicism about what we are being told, we allow those who lie to us to get away with it. Instead, he thinks we should be interrogating what they say and holding them to account.Ultimately, however, there’s an uncomfortable truth we all need to address. “When people say they are worried about people being misled, what they are really worried about is other people being misled,” says Resnick. “Very rarely do they worry that fundamental things they believe themselves may be wrong.” Technology may help to solve this grand challenge of our age, but it is time for a little more self-awareness too.<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now\"><img src=\"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/raw/p04jj4t7.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Future Now\" width=\"100%\" /></a>Keep up to date with Future Now stories by joining our 800,000+ fans on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"We may have things better than ever – but we’ve also never faced such world-changing challenges. That’s why <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the key challenges in their area.\nThe range of different responses demonstrate the richness and complexity of the modern world. Inspired by these responses, over the next month we will be publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">the biggest challenges we face today</a>.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"A guide to the issues that define our age","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-01T11:59:44.103Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Lies, propaganda and fake news: A challenge for our age","HeadlineShort":"The trend that may undermine democracy","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"With news sources splintering and falsehoods spreading widely online, can anything be done? Richard Gray takes an in-depth look at how we got here – and hears from the researchers and innovators seeking to save the truth.\n\n","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"With news sources splintering and falsehoods spreading widely online, can anything be done? Richard Gray takes an in-depth look at how we got here.\n","SummaryShort":"What happens if everyone is misinformed?","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T12:10:48.293549Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"bfd10925-5ce6-4f0a-aca0-67fc37b03fa1","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170301-lies-propaganda-and-fake-news-a-grand-challenge-of-our-age","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-06T17:20:30.264743Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170301-lies-propaganda-and-fake-news-a-grand-challenge-of-our-age"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170301-lies-propaganda-and-fake-news-a-grand-challenge-of-our-age","_id":"5982d7660b1947497fcde563"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/world-changing-ideas\"><img src=\"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/raw/p049vjvx.png\" border=\"0\" alt=\"World-changing ideas summit\" width=\"100%\" /></a>David Attenborough has shown us the wonders of the natural world on our television screens for more than six decades. But how can we save those treasures for future generations?In an exclusive video for BBC Future's World Changing Ideas Summit in Sydney today, Attenborough explains why cheap solar energy should be an imperative. \"Supposing that those people who had invented the steam engine and so on had in fact turned their thoughts on how to use energy and heat from the Sun - that could have changed history. We would no longer have to fell forest, we would no longer have to take oil over vast areas of land that have been completely destroyed. Above all we would no longer have polluted the atmosphere,\" he says. \"If we get cheap energy which doesn't pollute, then we are into a golden age.\" --Join 700,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>, <a href=\"https://plus.google.com/107828172298602173375/posts\">Google+</a>, <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/bbc-com\">LinkedIn</a> and <a href=\"https://instagram.com/bbcfuture_official/\">Instagram</a>If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-11-14T01:08:44.293Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"David Attenborough: Here's my world-changing idea","HeadlineShort":"How Attenborough would change the world","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"We asked the iconic natural history presenter to describe the one technological revolution that he hopes will save humanity. Watch the video above to see his answer.","IsSyndicated":false,"Location":null,"Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"The iconic natural history presenter describes the technological revolution that he hopes will save our planet. ","SummaryShort":"We asked the iconic presenter about the one idea that could save our planet","Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-14T22:48:10.648235Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"8fe7e303-7675-4db7-b375-4231b51e194e","Id":"wwfuture/story/20161114-david-attenborough-heres-my-world-changing-idea","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-14T23:13:50.696508Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20161114-david-attenborough-heres-my-world-changing-idea"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20161114-david-attenborough-heres-my-world-changing-idea","_id":"5981db700b1947497fcd60fb"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"How can we build a better world for tomorrow?At the launch of Cambridge University’s Big Data Institute, we recently asked the physicist Stephen Hawking to describe the one idea that would transform our society. He chose nuclear fusion – the process of releasing energy by transforming hydrogen atoms into helium.{\"video\":{ \"pid\": \"p04gh3bz\",\"encoding\": \"ib2\" }}View his answer in the exclusive video above and read our recent article about the latest attempts to harness this source of power <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20160428-the-secretive-billionaire-backed-plans-to-harness-fusion\">here</a>.The clip forms part of our World-Changing Ideas series, centred on a recent event in Sydney on 15 November. To get a taste of other revolutionary concepts, browse our <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161113-20-world-changing-ideas-to-make-tomorrow-better\">infographic</a> or read our in-depth articles on:<ul> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161115-the-viruses-that-may-save-humanity\">The viruses that may save humanity</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161114-the-astronaut-who-wants-to-change-how-we-see-the-world\">The balloons taking us to the edge of space</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161110-the-real-risks-of-artificial-intelligence\">The real risks of artificial intelligence</a></li> <li><a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20161111-the-benefits-and-downsides-of-mind-controlled-machines\">The truth about mind-controlled machines</a></li> </ul>Join 700,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>, <a href=\"https://plus.google.com/107828172298602173375/posts\">Google+</a>, <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/bbc-com\">LinkedIn</a> and <a href=\"https://instagram.com/bbcfuture_official/\">Instagram</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, Travel and Autos, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2016-11-18T00:41:29Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Stephen Hawking: Why we should embrace fusion power","HeadlineShort":"Hawking: We should embrace fusion power","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"In an exclusive video for BBC Future, the world's most famous physicist explains how he would like to change our society. ","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"In an exclusive video for BBC Future, the world's most famous physicist explains how he would like to change our society. ","SummaryShort":"The world’s most famous physicist explains why we need a new source of energy","SuperSection":null,"Tag":null},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-18T10:13:38.842171Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"dd763480-abb6-4bf8-bb59-61c6ee8b3970","Id":"wwfuture/story/20161117-stephen-hawking-why-we-should-embrace-fusion-power","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-18T10:13:38.842171Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20161117-stephen-hawking-why-we-should-embrace-fusion-power"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20161117-stephen-hawking-why-we-should-embrace-fusion-power","_id":"5984936a0b1947497fced11e"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Drugs are scary. The words “heroin” and “cocaine” make people flinch. It's not just the associations with crime and harmful health effects, but also the notion that these substances can undermine the identities of those who take them. One try, <a href=\"http://www.not-even-once.com/\">we're told</a>, is enough to get us hooked. This, it would seem, is confirmed by animal experiments.Many studies have shown rats and monkeys will neglect food and drink in favour of pressing levers to obtain morphine (the lab form of heroin). With the right experimental set up, some rats <a href=\"http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=2696\">will self-administer drugs until they die</a>. At first glance it looks like a simple case of the laboratory animals <a href=\"http://www.aatod.org/OLD_SITE/print_version/print_1998-3.html\">losing control of their actions to the drugs</a> they need. It's easy to see in this a frightening scientific fable about the power of these drugs to rob us of our free will.But there is more to the real scientific story, even if it isn't widely talked about. The results of a set of little-known experiments carried out more than 30 years ago paint a very different picture, and illustrate how easy it is for neuroscience to be twisted to pander to popular anxieties. The vital missing evidence is a <a href=\"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00426903\">series of studies</a> carried out in the late 1970s in what has become known as <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_park\">\"Rat Park\"</a>. Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander, at the Simon Fraser University in British Columbia, Canada, suspected that the preference of rats to morphine over water in previous experiments might be affected by their housing conditions.To test his hypothesis he built an enclosure measuring 95 square feet (8.8 square metres) for a colony of rats of both sexes. Not only was this around 200 times the area of standard rodent cages, but Rat Park had decorated walls, running wheels and nesting areas. Inhabitants had access to a plentiful supply of food, perhaps most importantly the rats lived in it together.Rats are smart, social creatures. Living in a small cage on their own is a form of sensory deprivation. Rat Park was what neuroscientists would call an <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_enrichment_%28neural%29\">enriched environment</a>, or – if you prefer to look at it this way – a non-deprived one. In Alexander's tests, rats reared in cages drank as much as 20 times more morphine than those brought up in Rat Park. Inhabitants of Rat Park could be induced to drink more of the morphine if it was mixed with sugar, but a control experiment suggested that this was because they liked the sugar, rather than because the sugar allowed them to ignore the bitter taste of the morphine long enough to get addicted. When naloxone, which blocks the effects of morphine, was added to the morphine-sugar mix, the rats' consumption didn't drop. In fact, their consumption increased, suggesting they were actively trying to avoid the effects of morphine, but would put up with it in order to get sugar.‘Woefully incomplete’The results are catastrophic for the simplistic idea that <a href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/26/cocaine-decision-making_n_3818400.html\">one use of a drug inevitably hooks the user by rewiring their brain</a>. When Alexander's rats were given something better to do than sit in a bare cage they turned their noses up at morphine because they preferred playing with their friends and exploring their surroundings to getting high.Further support for his emphasis on living conditions came from another set of tests his team carried out in which rats brought up in ordinary cages were forced to consume morphine for 57 days in a row. If anything should create the conditions for chemical rewiring of their brains, this should be it. But once these rats were moved to Rat Park they chose water over morphine when given the choice, although they did exhibit some minor withdrawal symptoms.You can read more about Rat Park in <a href=\"http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00426903#page-1\">the original scientific report</a>. A good summary is in <a href=\"http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/\">this comic</a> by Stuart McMillen. The results aren't widely cited in the scientific literature, and the studies were discontinued after a few years because they couldn't attract funding. There have been criticisms of the study’s design and the few attempts that have been made to replicate the results have been mixed.Nonetheless the research does demonstrate that the standard <a href=\"http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/bul/92/2/367/\">“exposure model”</a> of addiction is woefully incomplete. It takes far more than the simple experience of a drug – even drugs as powerful as cocaine and heroin – to make you an addict. The alternatives you have to drug use, which will be influenced by your social and physical environment, play important roles as well as the brute pleasure delivered via the chemical assault on your reward circuits.For a psychologist like me it suggests that even addictions can be thought of using <a href=\"http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ppp/summary/v017/17.1.foddy.html\">the same theories we use to think about other choices</a>, there isn't a special exception for drug-related choices. Rat Park also suggests that when stories about the effects of drugs on the brain are promoted to the neglect of the discussion of the personal and social contexts of addiction, science is servicing our collective anxieties rather than informing us.If you would like to comment on this article or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook page</a> or message us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/#%21/BBC_Future\">Twitter</a>.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2013-09-10T00:00:00Z","HeadlineLong":"Drug addiction: The complex truth","HeadlineShort":"Drug addiction: The complex truth","HideRelated":false,"Intro":"We’re told studies have proven that drugs like heroin and cocaine instantly hook a user. But it isn’t that simple – a set of little-known experiments carried out over 30 years ago tells a very different tale.","IsSyndicated":false,"Location":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"We’re told studies have proven drug use instantly hooks a user. But it’s not that simple, little-known experiments over 30 years ago tell a very different tale.","SummaryShort":"What we are told isn’t the full story","Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:11:45Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"7514c133-ddef-4021-9f00-f3b4d6263c03","Id":"wwfuture/story/20130910-drug-addiction-the-complex-truth","ModifiedDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:11:45Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20130910-drug-addiction-the-complex-truth"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20130910-drug-addiction-the-complex-truth","_id":"59830ab70b1947497fcdfffe"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"What are the biggest public health challenges in 2017? Chelsea Clinton writes about the issues she believes will matter in the year ahead.\n","SummaryShort":"America is leading the world – in serious drug addiction","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d5c50b1947497fcd49b0"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-02T10:13:45.731985Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"4de0c9dd-f05e-4f36-9066-4a47a34fafdf","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-22T15:41:43.904203Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-02T10:13:45.731985Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"4de0c9dd-f05e-4f36-9066-4a47a34fafdf","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-06-22T15:41:43.904203Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic","_id":"59851ff40b1947497fcf1994"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":241030,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/54/cn/p054cnf8.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Anonymity","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/54/cn/p054cnf8.jpg","Title":"anon6.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cnf8","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p054cnf8","_id":"59823aa20b1947497fcd93ed"}],"AssetImagePromo":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":226365,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":2295,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/54/cm/p054cmt7.jpg","SourceWidth":4080,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Anonymity","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/54/cm/p054cmt7.jpg","Title":"anon5.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cmt7","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cmt7","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p054cmt7","_id":"5981d4c80b1947497fccc63d"}],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":365521,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/54/cn/p054cn38.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Artists and writers, like Banksy, have leveraged anonymity as a benefit for centuries. But anonymity is under threat in our interconnected digital society. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Anonymity","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/54/cn/p054cn38.jpg","Title":"anon3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cn38","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p054cn38","_id":"598280480b1947497fcdb866"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":307782,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/54/cn/p054cn34.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Our increased dependence on smart devices erodes anonymity. Even if you don't use social media, advertisers could still find your online footprint. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Anonymity","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/54/cn/p054cn34.jpg","Title":"anon2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cn34","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p054cn34","_id":"598280490b1947497fcdb867"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":367995,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/54/cm/p054cmzt.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Recent studies have shown that many people don't mind sacrificing a certain level of internet privacy to fight terrorism via online surveillance. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Anonymity","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/54/cm/p054cmzt.jpg","Title":"anon4.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cmzt","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p054cmzt","_id":"59832b5f0b1947497fce1025"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":374562,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/54/cn/p054cn2t.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Maintaining privacy and a sense of anonymity is vital to happiness and self-development, experts say. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Anonymity","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/54/cn/p054cn2t.jpg","Title":"anon1.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p054cn2t","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p054cn2t","_id":"5984e29a0b1947497fcef9ea"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Bryan Lufkin","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"67534f97-e86d-4c3c-b668-6fa93daa84aa","Id":"wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"bryan-lufkin"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","_id":"5981d23a0b1947497fcb88b4"}],"BodyHtml":"Imagine walking into a roomful of strangers. Perhaps you’ve travelled to a new city. You don’t know anyone, and no one knows you. You’re free to do anything or go anywhere or talk to anyone. How do you feel?Perhaps you feel free of the judgment and scrutiny from acquaintances or associates. Perhaps you feel energised that you can use this opportunity to experience life on your terms, at your own speed. But whatever your feelings would be, you would at least safely assume that you can enter this isolated situation without being monitored or tracked by a far-flung company or individual – right?Wrong. What you’re experiencing as you walk into that room is anonymity: a sociocultural phenomenon that’s afforded privacy and freedom. But in the year 2017, it’s pretty much all but dead. It’s emerging as one of the major challenges of our age: how should we go about both ensuring national security and enhancing our lives through technology, whilst also maintaining a basic right to privacy that feels like it has existed since the beginning of human history?”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn38\"}}The internet made us stop caring Anonymity, which is Greek for “no name,” is a uniquely human psychological experience: it’s the idea that we all have identities to present to the world, but under certain circumstances, can switch the identity off and operate in total secrecy.“We need a public self to navigate the social world of family, friends, peers and co-workers,” says John Suler, professor of psychology at Rider University in New Jersey, and author of The Psychology of Cyberspace. “But we also need a private self – an internal space where we can reflect on our own thoughts and feelings apart from outside influence, where we can just be with our own psyche. Our identity is formed by both. Without one or the other, our wellbeing can easily become disrupted.”Being anonymous allows us to try new things or express ideas without being judged. In 2013, researchers at Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania published a study in which they <a href=\"http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~kiesler/publications/2013/why-people-seek-anonymity-internet-policy-design.pdf\">conducted in-depth interviews with dozens of internet users on four continents</a>. One interviewee, for instance, created an anonymous online community for English learners to practise their language skills. Anonymity helped them better manage certain spheres of their lives. One participant said that he frequented message boards to help people solve technical problems, but sought to avoid unwanted commitments through the detached nature of the internet. Plus, being anonymous in an environment like the internet can help safeguard personal safety.“Our results show that people from all walks of life had reason, at one time or another, to seek anonymity,” the researchers wrote of the 44 interviewees.But according to a <a href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/09/05/anonymity-privacy-and-security-online/\">2013 study from the Pew Research Center</a>, while most internet users would like to remain anonymous, most don’t think it’s entirely possible. The study found that 59% of American internet users believe it is impossible to completely hide your identity online.And while some people are taking basic steps to preserve anonymity, like deleting their browsing history, many users who say they value anonymity aren’t really walking the walk.Earlier this year, <a href=\"http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcom.12276/full\">a meta-analysis published in the Journal of Communication</a> explored something called the “privacy paradox”: the idea that, while people value privacy, they do little in practice to preserve it. Think about it: when was the last time you actually read one of those many, lengthy privacy policy updates before clicking “I agree”? Our attitude toward privacy has become increasingly blasé.One could even argue it’s even detrimental not to divulge at least some info. Career coaches worldwide trumpet the professional importance of having a fleshed-out public LinkedIn photo complete with full name, headshot, full work history and more.Perhaps this is more of a cultural thawing toward previously uptight attitudes. I remember getting on the internet for the first time. It was the 1990s and on my father’s work computer. In those days, internet service providers went to great, paranoid lengths to discourage users from divulging even basic tidbits in their public profiles, like first name, city, even gender.Today? Personal info flies freely and wildly across the web, often on our volition: Instagrammed selfies of ourselves and loved ones, complete with geotagged locations. Social media users engaging in political spats and horrible insults, despite the fact that the target of their harassment could click on their real names and real photos and see who they actually are.<blockquote> People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously – John Suler </blockquote>“People tend to think of cyberspace as some kind of imaginary space without true boundaries, a space not to be taken too seriously – not subject to the same rules and standards as the ‘real’ world,” says Suler. In just the span of a few short years, people’s comfort level with the internet has risen to the point where information-sharing can be careless or reckless.Call it privacy fatigue, but our increased interdependence on our smart devices and social media has given some of us a largely lazy attitude toward staying totally anonymous.But what if you’re one of those people who eschews Facebook, has no social media presence, and goes to great lengths to leave a fleeting digital footprint? Sorry – your anonymity is at risk too.Going off the grid is no fixWhile skipping a Facebook profile is a good way to disconnect, there are still ways people can sleuth out your identity.Paul Ohm, a law professor at Georgetown University in Washington, DC, says there’s “intentional anonymity” and “inferential anonymity”: the former being what we choose to keep close to the vest, and the latter referring to the data that a Google-savvy sleuth can “infer” from you online – that is, dig up loads of personal information about you using a single fact as a starting point.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn34\"}}“It’s become increasingly clear that it’s a losing game,” Ohm says on achieving total anonymity in 2017. “As long as someone knows something about you, they can probably find other things about you, and do it really successfully – more than they have in the past.”If you’re a social media party pooper, that might mean old flames or long-lost classmates can’t track you down. But that doesn’t mean you’re anonymous from big entities, like corporations or the government.“It’s much harder to be anonymous than it was 20 years ago, at least from the biggest companies and the government,” says Peter Swire, professor of law and ethics at Georgia Institute of Technology, and who served on US President Barack Obama’s Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technology.Advertisers track your internet habits across your devices – phone, tablet, laptop – to know where you habitually go, shop, and what kind of websites you visit, and there has been growing controversy about what internet companies should be allowed to track and sell to third parties.Earlier this year, US President Donald Trump signed a law that repealed requirements for internet service providers to get permission from customers before gathering and sharing their personal data, like your web history and what apps you use.Swire says we’re living in a “golden age of surveillance”: If you’re a person of interest in an investigation, looking up details like financial records, medical records, web history or call history is a breeze. And that hints at a larger, serious privacy concern in the age of cybersecurity breaches and digital services that keep your bank information and home addresses on record. It’s hard to go undetected these days.What’s more? Ohm says we’re approaching the “next great frontier in advertising”: your location.Sure, websites can tweak adverts to zero in on your interests based on the web searches you’ve made on the same device, or sites visited. But companies and advertisers are chasing technology and business deals that pinpoint your exact whereabouts in real-time for ‘personalised’ advertising. For example, an advert could flash on your mobile phone’s screen offering a coupon for a store you’re half a mile away from.Unless you’re willing to live without the internet or without any smart device, it’s practically impossible to go completely off the grid.“This is a bad time to be a spy,” Swire says. In other words, even for people whose job it is to be anonymous, it’s hard to be anonymous.Still, there are plenty of instances in which anonymity is problematic, even dangerous. Is its demise actually a blessing for society?{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cmzt\"}}Is the death of anonymity good?Swire says that anonymity is a relatively new construct, and that the rise of cities gave rise to it. So, we’ve spent far more time living without it than living with it.“Anonymity didn’t exist in small towns in the days of yore,” Swire says, where everybody knew everybody’s business. “To some extent, urban living created anonymity. The difference today is that even in a big city, each of us leaves breadcrumbs that an investigator can follow.”Anonymity also has a dark side. In that same Carnegie Mellon study, 53% of interviewees admitted to malicious activities, like hacking or harassing other internet users, or engaging in “socially undesirable activities\", like visiting sites that depicted violence or pornography, or downloading files illegally.There may be signs that, while most people certainly want to keep sensitive information like bank accounts and medical records safe, others may not care about sacrificing true anonymity for a perceived greater good.In <a href=\"http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/02/19/americans-feel-the-tensions-between-privacy-and-security-concerns/\">a 2015 Pew study</a>, Americans who were surveyed felt torn between maintaining privacy rights and ensuring national security: 56% surveyed said that they were more concerned that the government’s anti-terrorism policies hadn’t gone far enough to protect citizens, even if that meant sacrificing some civil liberties, like online privacy.Meanwhile, YouGov, an internet market research firm, found <a href=\"https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/02/19/tracker-protect-privacy-v-help-security-forces/\">in a survey last year</a> that about nearly half of Britons contacted said that “more should be done to help the security forces combat terrorism, even if this means the privacy of ordinary people suffers.”In any case, efforts to completely anonymise our activities are more or less futile: With the rise of the internet of things, more and more of the devices we use every day will require our personal information to function, and the more they’ll be integrated into our lives.“There is this huge disconnect,” Ohm says. “Do we believe what people say when an interviewer asks them [about privacy], or do we believe their purchasing habits?”Waning anonymity sounds inevitable. Still, if you do want to protect your privacy as best you can, the experts do offer a few tips.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p054cn2t\"}}Best practices you can useEarlier this year, Pew found that <a href=\"http://www.pewinternet.org/2017/01/26/americans-and-cybersecurity/\">most Americans don’t trust</a> big institutions like the government or social media sites to protect their personal information – and yet, ironically, most Americans don’t follow best practices to protect their identities online.What are some of those best practices? Keeping your passwords under lock and key, making a different one for each service, and making them hard to guess. But if you’re more concerned about your reputation than hackers, a little common sense goes a long way.<blockquote> Follow the front page test: Don’t put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper </blockquote>“Follow the front page test,” Swire suggests. “Don’t put comments down in texts or emails that would bother you if they were on the front page of the newspaper. I give that advice to intelligence agencies, and I give that advice to ordinary people.” Because while some people may not care about third parties or governments tracking their purchasing habits, people will definitely care more about being anonymous when it involves people they interact with on a daily basis.“You might not care if a busy bureaucrat or internet company can access those gossipy emails, but you’d really care if your boss sees them instead,” Swire says. Using encrypted messaging apps like Signal and WhatsApp make your messages more private and more difficult to trace.But if we’re going to reassign real cultural value to anonymity; to secure it as a basic right people are entitled to, it’s going to take a lot more than just individual action, and a lot more than encryption apps you can load up your phone with.It’s going to take sweeping societal change. It’s going to take governments, advertisers, and tech corporations worldwide to agree on a baseline system of ethics. It’s not just about customers opting out of digital services – it’s about the choice to temporarily opt out of their public-facing identities, as well.“All of us need to keep some private space where our deepest dreams and darkest fantasies are hidden away from other people – it gives us room to develop as humans, to try out different thoughts and different sides of ourselves,” says Swire. “That doesn’t change because of the internet.”--Bryan Lufkin is the editor of Future Now for BBC Future. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bryan_lufkin?lang=en\">@bryan_lufkin</a>.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T11:16:12.756515Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3f52a790-5ab8-424b-928b-263e268e37b9","Id":"wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:17:22.643245Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb9200"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-29T19:55:22.77Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The reasons you can't be anonymous anymore","HeadlineShort":"Why you can't be anonymous anymore","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"In today’s hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Is it time we just gave up on the idea altogether?\n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"With soft, nimble fingers, an arm stretches out to delicately pluck an apple from a shelf and place it gently into a basket.It performs the task again with a bag of limes and again with a pepper, never tiring, never complaining.This is a prototype robotic arm <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-629m-RPyoI\">being tested by Ocado</a>, the British online supermarket. The irregular shape and delicate flesh of these common groceries have meant they tend to be packed by human workers at Ocado’s warehouses. But the company is pursuing robotic technology that could assist these human warehouse workers but still handle produce safely, making the process faster and cheaper for the company.Ocado is far from the only company pursuing automated workers. It is happening in <a href=\"https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=4384\">hospitals</a>, <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/19807d3e-1765-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d\">law firms</a>, the stock market. The list goes on.The question is… how does this affect the human workforce? How might it affect you?BBC Future Now asked a panel of experts for their views, as part of our special series on the ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">Grand Challenges</a>’ facing humanity. We hear a lot about doom-and-gloom surrounding robots stealing our jobs, but what will actually happen? Who’s at risk, and what could your workplace actually look like in five years?The answers might surprise you.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn3b\"}}The middle class is at risk Reports suggest that <a href=\"http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/future-of-employment.pdf\">47% of people employed in the US are at risk of being replaced by machines</a> and 35% of jobs in the UK may similarly be threatened – with even higher threats in developing countries, with <a href=\"http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2017/04/20/2017-wbgimf-spring-meetings-world-bank-group-opening-press-conference-by-president-jim-yong-kim\">two thirds of jobs at risk of being automated</a>.But machines stealing jobs is not new. “Automation has happened before,” says Bhagwan Chowdhry, professor of finance at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chowdhry points to the shifts that took place in factories during the industrial revolution when automatic looms and other machines took over from human weavers.So what’s different this time? “It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers,” says Chowdry. “But also a lot of white collar workers.”<blockquote> It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers </blockquote>Often, we think of low-wage, low-skill jobs being the most at risk, like warehouse workers or cashiers, but automation may also affect middle-income jobs, such as clerks, chefs, office workers, security guards, junior lawyers, inspectors.Those in the firing line are understandably worried. “The concern is more about the transition pains,” says Carl Benedikt Frey, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment. “Most jobs that we will see being automated require different skill sets from those being created. The key challenge will be to make sure that those who experience displacement will find something meaningful to do.”So, should companies seeking to automate jobs have a moral responsibility to help the staff they are replacing to learn new skills?Future-proofing your jobThe answer may go beyond just the companies – it may need to start in school.The way we currently structure education may no longer be fit for purpose in a world where technology is changing so rapidly.“The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up,” warns Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Initiative on the Digital Economy. “We could end up leaving a lot of people behind.”Brynjolfsson and Paul Clarke, chief technology officer at Ocado, both agree that school and college education need to better prepare pupils for a world where robotic and artificial intelligence will be widespread.<blockquote> The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up </blockquote>In the workplace, employees will also continually require new sets of skills rather than using the same ones over their entire career that could just go obsolete anyway.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pncp\"}}“The distinction between work and learning might need to become more amorphous,” says Chowdhry. “We currently have a dichotomy where those who work need not learn, and those who learn do not work. We need to think about getting away from the traditional five day working week to one where I spend 60% of my time doing my job and 40% learning on a regular basis.”For the majority of us, this could be a crucial switch in our thinking.<a href=\"http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation\">Research by management consultants McKinsey and Company</a> suggests that fewer than 5% of occupations can be entirely automated by existing technology. The reason – our jobs are simply too varied and changeable for robots to take on all the tasks.Instead, they predict around 60% of occupations could see a third of the activities they currently do being farmed out to machines. This will mean that most of us will probably be able to cling onto our jobs, but the way we do them is going to change significantly.Robots will complement you, not replace youLearning how to work alongside robots could be essential, too.“We can have cases where machines pick up some of the repetitive work to free up humans to do other more rewarding aspects of their job,” explains James Manyika, senior partner at McKinsey who has led much of their research into the impacts of automation. “This could put a massive downward pressure on wages because the machine is now doing all the hard work. It could also mean more people could do that job aided by the technology, so there is more competition.”There are wider issues at stake here too. With lower incomes and potential unemployment looming for middle-income workers, governments themselves could face some fundamental problems, like lost taxes and dissatisfied voting classes.Luckily, there are some things humans can do that machines just can’t right now.One good example of this comes from some work by researchers in Singapore, who are attempting to teach two autonomous <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.04806v1.pdf\">robotic arms to assemble a flat-packed Ikea chair</a>. Despite using some of the most advanced equipment around, the machines struggle with the most basic tasks.Even identifying different objects from a chaotic mixture of parts is a major challenge for robots. In a recent test, it took the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQ_WW_WsEQ\">two robots more than a minute and half to successful insert a piece of dowelling into one of the chair legs</a>.And that's just one piece of furniture. “The real challenges occur when you want that robot to assemble several items of furniture,” Hawes explains. “A robot might be able to put together an Ikea chest of drawers, but it will struggle to then do a wardrobe from the same line, as the pieces will be different, even if some of the assembly steps are the same. Humans don’t have that problem.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn0w\"}}The human advantageFrom better flexibility to better personalities, there are some things we may always do better than robots.“As we automate a lot of the repetitive work, we are going to see increased demand for creative skills,” says Brynjolfsson. “We are also going to see an increased demand for those with social skills, interpersonal skills, who are nurturing, caring, teaching, persuasive, have negotiating skills, and are good at selling.”Frey thinks there are a few areas where humans have the advantage.“The first is social interactions,” says Frey. “If we think about the variety of complex social interactions we do in our daily jobs – when we negotiate, or try to persuade people, assist others or take care of customers. We manage teams and so on. It is almost inconceivable that computers will intrude upon human workers who do that.”<blockquote> We are going to see increased demand for creative skills </blockquote>Another is creativity. Computers are good at grinding down problems and performing repetitive tasks without getting bored. Humans, however, find this kind of monotonous work tedious.The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy has even set up a <a href=\"https://www.mitinclusiveinnovation.com/\">$1 million challenge</a> aimed at encouraging businesses to make the most of these typically “human traits” alongside technology.“The amount we currently pay people like nannies and carers for the elderly is atrocious,” says McKinsey’s Manyika. “Similarly, there is plenty of artistic and creative work that has never made any money. The challenge is how we pay for and value creative output, or other tasks we are not willing to let machines do.”Alex Harvey, head of research at Ocado Technology, which develops the software and tech for the company's retail arm, points out that the world has been designed and built for humans, and building robots to operate in these naturally complicated environments is a major technical challenge.One of the projects Ocado is working on with universities around Europe is a robotic assistant for maintenance work called SecondHands, which illustrates how humans and robots might collaborate.“It has the ability to lift things to a greater height than a human, for example,” explains Harvey. “It is quite a simple robot in terms of its behavioural repertoire, but it can form a nice team where the human technician is the leader and they can use the muscular power of the robot.”But the closer humans and machines work together, the murkier the ethical waters start to get.The ethics problemAround 1.7 million robots are already in use around the world, but they are largely used in industrial settings where few humans are allowed to set foot. As that number grows, and the roles they perform expand, the likelier humans are to work hand in hand with robots, side by side – increasing the risk of harm.“There needs to be more transparency so we can understand how these things do the things they do and behave the way they do,” urges Mady Delvaux, vice chair of the committee on legal affairs at the European Parliament.She recently led an effort in the parliament to push for <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20170210IPR61808/robots-and-artificial-intelligence-meps-call-for-eu-wide-liability-rules\">rules on robotics and artificial intelligence</a>.A <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/571379/IPOL_STU(2016)571379_EN.pdf\">report compiled for the European Parliament</a> stressed there was urgent need for new legislation on liability should accidents happen. Similar issues of liability arise should a robot take actions that break the law. An AI algorithm, for example, could choose to make a series of financial transactions that achieve its goals, but lie outside the tangled web of regulations that govern the sector.Delvaux and her colleagues also called for a Code of Ethics to help guide our relationship with robots.<blockquote> Recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can develop sexist and racist tendencies </blockquote>“There have to be some things that are respected, like the autonomy of people and their privacy,” says Delvaux.This perhaps also highlights another issue troubling many dealing with artificial intelligence – the problem of bias. Machine learning systems are only as good as the data they are given to learn on, and recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/even-artificial-intelligence-can-acquire-biases-against-race-and-gender\">develop sexist and racist tendencies</a>.Delvaux also points to the people who are writing the algorithms in the first place. The majority of people working in the technology industry are <a href=\"https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/\">white males</a>, with men making up between <a href=\"http://www.techrepublic.com/article/diversity-stats-10-tech-companies-that-have-come-clean/\">70% and 90% of the employees</a> at some of the biggest and most influential companies.Silicon Valley has been rocked over the past couple of years with <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39025288\">scandals about sex discrimination</a>. It has raised fears that robots and machines could display similar discriminatory behaviour.“It is a very thin slice of the population currently designing our technologies,” warns Judy Wajcman, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. “Technology needs to reflect society, so there needs to be a shift in the design and innovation process.”Meanwhile, Bill Gates recently suggested yet another ethical red flag: that robots themselves may have to be <a href=\"https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/\">taxed to make up for lost levies on income</a> from employees. Others have suggested as robots take on more tasks, there could be a <a href=\"http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html\">growing case for universal basic income</a>, where everyone receives state benefits.Much of this, of course, assumes that robots are actually capable of doing the jobs we set them. Despite their apparent intelligence, most robots are still pretty dumb contraptions when compared to our own capabilities.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pmv0\"}}Machines have a ways to goLike the Ikea example, AI leaves a lot of room for improvement.Perhaps one of the greatest issues facing the machine learning and artificial intelligence community currently is understanding how their algorithms work. “Things like artificial intelligence and machine learning are still largely black boxes,” argues Manyika. “We can’t open them up to find out how they got the answer they produce.”This presents a number of issues. Machine learning systems and modern AI are usually trained using large sets of images or data that are fed in to allow them to recognise patterns and trends. They can then use this to spot similar patterns when they are given new data.This might be fine if we want to find CT scans that show signs of disease, for example, but if we use a similar system to identify a suspect from a fragment of CCTV footage, knowing how it did this may be crucial when presenting the evidence to a jury.Even in the field of autonomous vehicles, this ability to generalise remains a considerable challenge.Takeo Kanade, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the pioneers of self-driving vehicles and an expert in computer vision. He says giving robots a “genuine understanding” of the world around them is still a technical challenge that needs to be overcome.“It is not just about identifying where objects are,” he explains, following a lecture at the inaugural Kyoto Prize at Oxford event, where he outlined the problems facing researchers. “The technology has to be able to understand what the world is doing around them.  For example, is that person actually going to cross the road in front of them, or not?”Hawes himself encountered a similar problem with one of his own projects that put <a href=\"http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2016/06/betty-the-autonomous-robot-starts-work-as-trainee-office-manager.aspx\">an autonomous “trainee office manager”</a> into several offices in the UK and Austria.The team programmed the robot, called Betty, to trundle around the offices monitoring for clutter building up, checking whether fire doors were closed, measuring noise and counting workers at their desks outside normal hours.“Things would appear in the environment like chairs moving, people shifting their desks or pot plants,” he says. “Dealing with that without reprogramming the whole robot is challenging.”But even though the robot wasn’t perfect, the humans still found a way of working alongside it.Surprisingly, those working alongside Betty actually responded to their mechanical worker in a positive way, even coming to its aid if the robot ever got stuck in a corner. “People would say hello to it in the morning and said it made the office more interesting to work in,” says Hawes.If we can hand the tedious, repetitive bits of our jobs to machines then it could free us up to some of the things we actually enjoy. “Work has the potential to become more interesting as a result,” says Frey.It is a tantalising thought, that just perhaps, the rise of the machines could make our jobs a lot more human.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">at the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-23T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How automation will affect you – the experts’ view","HeadlineShort":"How automation will affect you","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","SummaryShort":"The myths, misconceptions and reality","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-23T06:44:37.578576Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"68ff2c73-abdc-4cbe-a4cf-92d05dd8eac4","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-23T10:20:11.716207Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","_id":"5982d85b0b1947497fcde5bc"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"A man walks up to the front door of a jeweller in the centre of Rotterdam and buzzes to enter but it doesn’t budge. He waits. While he lingers by the door, a facial recognition camera quickly scans his face and cross references the image with a watch list of known shoplifters from the local police department. It turns out he has a criminal record for shoplifting and the jeweller doesn’t want him on the premises.That was one example of a pilot called FotoSwitch in 2011, a program run by the Rotterdam Rihnmond police department, the Netherlands’ Ministry of Security and Justice, and the Dutch Federation of Gold and Silver, aided by Spanish biometrics firm <a href=\"http://hertasecurity.com/\">Herta Security</a>.The pilot gave jewellers an opportunity to quickly screen customers before they entered. The door would also stay locked if a person was wearing sunglasses or something obscuring their face.It’s the latest way retailers have tried to combat theft. But is it enough to tip the battle in their favour?New tricksFigures from the UK’s <a href=\"http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/crime-stats/crime-statistics/year-ending-march-2015/index.html\">Office of National Statistics</a> show the number of shoplifting offences totalled 326,464 between April 2014 and March 2015 in the UK, compared to 321,078 and 300,623 for the previous two years. Shoplifting appears to be growing, and thieves are using new tricks to try and steal goods, like <a href=\"http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/12/flash-mobs-turned-criminal-the-rise-of-flash-robberies/\">“flash robs”</a>, where groups of thieves co-ordinate via social media.Steve Rowen of US-based <a href=\"http://www.rsrresearch.com/\">Retail Systems Research (RSR)</a> says that among the retailers it usually surveys, the challenge of preventing stock being pilfered by shoplifters is a constant. This has created a need for more intensive tools not only for surveillance but for managing a store in general, from staffing to presenting products. “CCTV, let’s be honest, you couldn’t use it for more than a basic general description of a person,” says Rowen.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p038jgtb\"}}CCTV is a classic method for getting a glimpse of your suspect but it can hit a dead end if it doesn’t have anyone to compare it to – a list of known or suspected shoplifters, for example.More companies are now looking at using facial recognition to keep their stock safe, says Joseph Rosenkrantz, the CEO of <a href=\"http://facefirst.com/\">FaceFirst</a>, which develops facial recognition technology for multiple industries. He says, only a few years ago, the accessibility of facial recognition was out of bounds for most retailers – it simply cost too much.<blockquote> Stolen tools and electronics, for example, are easier to resell, making them an attractive target </blockquote>Herta’s technology needs just the “slightest glimpse” to match against a database and can recognise up to 20 or 30 faces in a crowd, says Gary Lee, Herta Security’s international business development manager. The company remains tight-lipped about who its clients are but it is currently testing its facial recognition system with a large electronics chain.Rosenkrantz from FaceFirst says its technology is mostly used by grocery stores, DIY stores, and big box retailers. Stolen tools and electronics, for example, are easier to resell, making them an attractive target.Links to databaseSo how does this facial recognition work? When a match is determined, the store is alerted with details of the shoplifter such as a photo that was taken during their last arrest as well as other details such as their name, the nature of the crime, and where they stole from in the past.“All that information is assembled and emailed just to the adjacent manager or person in charge of security at the location, which is important,” says Rosenkrantz. “Let’s say there are 500 stores and a person walks into a store in Essex, you don’t want to notify managers in the other stores. The system is location aware, which is a must for this to work.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p038bsfs\"}}Stores using facial recognition have to get their own access to a database of known shoplifters, which is often done in collaboration with local police.More stores are opting for biometric security, with more than a quarter of respondents in <a href=\"https://csc.turtl.co/story/55ee93d8bbfd077f2d4e22ee\">a recent survey</a> admitting they have recently used facial recognition. It’s partly to keep their stock safe, but also to understand traffic flow and keep tabs on who visits the store.Facial recognition technology and high-definition digital cameras can be a huge investment for stores, says Rowen, and often they are looking for further ways to use the technology, making it more cost-effective. Not only could it be used to track possible shoplifters but the tech can give stores a view into who visits their stores regularly, which demographics they fit into, or what aisles they frequent.<blockquote> Almost half of the stores said they were in favour of some kind of facial recognition technology </blockquote>“We talked to a large department a number of years ago that said the biggest thing that they had taken away from the cameras that they brought in to combat shrink [theft] was that they were staffing their stores in entirely the wrong places at the entirely wrong time of day,” says Rowen.In the survey mentioned, almost half of the stores said they were in favour of some kind of facial recognition technology and only 7% believed the technology was intrusive. But that raises another issue. Should more be done to make customers aware of the watching eyes that may now be tracking them while doing their spot of shopping?Lee believes that this is just an extension of the CCTV surveillance that we’re used to already amidst our daily lives. “If it’s used for good things and to protect them and protect businesses, I think it’s no problem,” he says. But he adds that it will only be tolerated he says as long it’s “playing within the rules”.Too intrusive?Privacy will remain a major concern. In September of this year the UK’s Home Office <a href=\"http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201516/cmselect/cmsctech/455/455.pdf\">published a report</a> encouraging greater oversight on the handling of biometric data, which includes the kind of material the facial recognition system will be studying.With these kinds of concerns in mind, a selection of start-ups have tried to find their own way of tracking customers without gathering personal images like their face.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p038bstm\"}}<a href=\"http://www.netra.io/\">Netra</a>, based in Massachusetts in the US, examines a store’s surveillance footage and picks out identifying features in both the products and customers that will help in understanding what has happened in the aftermath of an incident.“We are extracting very abstract appearance characteristics so the privacy of the person is never compromised,” says CTO Shashi Kant. Netra’s software detects things like the colour of a person’s clothes, their hair length, or if they have a backpack or handbag.<blockquote> Stores still depend on the use of cameras, which are only as good as what they can see </blockquote>“In most situations we have enough appearance characteristics to differentiate between humans. It’s not just humans; what they’re carrying, for example, like backpack or a shopping cart. All these things factor into the appearance,” he says.<a href=\"https://prism.com/\">Prism</a> has created a similar tool, which turns “cameras into intelligent data centres” and mines existing CCTV footage for events that occur in the store like the movement of customers or products from shelves. “We took more of a privacy-enabled approach… not necessarily saying I’m tracking Person A,” explains the company’s operational manager Bob Cutting. He says software like Prism works most efficiently when it’s used with other safeguards already in place such as RFID tags and alarms.“All systems require some kind of visual verification,” he adds. Stores need a means to prove that a person that set off an alarm is the one that actually lifted the product and not a decoy.Physical limitationsWhether it’s biometric scanners or more abstract tracking tools, stores still depend on the use of cameras, which are only as good as what they can see. “There’s an art form to camera placement,” says Cutting.FaceFirst, which says it typically trains cameras on entrances rather than aisles, and it usually needs 90% accuracy in a facial scan to set off an alert but this can be adjusted. Scenarios like an airport for example would opt for a wider net, says Rosenkrantz, where the system would trigger for a lower rate of accuracy just to be on the safe side.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p038jhb5\"}}Facial recognition software usually requires a largely frontal view of the face as well as the eyes in order to recognise someone. “We do need a minimum amount of information,” says Herta Security’s Lee. Someone turning to the side or obscuring their appearance slightly could throw the software off. “This is a physical limitation,” says Lee.But the expectation is for the technology to develop further and become even more nuanced in the coming years and this will attract more clients.“Retailers are reaching out and testing more and more exotic technologies like facial recognition,” says Rosenkrantz, who claims the market for facial recognition in stores will only become more common.<blockquote> Tech may be able to spot suspicious shoppers but it can let you down when it comes to policing employees that may be stealing </blockquote>As this becomes more ordinary across the board, more questions will be raised too. For example, in June, pro-privacy groups in the US <a href=\"http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/16/facial-recognition-software-google-facebook-moments-ntia/28793157/\">walked out of discussions</a> with the Department of Commerce over creating new standards for using facial-scanning software.In November, US retail giant Walmart <a href=\"http://fortune.com/2015/11/09/wal-mart-facial-recognition/\">revealed that it tested out facial recognition</a> in stores, at least for several months. It found that the tech may be able to spot suspicious shoppers but it can let you down when it comes to policing employees that may be stealing.The retail sector will continue to wrestle with the need for better security, respecting privacy, and investing smartly in technology. Getting the balance right may take some time. The likes of the jewellery shop in Rotterdam, however, hope that the future means would-be jewel thieves are very much left out in the cold.Follow us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>, <a href=\"https://plus.google.com/107828172298602173375/posts\">Google+</a>, <a href=\"https://www.linkedin.com/company/bbc-com\">LinkedIn</a> and <a href=\"https://instagram.com/bbcfuture_official/\">Instagram</a>.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2015-11-20T09:55:05.004Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Catching a thief by their face","HeadlineShort":"Catching a thief by their face","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"Retail stores are turning to facial recognition technology and customer tracking tools to fight against shoplifters. BBC Future investigates.","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Retail stores are turning to facial recognition technology and customer tracking tools to fight against shoplifters. Jonathan Keane reports.","SummaryShort":"Even the way you walk is a weapon against shoplifters","SuperSection":null,"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-11-20T09:56:30.842905Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"ae61b3fd-af5e-4fbd-8019-908363c039f8","Id":"wwfuture/story/20151120-catching-a-thief-by-their-face","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-11-20T11:31:33.060515Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20151120-catching-a-thief-by-their-face"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20151120-catching-a-thief-by-their-face","_id":"5983cc860b1947497fce67bd"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"Like it or not, many of us are part of a giant exercise in big data collection. Every time we search or engage in social media we are sending out information about ourselves into the public domain, and as recent events have shown, <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-25231757\">this has raised significant privacy concerns</a>.But Eric Horvitz, managing director of Microsoft Research Lab, points out that tech innovations that we now take for granted often raised these concerns too. From the advent of flash photography to the early use of telephones, these advances raised fears that our lives had been invaded by outside technology.Data collection doesn’t have to be a bad thing, argues Horvitz.He suggests there is a lot to be gained from our online activity, especially in the realm of public health. For instance, streams of data from patients’ internet searches could be put to good use – it could help to reveal signals for possible drug side effects or other health concerns.Eric Horvitz spoke to BBC Future at <a href=\"http://www.atlanticmeetspacific.com/home.html\">The Atlantic Meets The Pacific conference</a>.Additional footage courtesy: Microsoft Research and Shutterstock. If you would like to comment on this video, or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a> or <a href=\"https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/107828172298602173375/107828172298602173375/posts\">Google+</a> page, or message us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/BBC_Future\">Twitter</a>.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2014-02-20T00:00:00Z","HeadlineLong":"Are there benefits to giving up our privacy?","HeadlineShort":"Should you fear digital exposure?","HideRelated":false,"Intro":"In a digital world, our every move can be tracked, collected and analysed. Many see this as an invasion of privacy, but Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz argues that it may also offer unexpected benefits – by helping to predict people’s current and future health issues.","IsSyndicated":false,"Location":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"In a digital world, our every move can be tracked. Many see this as a privacy invasion, but Microsoft’s Eric Horvitz argues it also offers unexpected benefits","SummaryShort":"The benefits of giving up personal data","Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:13:50Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"8ef744e3-e6e3-4f9e-a047-1604c0d0bd0f","Id":"wwfuture/story/20140220-can-giving-up-privacy-help-us","ModifiedDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:13:50Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20140220-can-giving-up-privacy-help-us"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20140220-can-giving-up-privacy-help-us","_id":"5985a46f0b1947497fcf5d77"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"In today’s hyper-connected world, it is becoming harder and harder for anyone to maintain their privacy. Is it time we just gave up on the idea altogether?\n","SummaryShort":"The reasons we're creating a world with no privacy","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d5c50b1947497fcd49b0"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-30T08:46:19.211245Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"90a8a57c-db2b-4b91-92d6-1e153c44dc13","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-30T11:30:01.25009Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-30T08:46:19.211245Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"90a8a57c-db2b-4b91-92d6-1e153c44dc13","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-30T11:30:01.25009Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170529-the-reasons-you-can-never-be-anonymous-again","_id":"5982804a0b1947497fcdb86a"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":404472,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/pn/p053pnt1.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Automation","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/pn/p053pnt1.jpg","Title":"auto6.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pnt1","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053pnt1","_id":"5981d4db0b1947497fccc91c"}],"AssetImagePromo":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":530240,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/pm/p053pmyb.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Automation","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/pm/p053pmyb.jpg","Title":"auto3.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pmyb","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pmyb","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053pmyb","_id":"5981d4db0b1947497fccc887"}],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":323586,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/pn/p053pn3b.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"German Chancellor Angela Merkel and US President Barack Obama meet with automation tech companies at an industrial fair in 2016. (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Automation","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/pn/p053pn3b.jpg","Title":"auto1.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pn3b","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053pn3b","_id":"5982ea470b1947497fcdef50"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":579969,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/pn/p053pncp.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Countries like Germany are enhancing the digital qualifications of its workforce to both boost employment and increase automation. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Automation","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/pn/p053pncp.jpg","Title":"auto4.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pncp","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053pncp","_id":"598393580b1947497fce4a7c"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":737014,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/pn/p053pn0w.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"For the past several years, humans have worked more closely with self-service machines that assume certain employee duties, like passport scanning. (Credit: Getty Images)","SynopsisShort":"Automation","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/pn/p053pn0w.jpg","Title":"auto5.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pn0w","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053pn0w","_id":"5982d8340b1947497fcde5b8"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":267899,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/pm/p053pmv0.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Customers dine outside Eatsa, San Francisco's first fully automated restaurant in 2015 - food is picked up in 'cubbies,' no server, wait staff or cashier required. (Credit: Getty)","SynopsisShort":"Automation","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/pm/p053pmv0.jpg","Title":"auto2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053pmv0","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053pmv0","_id":"59833cdd0b1947497fce1946"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Richard Gray","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-08-18T16:16:50.433105Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"6b765851-ef66-4135-9769-c3912206705b","Id":"wwfuture/author/richard-gray","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-08-18T16:16:50.433105Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"richard-gray"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/richard-gray","_id":"5981d2390b1947497fcb8714"}],"BodyHtml":"With soft, nimble fingers, an arm stretches out to delicately pluck an apple from a shelf and place it gently into a basket.It performs the task again with a bag of limes and again with a pepper, never tiring, never complaining.This is a prototype robotic arm <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-629m-RPyoI\">being tested by Ocado</a>, the British online supermarket. The irregular shape and delicate flesh of these common groceries have meant they tend to be packed by human workers at Ocado’s warehouses. But the company is pursuing robotic technology that could assist these human warehouse workers but still handle produce safely, making the process faster and cheaper for the company.Ocado is far from the only company pursuing automated workers. It is happening in <a href=\"https://researcher.watson.ibm.com/researcher/view_group.php?id=4384\">hospitals</a>, <a href=\"https://www.ft.com/content/19807d3e-1765-11e6-9d98-00386a18e39d\">law firms</a>, the stock market. The list goes on.The question is… how does this affect the human workforce? How might it affect you?BBC Future Now asked a panel of experts for their views, as part of our special series on the ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">Grand Challenges</a>’ facing humanity. We hear a lot about doom-and-gloom surrounding robots stealing our jobs, but what will actually happen? Who’s at risk, and what could your workplace actually look like in five years?The answers might surprise you.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn3b\"}}The middle class is at risk Reports suggest that <a href=\"http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/future-of-employment.pdf\">47% of people employed in the US are at risk of being replaced by machines</a> and 35% of jobs in the UK may similarly be threatened – with even higher threats in developing countries, with <a href=\"http://www.worldbank.org/en/news/speech/2017/04/20/2017-wbgimf-spring-meetings-world-bank-group-opening-press-conference-by-president-jim-yong-kim\">two thirds of jobs at risk of being automated</a>.But machines stealing jobs is not new. “Automation has happened before,” says Bhagwan Chowdhry, professor of finance at the University of California, Los Angeles. Chowdhry points to the shifts that took place in factories during the industrial revolution when automatic looms and other machines took over from human weavers.So what’s different this time? “It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers,” says Chowdry. “But also a lot of white collar workers.”<blockquote> It it is not going to affect just blue collar workers </blockquote>Often, we think of low-wage, low-skill jobs being the most at risk, like warehouse workers or cashiers, but automation may also affect middle-income jobs, such as clerks, chefs, office workers, security guards, junior lawyers, inspectors.Those in the firing line are understandably worried. “The concern is more about the transition pains,” says Carl Benedikt Frey, co-director of the Oxford Martin Programme on Technology and Employment. “Most jobs that we will see being automated require different skill sets from those being created. The key challenge will be to make sure that those who experience displacement will find something meaningful to do.”So, should companies seeking to automate jobs have a moral responsibility to help the staff they are replacing to learn new skills?Future-proofing your jobThe answer may go beyond just the companies – it may need to start in school.The way we currently structure education may no longer be fit for purpose in a world where technology is changing so rapidly.“The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up,” warns Erik Brynjolfsson, director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Initiative on the Digital Economy. “We could end up leaving a lot of people behind.”Brynjolfsson and Paul Clarke, chief technology officer at Ocado, both agree that school and college education need to better prepare pupils for a world where robotic and artificial intelligence will be widespread.<blockquote> The concern is that we are not updating our education, training and political institutions to keep up </blockquote>In the workplace, employees will also continually require new sets of skills rather than using the same ones over their entire career that could just go obsolete anyway.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pncp\"}}“The distinction between work and learning might need to become more amorphous,” says Chowdhry. “We currently have a dichotomy where those who work need not learn, and those who learn do not work. We need to think about getting away from the traditional five day working week to one where I spend 60% of my time doing my job and 40% learning on a regular basis.”For the majority of us, this could be a crucial switch in our thinking.<a href=\"http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/digital-mckinsey/our-insights/four-fundamentals-of-workplace-automation\">Research by management consultants McKinsey and Company</a> suggests that fewer than 5% of occupations can be entirely automated by existing technology. The reason – our jobs are simply too varied and changeable for robots to take on all the tasks.Instead, they predict around 60% of occupations could see a third of the activities they currently do being farmed out to machines. This will mean that most of us will probably be able to cling onto our jobs, but the way we do them is going to change significantly.Robots will complement you, not replace youLearning how to work alongside robots could be essential, too.“We can have cases where machines pick up some of the repetitive work to free up humans to do other more rewarding aspects of their job,” explains James Manyika, senior partner at McKinsey who has led much of their research into the impacts of automation. “This could put a massive downward pressure on wages because the machine is now doing all the hard work. It could also mean more people could do that job aided by the technology, so there is more competition.”There are wider issues at stake here too. With lower incomes and potential unemployment looming for middle-income workers, governments themselves could face some fundamental problems, like lost taxes and dissatisfied voting classes.Luckily, there are some things humans can do that machines just can’t right now.One good example of this comes from some work by researchers in Singapore, who are attempting to teach two autonomous <a href=\"https://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.04806v1.pdf\">robotic arms to assemble a flat-packed Ikea chair</a>. Despite using some of the most advanced equipment around, the machines struggle with the most basic tasks.Even identifying different objects from a chaotic mixture of parts is a major challenge for robots. In a recent test, it took the <a href=\"https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVQ_WW_WsEQ\">two robots more than a minute and half to successful insert a piece of dowelling into one of the chair legs</a>.And that's just one piece of furniture. “The real challenges occur when you want that robot to assemble several items of furniture,” Hawes explains. “A robot might be able to put together an Ikea chest of drawers, but it will struggle to then do a wardrobe from the same line, as the pieces will be different, even if some of the assembly steps are the same. Humans don’t have that problem.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pn0w\"}}The human advantageFrom better flexibility to better personalities, there are some things we may always do better than robots.“As we automate a lot of the repetitive work, we are going to see increased demand for creative skills,” says Brynjolfsson. “We are also going to see an increased demand for those with social skills, interpersonal skills, who are nurturing, caring, teaching, persuasive, have negotiating skills, and are good at selling.”Frey thinks there are a few areas where humans have the advantage.“The first is social interactions,” says Frey. “If we think about the variety of complex social interactions we do in our daily jobs – when we negotiate, or try to persuade people, assist others or take care of customers. We manage teams and so on. It is almost inconceivable that computers will intrude upon human workers who do that.”<blockquote> We are going to see increased demand for creative skills </blockquote>Another is creativity. Computers are good at grinding down problems and performing repetitive tasks without getting bored. Humans, however, find this kind of monotonous work tedious.The MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy has even set up a <a href=\"https://www.mitinclusiveinnovation.com/\">$1 million challenge</a> aimed at encouraging businesses to make the most of these typically “human traits” alongside technology.“The amount we currently pay people like nannies and carers for the elderly is atrocious,” says McKinsey’s Manyika. “Similarly, there is plenty of artistic and creative work that has never made any money. The challenge is how we pay for and value creative output, or other tasks we are not willing to let machines do.”Alex Harvey, head of research at Ocado Technology, which develops the software and tech for the company's retail arm, points out that the world has been designed and built for humans, and building robots to operate in these naturally complicated environments is a major technical challenge.One of the projects Ocado is working on with universities around Europe is a robotic assistant for maintenance work called SecondHands, which illustrates how humans and robots might collaborate.“It has the ability to lift things to a greater height than a human, for example,” explains Harvey. “It is quite a simple robot in terms of its behavioural repertoire, but it can form a nice team where the human technician is the leader and they can use the muscular power of the robot.”But the closer humans and machines work together, the murkier the ethical waters start to get.The ethics problemAround 1.7 million robots are already in use around the world, but they are largely used in industrial settings where few humans are allowed to set foot. As that number grows, and the roles they perform expand, the likelier humans are to work hand in hand with robots, side by side – increasing the risk of harm.“There needs to be more transparency so we can understand how these things do the things they do and behave the way they do,” urges Mady Delvaux, vice chair of the committee on legal affairs at the European Parliament.She recently led an effort in the parliament to push for <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/20170210IPR61808/robots-and-artificial-intelligence-meps-call-for-eu-wide-liability-rules\">rules on robotics and artificial intelligence</a>.A <a href=\"http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2016/571379/IPOL_STU(2016)571379_EN.pdf\">report compiled for the European Parliament</a> stressed there was urgent need for new legislation on liability should accidents happen. Similar issues of liability arise should a robot take actions that break the law. An AI algorithm, for example, could choose to make a series of financial transactions that achieve its goals, but lie outside the tangled web of regulations that govern the sector.Delvaux and her colleagues also called for a Code of Ethics to help guide our relationship with robots.<blockquote> Recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can develop sexist and racist tendencies </blockquote>“There have to be some things that are respected, like the autonomy of people and their privacy,” says Delvaux.This perhaps also highlights another issue troubling many dealing with artificial intelligence – the problem of bias. Machine learning systems are only as good as the data they are given to learn on, and recent studies have suggested artificial intelligence can <a href=\"http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/04/even-artificial-intelligence-can-acquire-biases-against-race-and-gender\">develop sexist and racist tendencies</a>.Delvaux also points to the people who are writing the algorithms in the first place. The majority of people working in the technology industry are <a href=\"https://www.eeoc.gov/eeoc/statistics/reports/hightech/\">white males</a>, with men making up between <a href=\"http://www.techrepublic.com/article/diversity-stats-10-tech-companies-that-have-come-clean/\">70% and 90% of the employees</a> at some of the biggest and most influential companies.Silicon Valley has been rocked over the past couple of years with <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39025288\">scandals about sex discrimination</a>. It has raised fears that robots and machines could display similar discriminatory behaviour.“It is a very thin slice of the population currently designing our technologies,” warns Judy Wajcman, a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. “Technology needs to reflect society, so there needs to be a shift in the design and innovation process.”Meanwhile, Bill Gates recently suggested yet another ethical red flag: that robots themselves may have to be <a href=\"https://qz.com/911968/bill-gates-the-robot-that-takes-your-job-should-pay-taxes/\">taxed to make up for lost levies on income</a> from employees. Others have suggested as robots take on more tasks, there could be a <a href=\"http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/04/elon-musk-robots-will-take-your-jobs-government-will-have-to-pay-your-wage.html\">growing case for universal basic income</a>, where everyone receives state benefits.Much of this, of course, assumes that robots are actually capable of doing the jobs we set them. Despite their apparent intelligence, most robots are still pretty dumb contraptions when compared to our own capabilities.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p053pmv0\"}}Machines have a ways to goLike the Ikea example, AI leaves a lot of room for improvement.Perhaps one of the greatest issues facing the machine learning and artificial intelligence community currently is understanding how their algorithms work. “Things like artificial intelligence and machine learning are still largely black boxes,” argues Manyika. “We can’t open them up to find out how they got the answer they produce.”This presents a number of issues. Machine learning systems and modern AI are usually trained using large sets of images or data that are fed in to allow them to recognise patterns and trends. They can then use this to spot similar patterns when they are given new data.This might be fine if we want to find CT scans that show signs of disease, for example, but if we use a similar system to identify a suspect from a fragment of CCTV footage, knowing how it did this may be crucial when presenting the evidence to a jury.Even in the field of autonomous vehicles, this ability to generalise remains a considerable challenge.Takeo Kanade, a professor of robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, is one of the pioneers of self-driving vehicles and an expert in computer vision. He says giving robots a “genuine understanding” of the world around them is still a technical challenge that needs to be overcome.“It is not just about identifying where objects are,” he explains, following a lecture at the inaugural Kyoto Prize at Oxford event, where he outlined the problems facing researchers. “The technology has to be able to understand what the world is doing around them.  For example, is that person actually going to cross the road in front of them, or not?”Hawes himself encountered a similar problem with one of his own projects that put <a href=\"http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/news/latest/2016/06/betty-the-autonomous-robot-starts-work-as-trainee-office-manager.aspx\">an autonomous “trainee office manager”</a> into several offices in the UK and Austria.The team programmed the robot, called Betty, to trundle around the offices monitoring for clutter building up, checking whether fire doors were closed, measuring noise and counting workers at their desks outside normal hours.“Things would appear in the environment like chairs moving, people shifting their desks or pot plants,” he says. “Dealing with that without reprogramming the whole robot is challenging.”But even though the robot wasn’t perfect, the humans still found a way of working alongside it.Surprisingly, those working alongside Betty actually responded to their mechanical worker in a positive way, even coming to its aid if the robot ever got stuck in a corner. “People would say hello to it in the morning and said it made the office more interesting to work in,” says Hawes.If we can hand the tedious, repetitive bits of our jobs to machines then it could free us up to some of the things we actually enjoy. “Work has the potential to become more interesting as a result,” says Frey.It is a tantalising thought, that just perhaps, the rise of the machines could make our jobs a lot more human.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">at the biggest, most important issues</a> we face in the 21st Century.\nFor two months, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges we face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T11:16:12.756515Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3f52a790-5ab8-424b-928b-263e268e37b9","Id":"wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:17:22.643245Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb9200"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-23T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"How automation will affect you – the experts’ view","HeadlineShort":"How automation will affect you","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Ravi is one of thousands of Indian IT workers who will lose their jobs this year, caught between a slump in India’s previously booming IT industry and new technology threatening to replace human workers.Until last month he worked at Cognizant Technology Solutions – a firm headquartered in the US but with the bulk of its workforce in India. The company is under pressure to cut costs and is expected to shed between 6,000 and 10,000 'underperformers' this year.Market volatility and rising protectionism in countries like the USA, where much of India’s IT outsourcing work comes from, saw Cognizant’s revenue grow at its slowest pace in two decades last year, and its peers in the Indian IT industry are in the same boat.<blockquote> Software can carry out routine IT support work and repetitive back office tasks – the very tasks global companies originally outsourced to India </blockquote>But at the same time, rapidly improving automation technology is allowing software to carry out routine IT support work and repetitive back office tasks previously performed by humans – the very tasks global companies originally outsourced to India to take advantage of cheaper labour.In February, Cognizant’s CFO said it would “aggressively” employ automation to “optimise” its services. Meanwhile, India’s third-largest IT firm, Infosys, said automation allowed it to shift 9,000 workers from low-skill jobs to more advanced projects, like machine learning and artificial intelligence, last year. Its competitor Wipro redeployed 3,200 in 2016, and predicts it will move another 4,500 this year.Yet this has been accompanied by a significant slowing in hiring. IT body Nasscom’s annual review predicted a 20-to-25% reduction in jobs in the industry over the next three years.“Cognizant has not conducted any layoffs,” a Cognizant spokesperson said. “New machines and technologies are about helping cut costs, improve efficiencies, and increase sophistication in building and delivering services. They are not about altogether replacing the human element, but about elevating the role people play and the value they bring to their roles.”But it can be hard to pinpoint exactly whose jobs have been lost to automation. Researchers in the UK, for example, have shown that some roles in today’s global economy are <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941\">more at risk than others</a>. Ravi, whose name has been changed, worked as a software tester – a role particularly vulnerable to automated takeover. \"In testing, already it has been introduced and it's coming in very fast,” he says. \"If a job requires four manual testers, automation can reduce it to one.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p052kl9w\"}}He’s now job hunting, but says opportunities for the kind of work he was doing before are limited and he will probably have to adapt: take a course on automated software testing and then try to secure a position. He worries this may be a repeating pattern.\"Maybe after five years some new technologies are coming and we have to learn those, too,” he says.India’s IT weak spot?Since the 1990s Indian firms have carried out back office tasks, and IT services like data entry, running call centres and testing software for foreign companies at cut-price rates by throwing cheap labour at them. But as machines become adept at this repetitive, rule-based work, the low-skill jobs – where the bulk of Indian IT workers are employed – are the most at risk.“It’s been happening for the last two or three years in an accelerated fashion,” says Gopinathan Padmanabhan, head of innovation at IT company Mphasis. “It’s a reality you can't shy away from.”This shift will go hand-in-hand with new opportunities in emerging areas – data science, artificial intelligence and big data – but these will require new skills and probably fewer employees.\"They will have to find new roles and train themselves to become relevant in the new age,” says Padmanabhan. “And we're not talking about too far into the future… the next three to five years.”Of course, losing jobs to automation is a concern across the developed world. But India’s case is unique.<blockquote> World Bank data estimates 69% of today’s jobs in India are threatened by automation </blockquote>A stable job at one of the big IT companies is a major aspiration for many Indians, which probably explains why fears of technological unemployment have featured so prominently in newspapers here in recent months.But despite contributing 9.3% of the country’s GDP, according to Nasscom, the IT industry only employs 3.7 million of the nation’s roughly half a billion working adults. So how big of a threat is it actually to the Indian workforce?World Bank data estimates 69% of today’s jobs in India are threatened by automation. And India isn’t alone: China’s figure was 77% and other developing countries also scored highly.India is already struggling to create jobs amid rapid growth. Its working-age population increased by 300 million between 1991 and 2013, according to UN figures, but the number of people employed only rose by 140 million.Still, robots replacing jobs en masse is unrealistic in the medium term in India – or anywhere else – but the effects are already being felt. Last September, Indian textiles giant Raymond said it would replace 10,000 jobs with robots over three years.Union leader Vinodh Kumar works at BMW’s factory in Chennai – India’s automotive hub. His facility isn’t in danger of automation, but he knows union leaders at Hyundai’s plant where the entire body shop and most of the paint shop was automated.“The majority of the body shop employees lost their jobs,” he said. “The permanent employees they tried to relocate, but the contract labourers and the trainees lost their jobs.”Other sectors at risk include pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, logistics and security.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p052n35l\"}}Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, says it is unlikely to impact high-skill jobs like architects or high-quality coders, or even lower-end jobs in the service industry like restaurant staff and hairdressers.\"The fat middle is at threat, which is rule-based work. Like work in banks, work in offices, work in factories,” he says.‘Hollowing out’ the middle classThe World Bank’s 2016 World Development Report noted a global trend towards “hollowing out” of the labour force. As technology streamlines routine tasks, middle-skill jobs like clerical workers and machine operators decline while both high-skill and low-skill ones increase.And in developing nations like India, that can be a huge problem.\"Those middle-skill jobs have traditionally been the path out of poverty,” says World Bank senior economist Indhira Santos. “So that polarisation into the labour market could translate into a polarisation of society and income.”This trend isn’t down to technology alone – globalisation and urbanisation contribute. But pulling away “the ladder to the middle class”, as the report puts it, could be particularly damaging in a developing country like India.After all, there is a reason why companies are turning to new technologies. “Automation is an imperative to improve competitiveness, quality and efficiency,” says CEO of Siemens’ India Sunil Mathur. That helps compete against cheap imports, boost exports and increases domestic demand and therefore jobs, he says.Samay Kohli, co-founder of home-grown warehouse robotics company Grey Orange, agrees. India lags well behind the developed world on labour productivity, which acts as a major handbrake on growth.“You have to automate to be globally competent,” he says. “If we don't improve our infrastructure, our productivity we will not have a chance to compete globally.”<blockquote> The Butler robot can pick up to 600 items an hour. That eclipses the 100 items a human worker can manage </blockquote>Grey Orange builds ‘Butler’ robots that fetch and store products and ‘Sorters’ that automatically scan and sort packages in the warehouses of e-commerce and logistics giants like Flipkart, Jabong and DTDC.Kohli says the Butler can pick up to 600 items an hour. That eclipses the 100 items a human worker can manage – invaluable efficiency in a country where supply chain costs are double those of Western countries.Increasing worker productivity could stifle employment, but Kohli claims they are simply filling gaps. Annual staff turnover in warehousing is 300%, he says. Rural Indians come looking for better earnings, but onerous targets, low wages and urban living costs mean they rarely last long. But robots are harder to sway.Kohli claims job numbers in their facilities have stayed level, but attrition has reduced.“This labour is just brute labour,” he says. “Even though they're doing jobs, they never get out of poverty. When they start using these kinds of collaborative robots in the mix they work better, more efficiently and are happier with their jobs.\"Heads of IBM Research India Sriram Raghavan agrees that in a developing country like India, automation normally fills gaps rather than replacing people. India has 330,000 fewer doctors than the WHO’s minimum recommendation, but Raghavan says automation can help plug this kind of talent shortage. Smart machines combined with the internet could allow doctors and teachers to provide personalised services to many more people than they can today.The plight of IT workers like Ravi, though, demonstrates that automation is already encroaching on areas without gaps to be filled. Pai says India has the luxury of time compared to developed countries, as labour will remain cheaper than automation for a decade, and huge unmet demand for infrastructure and services can produce lots of jobs.But the World Bank report highlights an ever-accelerating race between skills and technology and that countries like India need to act now to future-proof their populations’ capabilities.Future-proofing jobs from robotsWith automation taking on the routine tasks at the heart of today’s workplace, the jobs of the future will focus on skills like critical thinking, collaboration and creativity.<blockquote> The jobs of the future will focus on skills like critical thinking, collaboration and creativity </blockquote>India’s education system has a reputation for learning by rote and Indian Institute of Technology Madras engineering professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala agrees most institutions aren’t adequately preparing young people.But things are changing. He leads a government-sponsored pilot where professors from leading colleges use virtual labs to teach students at struggling engineering colleges. And start-ups are introducing extra-curricular robotics classes teaching problem-solving skills vital for future jobs.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p052klcs\"}}Most importantly, he says the country’s young population is sharp, adaptable, and future-oriented.\"If automation displaces one thing they move to another,” he says. “They are recognising the need to continually upskill.”IBM’s Raghavan says smart machines that automatically analyse students' performance and preferences can help guide them through this fast-moving terrain by combining data on their skills with job opportunities and available courses.He says: \"Then it’s less about a race, but getting people on a journey. Maybe the skill profile changes every five years rather than every 10, but at the same time technology is helping navigate that landscape.\"That may sound like blue-sky thinking, but in February, Microsoft and LinkedIn announced Project Sangam – a programme providing LinkedIn training, with progress automatically added to profiles so companies can shortlist candidates, as well as personalised job recommendations.Resistance is futileJhunjhunwala thinks India’s development challenges are so large, it needs all the help it can get. And fighting automation is futile anyway.\"The changes going on in the world, including automation, are not something decided by us – but it's going to happen,\" he says. \"We don’t want to be passive and let automation impact us. We want to develop something with this automation.\"And in the race between technology and skills – as India tries to keep pace with the very technology that helped launch its economy on the world stage – he thinks the country has a secret weapon: a deeper value placed on education than in the West. After all, the pinnacle of India’s ancient caste system was the educated Brahmin priest – not the Kshatriya warrior.\"It's part of our Indian heritage,\" says Pai. \"India is the only civilisation in the world where the educated gurus were placed on the totem pole higher than the king. In all other nations, soldiers and might ruled and knowledge bowed to the mighty. In India, knowledge is above the might of the state.\"Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-19T00:29:02Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Why automation could be a threat to India's growth","HeadlineShort":"The biggest threat to India’s growth?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"Smart machines, robots, and other forms of automation could either be an economic poison or cure in a developing country like India – and this change will affect how businesses worldwide outsource work.\n","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Smart machines, robots, and other forms of automation could either be an economic poison or cure in a developing country like India.","SummaryShort":"One trend could turn the IT hotspot's workforce on its head","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-19T05:04:58.667906Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"2b934978-36fc-43dc-9612-44ad4553400c","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170510-why-automation-could-be-a-threat-to-indias-growth","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-21T04:59:58.549112Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170510-why-automation-could-be-a-threat-to-indias-growth"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170510-why-automation-could-be-a-threat-to-indias-growth","_id":"5984fb5f0b1947497fcf06a3"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjm0x\"}}(Click/pinch to enlarge)How will the world’s population continue to increase?There will be 11.2 billion of us by 2100, according to the UN’s most likely scenario. But this is a projection, not a certainty. There’s an outside chance the world’s population could be as high as 16.6 billion by the end of the century. Or it could be as low as 7.3 billion – that’s fewer people than the 7.5 billion alive today. In all the UN scenarios, though, the population keeps increasing until at least 2050.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjm07\"}}Why is the average age rising?Because we’re living longer and having fewer children each. In 1950, many people across the globe could not expect to make it to their 50th birthday. Today, average global life expectancy is nearly 72 years and by 2100 it is projected to increase to over 83 years. Longer lives mean more old people, while lower fertility rates mean relatively fewer people are born to replace them: the so-called population pyramid is turning into a beehive.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjlzr\"}}Where will we be living?By 2030, there will be 41 megacities of more than 10 million people. And by 2050, two thirds of us will live in urban areas. Super-dense cities could house everyone on a surprisingly small amount of land. Those 6.3 billion urban dwellers in a city the same density as today’s Mumbai could squeeze onto an area the size of the UK. But spread those people out into a city the density of today’s Atlanta, and the land footprint expands dramatically, to around the size of the US. Keeping a lid on suburban sprawl could be a key priority in the megacities of the future.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjlzf\"}}Where will the world’s energy come from?Today the vast majority of the energy humanity consumes – 86% – comes from fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources account for around 10% of the total, but that share is growing fast. Global solar energy consumption was around 7.5 times higher in 2015 than 2010. In a future dominated by renewables, countries with lots of land on which to site wind turbines and solar panels could find themselves at a distinct advantage.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjlww\"}}How likely is my job to be automated in the future?Almost half of US jobs could soon be done by a robot or computer, according to Oxford University researchers. But some jobs are much more likely to be automated than others. Telemarketers, accountants and taxi drivers could see themselves replaced over the next decade or two, while jobs requiring creativity, manual dexterity or empathy could persist for far longer. Future labour markets will have to adapt to the pressures imposed by automation.Research and captions by Miriam Quick; infographic design by Valentina D'Efilippo.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the most important issues of the 21st Century.\nInspired by these responses, we're publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest challenges we face today</a>.","CalloutPosition":"bottom","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-30T18:50:36.215Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Five numbers that will define the next 100 years","HeadlineShort":"5 numbers that will shape this century","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"From energy to life expectancy, these crucial statistics could define Earth’s upcoming century. ","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"From energy to life expectancy, these crucial statistics could define Earth’s upcoming century.","SummaryShort":"These crucial stats could define the next 100 years","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-31T05:40:37.023101Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0114ee0b-5155-4be6-a7cb-3998e9aae902","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-04T14:49:10.987247Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years","_id":"5981dafd0b1947497fcd60ca"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Artificial intelligence is everywhere and it’s here to stay. Most aspects of our lives are now touched by artificial intelligence in one way or another, from deciding what books or flights to buy online to whether our job applications are successful, whether we receive a bank loan, and even what treatment we receive for cancer.All of these things – and many more – can now be determined largely automatically by complex software systems. The enormous strides AI has made in the last few years are striking – and AI has the potential to make our lives better in many ways.In the last couple of years, the rise of artificial intelligence has been inescapable. Vast sums of money have been thrown at AI start-ups. Many existing tech companies – including the giants like Amazon, Facebook, and Microsoft - have opened new research labs. It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that software now means AI. {\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04w43qv\"}}Some predict an upheaval as big as – or bigger – than that brought by the internet. We asked a panel of technologists what this rapidly changing world brimming with brilliant machines has in store for humans. Remarkably, nearly all of their responses centre on the question of ethics.<blockquote> The challenge now is to make sure everyone benefits from this technology – Peter Norvig, director of research at Google </blockquote>For Peter Norvig, director of research at Google and a pioneer of machine learning, the data-driven AI technique behind so many of its recent successes, the key issue is working out how to ensure that these new systems improve society as a whole – and not just those who control it. “Artificial intelligence has proven to be quite effective at practical tasks — from labeling photos, to understanding speech and written natural language, to helping identify diseases,” he says. “The challenge now is to make sure everyone benefits from this technology.”The big problem is that the complexity of the software often means that it is impossible to work out exactly why an AI system does what it does. With the way today’s AI works – based on a massively successful technique known as machine learning – you can’t lift the lid and take a look at the workings. So we take it on trust. The challenge then is to come up with new ways of monitoring or auditing the very many areas in which AI now plays such a big role.For Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of internet law at Harvard Law School, there is a danger that the increasing complexity of computer systems might prevent them from getting the scrutiny they need. “I'm concerned about the reduction of human autonomy as our systems — aided by technology — become more complex and tightly coupled,” he says. “If we ‘set it and forget it’, we may rue how a system evolves – and that there is no clear place for an ethical dimension to be considered.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04w430l\"}}It’s a concern picked up by others on our panel. “How will we be able to certify these systems as safe?” asks Missy Cummings, director of the Human and Autonomy Lab at Duke University in North Carolina, who was one of the US Navy’s first female fighter pilots and is now a drone specialist.AI will need oversight, but it is not yet clear how that should be done. “Presently, we have no commonly accepted approaches,” says Cummings. “And without an industry standard for testing such systems, it is difficult for these technologies to be widely implemented.”<blockquote> Without an industry standard for testing AI, it is difficult for these technologies to be widely implemented – Missy Cummings, director of the Human and Autonomy Lab, Duke University </blockquote>Yet in a fast-moving world, regulatory bodies often find themselves playing catch up. In many crucial areas, such as the criminal justice system and healthcare, companies are already exploring the effectiveness of using artificial intelligence to make decisions about parole or diagnose disease. But by offloading decision-making to machines, we run the risk of losing control – who’s to say that the system is making the right call in each of these cases?Danah Boyd, principle researcher at Microsoft Research, says there are serious questions about the values that are being written into such systems – and who is ultimately responsible for them. “There is increasing desire by regulators, civil society, and social theorists to see these technologies be fair and ethical, but these concepts are fuzzy at best,” she says.One area fraught with ethical issues is the workplace. AI will let robots do more complicated jobs and displace more human workers. For example, China’s Foxconn Technology Group, which supplies Apple and Samsung, has <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-36376966\">announced it aims to replace 60,000 factory workers with robots</a>, and Ford’s factory in Cologne, Germany <a href=\"http://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/31/ford-uses-co-bots-and-factory-workers-at-its-cologne-fiesta-plant.html\">puts robots right on the floor</a> alongside humans.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04w43bv\"}}What’s more, if increasing automation has a big impact on employment it could have a knock-on effect on people’s mental health. “If you look at what gives people meaning in their lives, it’s three things: meaningful relationships, passionate interests, and meaningful work,” says Ezekiel Emanuel, a bioethicist and former healthcare adviser to Barack Obama. “Meaningful work is a very important element of someone’s identity.” He says that in regions where jobs have been lost when factories close down can face increased risk of suicide, substance abuse and depression.The upshot is that we could see a demand for more ethicists. “Companies are going to follow their market incentives – that’s not a bad thing, but we can’t rely on them just to be ethical for the sake of it,” says Kate Darling, who specialises in law and ethics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “It helps to have regulation in place. We’ve seen this in privacy, or whenever we have a new technology, and we figure out how to deal with it.”<blockquote> There is increasing desire to see these technologies be fair and ethical but these concepts are fuzzy at best – Danah Boyd, Microsoft Research </blockquote>Darling points out that many big-name companies, like Google, already have ethics boards in place to monitor the development and deployment of their AI. There’s an argument that it should be more common. “We don’t want to stifle innovation but it might get to the point where we might want to create some structures,” she says.The details of who sits on Google’s ethics board and what it actually does <a href=\"https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/jan/26/google-deepmind-ai-ethics-board\">remain scarce</a>. But last September, <a href=\"http://www.news.gatech.edu/2016/02/29/emergencies-should-you-trust-robot\">Facebook, Google, and Amazon launched a consortium</a> that aims to develop solutions to the jungle of pitfalls related to safety and privacy AI poses. And OpenAI is an organization dedicated to developing and promoting open-source AI for the good of all. “It's important that machine learning be researched openly and spread via open publications and open-source code, so we can all share in the rewards,” says Google’s Norvig.If we are to develop industry and ethical standards and get a full understanding of what’s at stake, then creating a braintrust of ethicists, technologists and corporate leaders will be important. It’s a question of harnessing AI to make humans better at what we already do best. “Our work is less to worry about a science fiction robot takeover and more to see how technology can be used to help with human reflection and decision-making, rather than to entirely substitute for it,” says Zittrain.<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now\"><img src=\"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/raw/p04jj4t7.jpg\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Future Now\" width=\"100%\" /></a>Keep up to date with Future Now stories by joining our 800,000+ fans on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"We may have things better than ever – but we’ve also never faced such world-changing challenges. That’s why <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the key challenges in their area.\nThe range of different responses demonstrate the richness and complexity of the modern world. Inspired by these responses, over the next month we will be publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">the biggest challenges we face today</a>.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"A guide to the issues that define our age","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-07T16:52:13.426Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Why the biggest challenge facing AI is an ethical one","HeadlineShort":"AI's ethical challenge","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"Artificial intelligence is touching our lives in ever more important ways - it's time for the ethicists to step in, say our panel of experts. ","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Artificial intelligence is touching our lives in ever more important ways - it's time for the ethicists to step in, say our panel of experts. ","SummaryShort":"Learning to live with smart machines","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-08T10:28:06.629716Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0c869f5b-3269-4845-9a27-c8a41eff2ae5","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170307-the-ethical-challenge-facing-artificial-intelligence","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-04T14:54:31.840695Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170307-the-ethical-challenge-facing-artificial-intelligence"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170307-the-ethical-challenge-facing-artificial-intelligence","_id":"598556330b1947497fcf35d8"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"More companies are turning to smart machines to save money on slow, expensive human employees. Here’s everything you need know about automation – and what it means for your job.","SummaryShort":"The myths, misconceptions and reality","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d5c50b1947497fcd49b0"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-23T06:44:37.578576Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"68ff2c73-abdc-4cbe-a4cf-92d05dd8eac4","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-23T10:20:11.716207Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-23T06:44:37.578576Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"68ff2c73-abdc-4cbe-a4cf-92d05dd8eac4","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-23T10:20:11.716207Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170522-how-automation-will-affect-you-the-experts-view","_id":"5982d85b0b1947497fcde5bc"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":595791,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/g0/p053g04p.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"Grand Challenges","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/g0/p053g04p.jpg","Title":"gc1.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053g04p","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p053g04p","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p053g04p","_id":"59839b480b1947497fce4ea0"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Bryan Lufkin","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"67534f97-e86d-4c3c-b668-6fa93daa84aa","Id":"wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-02-17T16:08:06.72097Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"bryan-lufkin"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/bryan-lufkin","_id":"5981d23a0b1947497fcb88b4"}],"BodyHtml":"Earlier this year, BBC Future Now published a series called <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">the Grand Challenges</a>: addressing some of the world’s biggest, most pressing problems that demand solutions in the very near future.But the future is a complicated subject in 2017. Now more than ever, it’s fast-moving, complicated, increasingly immediate. We can’t keep thinking about the future as a far-off intangible. Today, things move so quickly, that the future already is happening, and already affecting us. And in many ways, we’re struggling to adapt quickly enough.<blockquote> A comprehensive guide to today’s big problems and mega-trends </blockquote>That’s why today, we’re launching Grand Challenges II – a continuation of our original series; a comprehensive guide to today’s big problems and mega-trends. Over the next few weeks, we’ll explore more of humankind’s biggest, most urgent issues, what they mean for you, and what’s being done to combat them, complete with deep reportage from BBC journalists and insight from experts, scientists and influencers from across the globe.<ul> <li>READ MORE: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century\">50 grand challenges for the 21st Century</a></li> </ul>This time around, we’ll tackle issues like water – and not just how climate change is threatening our most fundamental resource for survival. We’ll also explore the unexpected ways water is a social issue, a political issue, an energy issue, even a gender issue – and how clean water scarcity triggers a host of problems, from disease outbreaks to government feuds.We will also examine our eroding sense of privacy, especially living in what some call a “golden age of surveillance.” As more and more humans get internet access worldwide, and as more and more of our devices are connected to other devices – and to the databases of huge corporations – the right to a sense of anonymity is at risk. We’ll tell you how most people don’t exercise best practices when it comes to safeguarding their identity – and what you can do better protect your own.And this week, we’ll take a probing look into the topic of automation – and what it actually means for you, beyond the familiar, sensational headlines of job-stealing robots. We’ll talk about the ethical concerns of who’s programming this technology, the safety concerns of working alongside machines with minds of their own, and the surprising benefits that being a human has when it comes to outperforming even the cleverest, most precise, number-crunching superbot.But that’s only the beginning. The near future also demands greater attention to a range of rapidly-evolving issues: an explosively growing global population, the complicated relationship between governments and nuclear power, the fight for worldwide gender equality, and more.We live in a rapidly-changing era of almost infinite potential. But to make sure we will fulfil that potential, we need to fully understand the challenges we face. Stay tuned to this special series from BBC Future Now, and stay up to speed.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"In this special series, Future Now takes a close look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest, most important issues we face in the 21st Century</a>.\nFrom now until July, we'll bring you insight from leading scientists, technologists, entrepreneurs and influencers to help you make sense of the challenges you'll face in today's rapidly evolving world.","CalloutPosition":"middle","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Grand Challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T11:16:12.756515Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"3f52a790-5ab8-424b-928b-263e268e37b9","Id":"wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:17:22.643245Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb9200"},{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-22T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Your guide to Earth’s biggest problems","HeadlineShort":"Your guide to Earth’s biggest problems","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"BBC Future Now is extending our series about the grandest challenges faced by humankind.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"Over the past month, Future Now has been covering the “grand challenges” we face as a society in a series of articles, videos and graphics. We polled a panel of people from various fields about the vital issues they believe deserve more attention – you can browse 50 of those responses below, which we’ll continue to draw on throughout this year. There’s a lot to digest in one sitting – so dip in, reflect, come back...You can also catch up on the stories inspired by these responses that we’ve published to date here: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">The Grand Challenges</a>.* * *<blockquote> ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE </blockquote>danah boyd, Principal Researcher at Microsoft Research Data-driven technologies are increasingly being integrated into many different parts of society, from judicial decision-making processes to automated vehicles to the dissemination of news. Each of these implementations raises serious questions about what values are being implemented and to whom these implementations are accountable. There is increasing desire by regulators, civil society, and social theorists to see these technologies be “fair” and “ethical,” but these concepts are fuzzy at best. Meanwhile, there are significant trade-offs and local decisions that technical actors face on a day-to-day basis that shape the very structure of these systems. Developing responsible sociotechnical systems will require bridging the social-technical gap that can easily emerge as social actors and technical actors speak past one another.Missy Cummings, Professor, Humans and Autonomy Lab, Duke University I think one of the most important challenges faced by robotic systems of the future, which include driverless cars, drones, surgical and manufacturing robots, is how will we be able to certify these systems as safe, particularly those that embed artificial intelligence? By their very nature, artificial intelligence algorithms reason probabilistically and as uncertainty increases in the world, uncertainty increases in an algorithm’s ability to successfully and safely come to a solution. Presently we have no commonly-accepted approaches and without an industry standard for testing such stochastic systems, it is difficult for these technologies to be widely implemented.Kate Darling, Research Specialist at MIT Media Lab. Fellow at the Harvard Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society Companies are going to follow their market incentives. That’s not a bad thing, but we can’t rely on them just to be ethical for the sake of it, for the most part. It helps to have regulation in place. We’ve seen this in privacy, or whenever we have a new technology, and we figure out how to deal with it.Ezekiel Emanuel, Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania I think one of the big issues is going to be unemployment: automation, artificial intelligence, virtual reality. It seems pretty inevitable it’s going to create displacement of workers, ie unemployment. If you look at what gives people meaning in their lives, it’s three things: meaningful relationships, passionate interests, and meaningful work. Meaningful work is a very important element of someone’s identity.Viktor Mayer Schonberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation, Oxford Internet Institute My #1 issue is not the future of democracy (or related issues such as fake news, Trump, social networking bubbles, or even cybersecurity), but the future of humanity. As we are developing more and more ways to let computers take over reasoning through adaptive learning, we are faced with an existential question: what is it – long term – that makes us human? It used to be doing calculus, playing Chess (or Go), flying airplanes, driving cars, having a conversation, playing Jeopardy, or cooking (to name a few). What if data-driven, learning algorithms can do all that? What’s the essence of being human – is it radical creativity, irrational originality, craziness and illogicality? And if so, are we then shaping our learning institutions to help humans develop and nurture exactly these skills (our competitive advantages). In short, for me 2017 marks the year, when intra-human problems slowly begin to pale when compared to this more fundamental and existential one.Peter Norvig, Director of Research, Google Artificial intelligence has proven to be quite effective at practical tasks – from labeling photos, to understanding speech and written natural language, to helping identify diseases. The challenge now is to make sure everyone benefits from this technology. It's important that machine learning be researched openly, and spread via open publications and open source code, so we can all share in the rewards.Richard Alan Peters, Associate Professor of Electrical Engineering, Vanderbilt University In my opinion, the most important breakthrough in robotics and AI to come is the learning of concepts by learning sensory-motor coordination. An intelligent agent (animal or robot) that can manipulate the physical world while sensing the results of said manipulation forms one half of a complex dynamical system. The other half is the world. Complex dynamical systems form patterns in nature. In the case of an animal (including humans) that pattern occurs in the brain and spinal cord system. It relates sensing to action and vice-versa. In a robot, I like to call this “natural intelligence” to distinguish it from artificial intelligence which is usually acquired by a disembodied computer. Among other things this approach solves the symbol grounding problem (how an agent’s internal symbols relate to the physical world. This has been puzzled over since Aristotle.) And it solves the “frame problem” by providing a physical context for deliberative thought.AI, although very useful, will never approach human intelligence until it is embodied. That is, of course, a hypothesis, a conjecture that has yet to be proven. But I believe we are close. These ideas were first set down by Rodney Brooks at MIT in the 1980’s. Brooks hypothesis is Intelligence is an emergent phenomenon that is the result of embodiment, situatedness, development and interaction.Bruce Schneier, international security technologist The Internet of Things is giving computers the ability to affect the world in a direct physical manner. As this happens to more and more things, the particular ways in which computers fail will become the way everything fails. This means more catastrophic failures, as bugs and vulnerabilities affect every instance of a piece of software. This will completely change how we think about the risks of computerised cars, computerised appliances, computerised everything.Tomotaka Takahashi, founder of Kyoto University’s Robo Garage In 2017, cloud funding and hardware start ups are going to collapse. Because of the fake demo videos, people’s expectations to technology is getting too high, and no product can satisfy them. Only a few strong companies and products, such as Amazon Echo, can survive. I believe people are going to demand Echo with more humanity and portability, and social robots like <a href=\"https://robohon.com/global/\" target=\"_blank\">RoBoHoN</a> will find its market in five years.Jonathan Zittrain, Professor of International Law at Harvard Law School and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Professor of Computer Science at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Director of the Harvard Law School Library, and Faculty Director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society I'm concerned about the reduction of human autonomy as our systems -- aided by technology -- become more complex and tightly coupled. Artificial intelligence is making some real progress right now, and our work is less to worry about a science fiction robot takeover, and more to see how technology can be used to help with human reflection and decisionmaking rather than to entirely substitute for it. If we \"set it and forget it,\" we may rue how a system evolves, and that there is no clear place for an ethical dimension to be considered.<blockquote> CITIES AND GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT </blockquote>Mary Barra, CEO, General Motors The auto industry stands at an inflection point where rapidly advancing technology and evolving customer needs offer a unique opportunity to transform our relationship with customers, communities and the environment. Thanks to connectivity, electrification, autonomous vehicles and car- and ridesharing, the way customers interact with our vehicles is going to change in a way that hasn't happened since the industry was born more than 100 years ago. Some view this as a disruption – we believe it represents a tremendous opportunity to make people’s lives safer, simpler and better. Realising these changes demands the ability to recruit from a talented pool of diverse candidates with Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) expertise. Today, there is more demand for some STEM areas than there is available new talent and the demand continues to grow. It’s one of the reasons we are committed to doing all we can to encourage young people to pursue careers in STEM, particularly in Technology and Engineering.Nootan Bharani, Lead Design Manager, Place Lab – &lrm;Place Lab, University of Chicago A pivot from just climate change to segregation. Specifically, the widening gap between wealthy and impoverished people, worldwide. Climate change is a causal factor in the increased(ing) disparity. So too are racism and classism.Climate change exacerbates the challenges thrust upon impoverished people. The use and habitation of spaces demonstrates this clearly – the quantity, quality, and increasingly, the ability of one’s space to protect from harsher and unexpected elements.Solutions should be structural as well as grass roots. Sound policy as well as micro-local community-based. Intentional systems got us into this pickle, and intentional systems will need to be part of the process to reach toward common vision and goals.Scratching the surface are programmes offered by governments and utilities, to assist homeowners to weatherise their structures. Impoverished communities still lack the resource/capacity to capture full use of technologies – methods are already known and commonplace in sustainable new construction. The most robust and innovative energy efficiency programs are yet to benefit those that would feel the greatest impact from the captured savings.Culture is intersectional, is an arbiter. Culture is part of the solution to finding common ground between wealthy and impoverished (and all in-between).Vernacular architectures are expressions of the people and culture in a particular locale, in particular climates. My “dream” of seeing more vernacular architecture overlapped with contemporary design is a desire to see cultural identities expressed as much as it is a desire to see climate adaptive solutions for space.Larry Burns, former corporate vice president of Research and Development for General Motors According to the World Health Organisation, over 1.2 million people a year die from crashes on the world’s roadways. This is epidemic in scale. Traffic safety experts predict that over 90% of roadway fatalities can be eliminated when driverless vehicle technology reaches its full potential. Regulators, police organisations and liability experts responsibly caution that we cannot let driverless technology get in front of safety. However, like with all epidemics, we also have a responsibility to realise the full potential of cures as soon as possible. While we must be prudent, we also must not let those with vested interests in human driven cars slow progress. We must work together to safely accelerate the realisation of driverless vehicles. Reaching this imperative one-day sooner could save over 3,000 lives!Vishaan Chakrabarti, Associate Professor of Practice at Columbia Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation The major new challenge for the fields of architecture and urbanism will be to build what I call the \"Public Metropolis,\" which means cities that are more ecologically sound, more equitable, more humane in their deployment of technology, more intense in their creation of new infrastructure, and more fervent in their roles as beacons for a free, diverse and open global society in a time when nativism and fascism are on the rise. The debate of whether to build dense, transit-based cities as the most environmentally sound growth model in a world in which billions are reaching the middle class is largely settled: the question that remains is not whether to build better cities, but how. Great civic architecture for both public and private projects will be pivotal to this question by enabling the creation of new cultural buildings, commercial projects, and infrastructures that read and write with the specifics of a place, so that we maintain local identities in a global world.Lucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction for the United States Geological Survey We do a great job as a society of funding and supporting innovative research – we really admire that aspect of it. What we do a very bad job at is making the interface between that esoteric research and how people can actually use the information.People want predictions (for earthquakes). But people have to understand the scientific process. That’s problem number one: The communication phase. People on the outside turn to us (researchers) for answers, and we are so caught up in the scientific process that we know no answer that we’re talking about is final. There’s this gap that we’re not helping people understand, and it’s actively discouraged – if you have a young scientist who’s brilliant on TV explaining earthquakes, they may say no, I’m not going to do this because it’s going to hurt my career.Rochelle Kopp, founder and Managing Principal of Japan Intercultural Counseling I would say that one of the biggest challenges for the 21st Century as relates to Japan and Asia, and indeed the rest of the world, is related to questions of immigration (which includes refugee issues). These have of course received a lot of attention in the media, but the discussions are often stuck at a basic level, and governmental policies and programs are often not sufficiently addressing the issues.Specifically as for Asia: Japan, as well as Korea and China, are rapidly ageing and thus there will be increasing demand for labor in those countries, whereas many surrounding countries have surplus amounts of labour. Already we see Japan is very dependent on foreign labor in sectors like agriculture and construction, although not through formal immigration but rather through exploitative “trainee” programs.Part of the debate around immigration and acceptance of refugees, both in Japan and other countries, relates to how to integrate people from another culture into a society. This is my field, of cross-cultural communication and understanding. There is a lot of room for further application of the lessons of the cross-cultural field in areas outside of business (where they are most often being utilised today), to help countries address issues related to immigrants and refugees.Chris Leinberger, Nonresident Senior Fellow – Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institute The real political and societal changes I’m seeing are taking place at the micro-local level: the biggest sociopolitical movement has been the organisation at the “place” level of the neighbourhood level, at least in this country. It’s under the radar screen – we are fundamentally inserting a new level of governance in society, and it’s taking the form of neighbourhood associations at the super local level, taking the form of improvement districts, special assessment districts, like in Midtown Manhattan. All of these places are becoming organised.Every neighbourhood in this country has a neighbourhood organisation – 30 years ago this didn’t exist. Today, virtually every neighbourhood is organised. Business improvement districts in particular are making leaps and bounds in the management of our society and they are recognising and working with technology firms to far better understand how these places work. The next big technological jump is a software jump: we now have the hardware. The issue is coming up with software that will create the mega database that will understand every part of the built environment at the place level, and eventually, the metropolitan level.Right now, nobody knows what’s in Midtown [Manhattan]. We don’t know what percentage of that is office; what percentage of that is retail. We didn’t have those data sets 15 years ago, and we didn’t have the software, and we certainly didn’t have the computing capability.So when a city or when a business improvement district makes a major capital investment in the future, you could foresee the time that we’ll be able to say, ‘okay, let’s build the Second Avenue subway. It’ll cost us $5bn and this is the expected economic and tax revenues we will get from that based on this data set, and we will then decide what to do – and we will look at secondary consequences like gentrification and see how we’re going to address that based upon those future projects we make.’ We will learn much better how to plan, build, and pay for these places; invest in the right thing. Right now conclusions are based on guestimations, like ridership. We’re getting closer to saying this is going to be the economic and fiscal benefit of doing that, and here are the unintended consequences we need to be concerned about: congestion, gentrification, displacement, whatever. All those tools will help place managements. This is a new field of place management.Edward Paice, Director, Africa Research Institute In Africa, very rapid urban growth – spatial and demographic – is occurring without adequate planning (or, in many locations, any planning at all). Even where master plans have been drawn up, these tend to be either ‘fantasy designs’ drawing on wholly inappropriate models such as Dubai or Singapore; or they mimic equally inappropriate plans drawn up for cities in Europe or the US. Urbanisation in Africa is occurring in its own distinctive fashion and there are significant variations within and between countries. But one common feature is that the economies of nearly all towns and cities are predominantly informal. The creation of long-term, decent jobs by the state and private enterprise is woefully inadequate; industrialisation remains for the most part absent. For African urbanisation to become a positive economic and social development, as opposed to a ticking time-bomb, urban planning needs to incorporate total populations, not simply the rich and middle classes; this is the only way that the economic potential of the majority can be harnessed for the national good. How can this be done? Firstly, citizens have to be involved. Community participation in slum redevelopment initiatives has proven to be a far more productive and cheaper way of going about things than imposing ill-conceived, expensive schemes from above. Secondly, the technology exists to facilitate the rapid planning required – for example, data collection with mobile phones and satellite imagery have already been beneficial. Thirdly, urban-dwellers everywhere – voters – can mobilise even more effectively to ensure that their elected representatives deliver more. We are seeing this occurring in more and more towns and cities and it is a very positive development for cities, for infrastructure development and for democracy. Even in autocracies there is always room for citizens to organise and thereby secure services or rights that they have been denied. The final, essential, component is political will. This has been conspicuously lacking, but more determined and competent mayors and city leaders are emerging and the power of example is considerable.The majority of Africans will live in towns and cities by 2050. Management consultancies and international financiers routinely claim that rapid urbanisation is one of the great pluses in the investment case for Africa. As things stand, this is hyperbolic nonsense. For towns and cities to drive economic growth and livelihood improvement, more imaginative and effective urban planning and management are imperative; and the provision of public goods must replace a narrow focus on the wellbeing of elites.Nick Reed, Academy Director at the Transport Research Laboratory Safety of travel – by that I mean not just the 1.3m that die on the roads each year (clearly unacceptable) but also the broader implications (effects on mental health and respiratory illness through poor air quality; need to move sustainable travel – walking and cycling to tackle obesity, diabetes etc)Automation – as we move towards automated, electric vehicles, need to consider the effect on employment and wider implications of how we access mobility. Travelling on busy roads at peak hours could become the preserve of those who can afford to pay – how does that affect commuting etc; how will this change urban planning etc.AI – automated vehicles are one application of AI but what are the wider implications for employment (need for universal basic income?), privacy and securityShin-pei Tsay, &lrm;Executive Director, Gehl Institute Within urban areas, a significant constraint today and into the future will be how people move around the city. Many extoll the potential of technology to overcome that problem. Whatever technology may accomplish, we will still need to think about how space is used: automated and ride-sharing vehicles take up as much room as regular cars, whether they're on the road or parked off the street. Going into the future, urban space still needs to be designed to maximize places for people to congregate, which are key to building social connections, fostering a sense of belonging, and encouraging community efficacy. Space for human connection is often not considered at all against technological solutions in cities.Without the design of places to support a social dimension, cities will not thrive regardless of how much technology we attempt to integrate, design for, and adopt. Public health outcomes increase when isolation diminishes and people connect. We save billions in environmental costs if we plan for places that encourage people to spend time outside. We even reduce economic limitations in labor markets when we plan for places that allow people to shorten their commute distances and have access to stores, schools, and other daily services.It's always fun to consider panaceas that can theoretically solve age-old problems (in this case, growing populations with increasing travel needs). However, not nearly enough attention is given to the social impacts of these new solutions. We must carefully consider how they may change the physical shape and design of our cities in the future. Most importantly, we must be aware of how they might isolate us. After all, by limiting our ability to socialize, technology may only generate new problems to replace the ones it \"solved.\"<blockquote> HEALTH AND HUMANITY </blockquote>Nicholas Agar, professor of ethics at the Victoria University of Wellington Recent advances in gene editing suggest a future in which we can radically upgrade human genomes. We might use tools including CRISPR to rewrite genes that influence traits such as intelligence and lifespan. We should bear in mind when we contemplate this enhanced future that the obvious answers aren’t always the right ones. The human genome isn’t something we should seek to build a wall around, protecting it from all change. But a rush to enhance ourselves may erase aspects of our humanity that proper reflection reveals as valuable. More IQ points aren’t better than fewer in the straightforward way that more money is better than less. We risk oversimplifying what’s involved in enhancement. Proper reflection on what about us we might want to preserve takes time – it should draw on a wide range of perspectives about what it means to be human. It’s difficult to set aside this time for ethical reflection when new technological possibilities seem to be coming thick and fast.Luke Alphey, visiting professor, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford Agricultural pest insects, and mosquitoes transmitting diseases, are long-standing problems for which we still have no satisfactory solution, indeed the problems are becoming more pressing. Modern genetics can potentially provide powerful new means for controlling these ancient enemies with greater effectiveness and precision – for example minimal off-target effects on the environment – than currently-used methods. Gene drives are just one aspect of this, but perhaps encapsulate some of the issues. One gene drive system, involving inserting into mosquito cells a large amount of foreign (to the mosquito) DNA in the form of an intracellular bacterium (Wolbachia), has entered field trials in several countries. This specific system has avoided the “genetic” or “GMO” label and regulatory system by adroit marketing and some technicalities and perhaps illustrates what could be done if the field were not caught up in the baggage and polarised politics of the GM crops “debate”. Potential applications of genetic methods in public health and conservation biology, for example, have very little in common with GM crops; lumping them together risks poor debate, poor policy and – in my view – potential delay or loss of huge human and environmental benefits.Elizabeth Bradley, Professor of Grand Strategy, Head of Branford College, Professor of Public Health and Faculty Director of the Yale Global Health Leadership Institute The tremendous impact that social, environmental and behavior factors have on our health overall. Recent research has shown that a country’s ratio of health to social service spending is predictive of some key health outcomes, like life expectancy, infant mortality, and maternal mortality. Genetics and health care play a role, but social, environmental, and behavioral factors have far greater impact on the whole health of a population.Some examples of social service investments include job training, supportive housing, and nutritional support – all of which have traditionally had an underestimated focus of attention. Health and social services should be better integrated toward the achievement of common metrics, like lower rates of smoking, obesity, and depression. More research is needed, to measure the health care cost savings of early childhood education or income support programs, and to identify the most sustainable integrated models. Meaningful change in our world’s health may come less from investing in medical care than in addressing the social determinants of health.Chelsea Clinton, Vice Chair, Clinton Foundation <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic\" target=\"_blank\">Read Clinton’s extended response about the US opioid epidemic.</a>Jennifer Doudna, Professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, co-inventor of CRISPR-Cas9 technology As a co-inventor of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, I am delighted to see that this groundbreaking ability to “cut and paste” genes so efficiently is being harnessed as a strategy to create new food, therapeutics, materials and methods for controlling the spread of diease.A challenge moving forward is how to best engage the public with this fundamental science that really can positively impact human life and the world we live in. I believe that we must continue to discuss and consider the profound societal and ethical impacts of CRISPR technology and ensure that it is not abused.cJoel Garreau, author, journalist, Professor of Law, Culture and Values, Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law, Arizona State University The major challenge consuming me is that the wheels are coming off the Enlightenment right now, on our watch, and it’s our own damn fault.The GRIN technologies – the genetics, robotics, information and nano revolutions – are advancing on a curve. Meanwhile, we humans are trying to process this exponential change with our good old v. 1.0 brains. With precious little help at all from those creating this upheaval.Folk are not stupid. They can clearly detect the ground moving beneath their feet, and that of their children and jobs and futures. When the ground moves beneath her feet, any sane primate looks for something apparently solid to hold onto. Anybody with apparently simple stories about what’s going on, forcefully told, *will* get attention.You’ve doubtless seen the data about how the most common job in the vast majority of states is truck driver. So what are we doing? We’re obsoleting these jobs as fast as we can, with a hand wave about how, “Oh, they’ll find better jobs.” While, meanwhile, the rate of suicide and drug addiction and protest voting among the solid middle-aged former middle-class soars. These guys are not stupid. They know they’ve been had. And we’re going to pay for it. And don’t tell me the solution is to have the robots just give them a guaranteed income. Humans require meaning as surely as food.The days when scientists could not [care] about the impact of their work on cultural, values and society are over. If they ever existed, which they didn’t, but that’s water over the dam.I can’t tell you how many times I’ve talked to guys working on, oh, something like massively increasing the number and power of mitochondria in human cells. And I’m like, you know that if you massively increase the amount of energy creation in cells, you’re talking about changing what it means to be human, right? Are you intentionally trying to create supermen? And the answer every time is “Wow, what a fascinating question, I never thought of that.”It’s not that these scientists are stupid, obviously. It’s that they’re tunnel-vision. They don’t wake up thinking about how they can change the human race. They wake up thinking about how they’re going to wire the goddamn monkey. That’s just the way these guys are.Fix it. Get out of your silo. If you can’t figure out the societal and cultural implications of what you’re doing, start seeking out people who might, and start systematically having lunch with them. And then invite the most interesting ones into your lab with the goal of them becoming partners.One example of this was the scientist who was spending her life finding the biomarkers for a disease for which there was no cure. Mercifully, her lab was among the first to start systematically bringing in partners from entirely outside. One of them asked, “What’s the point of creating despair? Might it be possible for you to find it interesting to search for a biomarker for a disease to which there is a cure?” To which she replied, of course, “Wow, what a fascinating question, I never thought of that.” But once it was pointed out to her, she happily did find another interesting biomarker problem that was culturally useful.Culture moves slower than does innovation. That’s just what humans are like. Deal with it, or watch the collapse of the Enlightenment as they ever increasingly come at you with torches and pitchforks – and correctly so. Mary Shelley knew her humans.My wife and I used to raise border collies. Border collies make terrible pets. You can not give an intelligent species nothing to do. If you don’t give them sheep, or something comparably interesting, they will come up with something to occupy their great minds. And you may not like it.Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist, senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations 1. Greatest frustration: It is deeply annoying and vexing that CRISPR-cas9 and other gene editing techniques are being applied to treatment of rare diseases and a host of pharmacology development, but little investment is directed toward application of state-of-the-art gene editing or metagenomic sequencing and detection for point-of-care diagnostics creation. There are many exciting developments at the lab bench level that could translate into \"Star Trek\"-like abilities to wade into epidemic hysteria and swiftly identify who is infected, and with what organism. There are even innovations that allow identification on-the-spot of infections with previously unknown microbes, based on conserved genetic regions found in classes of viruses or bacteria. But nobody seems interested in bankrolling such game-changing innovations for production on a mass scale. It's a market failure issue – a where's-the-profits problem. If Ebola broke out somewhere tomorrow we are better off today in that some methods for quickly identifying the virus in blood samples exist, but even now they remain noncommercial, require a laboratory and have no relevance to real-world conditions.2. In 2009-10 some in the national security community were obsessed with concern about gain-of-function research, mainly on flu viruses. Researchers were deliberately creating forms of H5N1 and H7N9 and H1N1 that could be passed mammal-2-mammal, probably human-to-human. The goal on researchers' parts was to understand what genetic switches had to occur to turn a bird flu into a potentially catastrophic human airborne transmissible pandemic strain. But of course the work was very dangerous – especially if it got into the wrong hands. That was then, this is now: The technology of gene modification is far more advanced, and application of cutting edge gene excision and incision techniques makes gain-of-function work potentially far easier, and more dangerous. The two governments that were taking the lead on dual-use research of concern issues (UK and US) are both preoccupied now with very different problems and new leadership. And the WHO was the lead global agency – it is facing a major leadership change. So we have no guidance regarding how governments are likely to view these issues.Tim Jinks, Head of Drug Resistant Infections at Wellcome Trust Modern medicine depends on doctors having effective drugs to treat infections. But many common infections are becoming more difficult to treat because bacteria are becoming resistant to the drugs available. Drug-resistant infection – or antimicrobial resistance – is a very serious health threat to us all. Already it results in around 700,000 deaths a year globally. Within a generation it could be 10 million; it could mean we can no longer safely carry out not only complex, lifesaving treatments such as chemotherapy and organ transplants but also more routine operations like caesareans and hip replacements. More needs to be done to improve our ability to diagnose, treat and prevent drug resistant infections and to speed up development of new antibiotics to replace those no longer effective in protecting us against deadly infections.Anit Mukherjee, policy fellow at the Center for Global Development Technological innovation is progressing rapidly not only in the digital sphere but also in areas such as health, education, nutrition, food safety and life-saving/enhancing drugs. However, the gains of these new technologies are being captured by a minority of the population both domestically and internationally. While the digital divide has received more attention (and being bridged significantly), inequality is manifesting in other sectors that ultimately affect peoples’ well being. One outcome is human migration which is not only political but also economic and social. The other is the more frequent outbreaks of diseases, epidemics and pandemics such as ebola, MARS and Zika. In a world where there is a sentiment against movement of goods and people, how can developing societies adapt to increasing inequalities and build systems of governance to ensure human security?Pardis Sabeti, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard University The recent Ebola and Zika epidemics exposed our global vulnerabilities to deadly microbial threats and highlighted the need for proactive measures in advance of outbreaks and swift action during them. At the same time it shows our ability to prevent, diagnose, and treat deadly infectious diseases through new technologies. It is a time of great potential for devastation or advancement for one of the greatest challenges of our lifetimes.Robert Sparrow, adjunct professor, Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University What does justice require of wealthy Northern states when confronted by mass migration from increasingly impoverished Southern countries as a result of accelerating climate change?How should we respond, both ethically and emotionally, to the knowledge that we are living through one of history’s fastest periods of extinction and that this catastrophe is the result of humankind’s activities?As technological developments increasingly drive social change, how can democratic societies empower ordinary people to have a say in the decisions that shape the technological trajectories that will in turn determine what the future looks like?How can the public have meaningful input into the character of the algorithms that will increasingly determine both the nature of their relationships with other people on social media and their access to various important social goods?How can we prevent an underwater arms race involving autonomous submersibles over the coming decades?Should we use “gene drives” to try to eliminate disease vectors in nature?How can we ensure that questions about meaning and values, and not just calculations of risks and benefits, are addressed in decisions about human genome editing?Eric Topol, Scripps Transatlantic Science Institute Our major challenge is related to our new capability of digitizing human beings. That is, via biosensors, DNA sequencing and imaging, we can define each individual’s medical essence. But the problem is that this generates many terabytes of data, which includes real-time streaming of key metrics like blood pressure. Aggregating and processing the data, derived from many sources, with algorithms and artificial intelligence (particularly deep learning) is a daunting task. Once we can do this, we’ll be on our way to a virtual medical coach – your smartphone providing instantaneous feedback on all your health and medical metrics to help prevent you from getting sick.Mike Turner, Head of Infection and Immunobiology at Wellcome Trust Infectious disease outbreaks are a growing threat to health and prosperity in our modern world. Vast amounts of international travel, increasing urbanisation and a changing climates means that viruses can cross borders and spread around the globe faster than ever before. Recent outbreaks like Sars, Ebola and Zika have all shown how unprepared the world is to deal with epidemics. To stand any chance of tackling this threat, we need new vaccines, stronger healthcare systems and a better coordinated global response.At Wellcome, we’re working to address this threat in a variety of ways; we are a founding partner of the Coalition for Epidemics Preparedness Innovations (Cepi) that will develop new vaccine candidates against infections we know could cause a serious epidemic. The WHO also needs to be much better funded and have the mandate to respond swiftly and effectively when diseases do begin to spread. Only by investing, coordinating and working together can we expect to prepare the world for the next inevitable epidemic.<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170324-bill-gates-we-need-a-new-approach-to-tackling-epidemics\" target=\"_blank\">Watch our animation with words by Bill Gates on Cepi’s vaccine plans.</a>Gavin Yamey, professor of the practice of global health, Duke University Global Health Institute I believe one of the most urgent global issues that we face in 2017 and beyond, and one that we are woefully ill-prepared for, is the threat of epidemics and pandemics. We have three enormous gaps in the global system of preparedness. First, many countries have weak national systems for detecting and responding to outbreaks. Second, we have too few vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics for emerging infectious diseases with outbreak potential. Third, at the international level, we simply don’t yet have a robust, joined-up approach to providing the essential components of a preparedness and response system – like surge capacity in producing vaccines in a crisis, an inter-connected global surveillance system, or a global reserve corps of emergency responders. Closing these three gaps is one of the most urgent global priorities if we are to avert a potential world catastrophe. For example, if we suffer another flu pandemic similar to the 1918 “Spanish flu,” the World Bank estimates that there could be 71 million deaths and a global recession costing over $3 trillion.<blockquote> ENERGY </blockquote>Homi Kharas, senior fellow and deputy director of Brookings Institute’s Global Program The battle for sustainable development will be won or lost in cities. 150 million people are moving to cities each year. By 2050, over 7 billion people will live in cities (80% of the world), and cities will be responsible for 75% of global carbon emissions. Cities are places where infrastructure gets locked in for decades, if not centuries, but city planners must make investments now in a world where technology is changing rapidly where people live, work and play, and how they access buildings, transport, energy and waste management. The fastest growth is happening in thousands of secondary cities where mayors and city managers are not well schooled in technical urban planning. Often, these secondary cities must collaborate with each other to deliver services effectively across boundaries within larger metropolitan areas.Carey King, assistant director, University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute We need a discussion as to what political leaders, business leaders, and citizens think is an appropriate distribution of wealth across the entire population. This focuses on the real question (how many people have what, independent of the size of the economy, though the two are linked) instead of discussing how to shape policies and taxes to achieve an unspecified growth target independent of wealth distribution. Trump, Brexit, and Le Pen are representations that people understand growth only for the elite in the West is no longer tenable. An issue that has not received enough attention in the media and popular understanding is that the Earth is finite and this fact will have real world physical, economic, social, and political implications. Neoclassical economics ignores this obvious fact, yet it is used to guide most policy (eg, economic projections and scenarios), including that for climate change mitigation. Thus, we are using an economic theory that is simply incapable and inapplicable for informing an unprecedented transformation of the economy.Vijay Padmanabhan, Asian Development Bank, Technical Advisor (Urban) The one major challenge we will face due to urbanisation will be 'water security'. We are already grappling with this problem across our developing member countries and with deteriorating river or surface water quality, lack of sufficient ground water sources and increasing dependence on sea water as a supply source, we have to bring in innovations in water management. Treatment technology, water aquifer mapping, recycling and reuse of wastewater, etc. are areas of R&D investment.ADB is working with a large number of utilities to address these issues and as we engage on a long term basis with many cities and utilities, we will be actively exploring opportunities to bring in value for money propositions so that the utility benefits in the long term. We are also connecting with industry leaders to understand market trends so that we can bring the best to our developing member countries.William Ryerson, founder and president, the Population Institute and Population Media Center Perhaps a summary is that the human enterprise has outgrown the long-ability of the planet’s renewable resources to support us at our current numbers and our current rates of consumption and waste generation. Climate change is just one piece of evidence of this fact. Technological improvements, while potentially important in reducing per capita impact, are not sufficient to make us sustainable unless we also stop growth in human numbers and reduce average consumption, while simultaneously lessening the gap between the richest and the poorest people on the planet. Sustainability is a term that is not well understood and is misused, but the reality is that any activity that is not sustainable will stop. So far, non-renewable resources are what are primarily driving our economic engine. But by definition, non-renewables are being depleted and for the most part will stop being economically available in this century. So we must plan rapidly for the day when humanity can live using just renewable resources, while maintaining the biodiversity that makes the planet habitable. In truth, sustainability is the ultimate environmental issue, the ultimate health issue, and the ultimate human rights issue.Strategies that help to bring about changes in societal behaviour, including reproductive behavior, are critically important in achieving sustainability. Use of entertainment media is a key component of such strategies, since a large share of humanity consume entertainment mass media during free time. For that reason, Population Media Center utilises long-running serialised dramas in various countries to create characters that gradually evolve into positive role models for the audience to bring about changes in social norms on a broad array of critical issues. Attached are three documents that describe this work and its effects.Jim Watson, Director of the UK Energy Research Centre We need to think about how the system will fit together as our energy systems change. Globally speaking there is still a lot of people – 1.5 billion or so – who do not have access to modern energy services. There is going to be a lot of rising demand from regions like Africa.One of the big challenges of deploying new energy technologies, particularly these intermittent renewables like wind and solar, is the impact they have on the system. It used to be that in the summer it was a really quiet time for the grid operator compared to the winter, but now they are having this peak in generation in summer due to solar energy when demand is low. They are having to juggle this as we cannot store electricity in large quantities yet. This is a new way of operating for them.With the sort of changes we are seeing in energy systems around the world, cheaper and better storage is going to be a big part of the solution. When it comes to heating for somewhere like the UK, you might need storage that lasts several months. You get a lot of energy generated in the summer and you might need it in the winter to heat homes. This is an area that is really ripe for innovation and we are really only at the start of deploying and trailing those. It is a critical part of this new system we are trying to create.<blockquote> FUTURE OF THE INTERNET, MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY </blockquote>Peter Barron, VP Communications, EMEA, Google Google was built on providing people with high-quality and authoritative results for their search queries. We strive to give users a breadth of diverse content from variety of sources and we’re committed to the principle of a free and open web. Judging which pages on the web best answer a query is a challenging problem and we don’t always get it right. When non-authoritative information ranks too high in our search results, we develop scalable, automated approaches to fix the problems, rather than manually removing these one-by-one. We recently made improvements to our algorithm that will help surface more high quality, credible content on the web. We’ll continue to change our algorithms over time in order to tackle these challenges.Rohit Chandra, VP Engineering, Yahoo Search providers face a confluence of human and technology challenges. While we provide the portal for users to find information, we depend on content creators and distributors to apply journalistic discipline to what they are creating. The scale of popular social networks has democratized publishing, which effectively lets anyone – regardless of their intentions or qualifications – produce content that can appear journalistic.Another challenge is that technology-driven online engines like ours learn through click-feedback or “crowd-sourcing.” That runs the risk of perpetuating a “herd-mentality” – in which if lots of users start chasing a particular news source (maybe based on shock value rather than credibility), our AI-systems could accidentally “learn” and treat that source as highly valued or credible.I do see a need in the market to develop standards, perhaps from an organization like Nielsen. Facebook and others are working on this, too. The answer has to be a combination of technology and editorial; we can’t fact-check every story, but there must be enough human eyes on the content that we know the quality bar stays high.Eddie Copeland, director of government Innovation at Nesta, a UK charity that has looked at the future of democracy in the digital world Rather than waiting for politicians to make decisions and then we all argue over whether what they say reflects reality, we could have tools that engage people much earlier in the process so they can be involved in formulating ideas and drafting legislation, following the course of how ideas go from concept to becoming laws and how effective they are in reality. It might just give you a fighting chance of making people feel part of a system rather than observing it from the outside.Nonny de la Pena, virtual reality journalist and CEO of Emblematic Group Call me idealistic, but I really believe if you have an informed global citizenry, then people are going to make better decisions. We are going through the pain of, how do we convey information that’s accurate? People may not be looking at traditional media for their solutions. I think for audiences, VR is a totally different type of story. There is nothing in print or radio or broadcast that can let you walk around in actual space. That kind of effort, of making those kinds of pieces, is going to get easier and easier. You’ll be walking around the scene, not looking at flat screen or video.When you walk around, it’s a whole other level. Now your body can engage. Now when I go to the movies, I find the frames so artificial – I can see the box. I see the square. When I put on a headset, I see the world. The fact that audiences are going to be engaged with this kind of storytelling make sit a very important opportunity for journalism to embrace.Ben Fletcher, senior software engineer at IBM Watson Research who worked on a project to build an AI fact checker We got a lot of feedback that people did not want to be told what was true or not. At the heart of what they want, was actually the ability to see all sides and make the decision for themselves. A major issue most people face, without knowing it, is the bubble they live in. If they were shown views outside that bubble they would be much more open to talking about them.Kevin Kelly, founding executive editor of Wired Magazine The major new challenge in reporting news is the new shape of truth. Truth is no longer dictated by authorities, but is networked by peers. For every fact there is a counterfact. All those counterfacts and facts look identical online, which is confusing to most people. The only way a fact becomes accepted as true is to be networked with other facts consider to be true. Like in Science, all truth is provisional, although some is more provisional than others. The Truth is really a network of truths, and each of these true facts is probabilistic. The probability of a fact being true is increased by the degree it is networked with other true facts and the reliability of truthfulness by its source. So the challenge before us is to begin to construct a truth signaling layer into the fabric of facts, particularly online. This will be a multi-generational effort that will resemble the construction of wikipedia, but goes far beyond it.Stephan Lewandowsky, a psychologist at University of Bristol who studies persistence of misinformation in society Having a large number of people in a society who are mis-informed and have their own set of facts is absolutely devastating and extremely difficult to cope with.There are solutions available – using the technology that has given rise to this problem. Turning it upside down by changing the algorithms in Facebook or on Google to nudge people into sharing or consuming news that are slightly outside their normal comfort zone. What is happening now is that the cookies you gather as you browse the web will tell the website what it is you like.The way to get out of this polarisation is for these algorithms to suggest something that I might not like or agree with but is not so offensive to me that I wouldn’t look at it. That way you can keep people from self-radicalising in these ecological bubbles. That sort of technological solution is one good way forward. I think we have to work on that.Alexios Mantzarlis, chair of the International Fact Checking Network I see a challenge in the flood of reasonable-looking information out there making it harder to distinguish between sources of information. Search algorithms are as flawed as the people who develop them. We should think about adding layers of credibility to sources. We need to tag and structure quality content in effective ways.Will Moy, director of Full Fact, an independent fact checking organisation based in the UK Even if we have structures that impose constraints on people in power and we put pressure on powerful people to be honest with us, in a sense, all of that is being circumvented by social media. On Facebook, political bodies can put something out, pay for advertising, put it in front of millions of people, yet it is hard for those not being targeting to know they have done that. They can target those people based on how old they are, where they live, what skin colour they have, what gender they are.These messages are so common and so targeted, they are capable of having a massive influence on public decisions. We have never had a time when it has been so easy to advertise to millions of people and not have the other millions of us notice. You can’t take out an advert in a newspaper and not have the people you are not targeting not notice. that is a really profound change. We shouldn’t think of social media as just peer to peer communication – it is also the most powerful advertising platform there has ever been. We need a more equipped environment - we need watchdogs that will go around and say hang on, this doesn’t stack up and ask them to correct the record. There is a role for watchdogs and there is also a role for all of us.Paul Resnick, professor of information at the University of Michigan who developed a tool for identifying rumours on social media called RumourLens The fundamental challenge we now face is how to handle a setting where anybody can get their views disseminated without intermediaries to prevent the distribution. Somehow there still has to be some process of collectively coming to some agreement of what we are going to believe and what we think are consensual facts.A lot of what I have seen in terms of approaches to deal with that are trying to do things that are focused on assessing the content of factual claims to try to verify whether they are true or not.I don’t think that at its heart will be the mechanism. I think that it is going to be not figuring what to believe but who to believe.Most individuals can’t personally verify most factual claims that we hear. If you think about some of the things you personally believe that are fact, there are many that you have not personally verified. It would be tremendously inefficient for all of us to try to personally verify all of these things. We have to have a setting where we trust other people.Victoria Rubin, director of the language and information technology research lab at Western University, Ontario, Canada If there are people who are willing to blatantly refuse to believe that something is a lie, no matter how hard you try, they won't listen. I'm not sure what amount of evidence is needed in this new paradigm of journalism to get newsreaders out of their new bubbles. Human psychology is the main obstacle, unwillingness to bend one's mind around facts that don't agree with one's own viewpoint.We're studying how news framing affects attribution of blame for events described in the news, and whether there is mitigating effect of partisan beliefs. The second newer misleading type of fakes that's gaining traction is native ads (specifically, in news), or sponsored content that's disguised as editorials, or what's formerly known as advertorials. Such misleading practice constitutes an internal threat to the profession of journalism and may further deteriorate mainstream media trust. If information users are unaware of the Native Ads original promotional nature, they may find themselves insufficiently informed or misled by its content.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"middle","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-04-01T00:00:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"50 grand challenges for the 21st Century","HeadlineShort":"50 ‘grand challenges’ for the world","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"We asked experts from the world of science and technology to describe the societal challenges that they think matter in 2017 and beyond. Read the full list of responses below. ","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"We asked experts from the world of science and technology to describe the societal challenges that they think matter in 2017 and beyond. ","SummaryShort":"The issues that matter for society’s future","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-31T19:54:32.802613Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"246f46d4-029a-46ae-be65-b763e9c4297d","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-14T16:13:09.027657Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170331-50-grand-challenges-for-the-21st-century","_id":"5985b9ae0b1947497fcf68ac"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":null,"AssetSelect":"ib2video","AssetVideoIb2":[],"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":null,"BodyHtml":"Read more:<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic\">Writing for the BBC, Chelsea Clinton describes the ‘grand challenges’ she sees in public health in 2017, and why more action is required to tackle America’s opioid addiction.</a>This animation is part of our ‘<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\">Grand Challenges</a>’ series, a guide to the issues that define our age, using the insights of <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\">50 experts working in science, technology and health</a>. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-03T07:26:12.879Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"America's opioid addiction - explained","HeadlineShort":"America's opioid addiction - explained","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"Opioids are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Watch our animation about the problem, inspired by an exclusive article written by Chelsea Clinton. \n","IsSyndicated":false,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"video","SummaryLong":"Opioids are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans. Watch our animation about the problem, inspired by an exclusive article written by Chelsea Clinton. \n","SummaryShort":"An animated guide to a major US problem","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-03T07:54:30.785447Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"edc01c51-9105-466f-b1fe-2cee631fe083","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170303-the-us-opioid-addiction-explained","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-04T14:54:59.737837Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170303-the-us-opioid-addiction-explained"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170303-the-us-opioid-addiction-explained","_id":"598224d30b1947497fcd883a"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":[],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjm0x\"}}(Click/pinch to enlarge)How will the world’s population continue to increase?There will be 11.2 billion of us by 2100, according to the UN’s most likely scenario. But this is a projection, not a certainty. There’s an outside chance the world’s population could be as high as 16.6 billion by the end of the century. Or it could be as low as 7.3 billion – that’s fewer people than the 7.5 billion alive today. In all the UN scenarios, though, the population keeps increasing until at least 2050.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjm07\"}}Why is the average age rising?Because we’re living longer and having fewer children each. In 1950, many people across the globe could not expect to make it to their 50th birthday. Today, average global life expectancy is nearly 72 years and by 2100 it is projected to increase to over 83 years. Longer lives mean more old people, while lower fertility rates mean relatively fewer people are born to replace them: the so-called population pyramid is turning into a beehive.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjlzr\"}}Where will we be living?By 2030, there will be 41 megacities of more than 10 million people. And by 2050, two thirds of us will live in urban areas. Super-dense cities could house everyone on a surprisingly small amount of land. Those 6.3 billion urban dwellers in a city the same density as today’s Mumbai could squeeze onto an area the size of the UK. But spread those people out into a city the density of today’s Atlanta, and the land footprint expands dramatically, to around the size of the US. Keeping a lid on suburban sprawl could be a key priority in the megacities of the future.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjlzf\"}}Where will the world’s energy come from?Today the vast majority of the energy humanity consumes – 86% – comes from fossil fuels. Renewable energy sources account for around 10% of the total, but that share is growing fast. Global solar energy consumption was around 7.5 times higher in 2015 than 2010. In a future dominated by renewables, countries with lots of land on which to site wind turbines and solar panels could find themselves at a distinct advantage.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yjlww\"}}How likely is my job to be automated in the future?Almost half of US jobs could soon be done by a robot or computer, according to Oxford University researchers. But some jobs are much more likely to be automated than others. Telemarketers, accountants and taxi drivers could see themselves replaced over the next decade or two, while jobs requiring creativity, manual dexterity or empathy could persist for far longer. Future labour markets will have to adapt to the pressures imposed by automation.Research and captions by Miriam Quick; infographic design by Valentina D'Efilippo.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the most important issues of the 21st Century.\nInspired by these responses, we're publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest challenges we face today</a>.","CalloutPosition":"bottom","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-30T18:50:36.215Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Five numbers that will define the next 100 years","HeadlineShort":"5 numbers that will shape this century","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"From energy to life expectancy, these crucial statistics could define Earth’s upcoming century. ","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"From energy to life expectancy, these crucial statistics could define Earth’s upcoming century.","SummaryShort":"These crucial stats could define the next 100 years","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-31T05:40:37.023101Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"0114ee0b-5155-4be6-a7cb-3998e9aae902","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-04T14:49:10.987247Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170330-5-numbers-that-will-define-the-next-100-years","_id":"5981dafd0b1947497fcd60ca"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08hz4ny\">Joshua Wong</a> was 17 when he was first arrested for his political views. But by then he had been taking part in pro-democracy protests for more than three years. In 2011, aged 14, he founded a student activist group in Hong Kong to campaign against the government's introduction of a compulsory school curriculum that was favourable to the Communist Party of China: the new curriculum ignored events such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing, in which several hundred students were shot and killed, and was critical of democracy.In 2012, Wong organised large-scale demonstrations: a handful of students went on hunger strike and tens of thousands of people flooded the plazas outside Hong Kong's government headquarters. By 2014 – the year of his first arrest – Wong was a leading figure in the so-called Umbrella Revolution, a series of protests that swept across Hong Kong after China announced it would be screening candidates in the territory's own coming elections. Now 20, Wong is the secretary general of Demosisto, a pro-democracy political party he co-founded last year.<blockquote> The problem is in the heart of the most mature democracies in the West – Joan Hoey, Economist Intelligence Unit   </blockquote>Wong is championed by democratic countries in the West. Time magazine nominated him for Person of the Year in 2014 and Fortune named him one of their “world's greatest leaders” in 2015. But as Wong – and others like him – fight for democracy, many countries that applaud his activism appear to be letting it slip. By more than one measure, democracy around the world is declining.Trust in political institutions – including the electoral process itself - are at an all-time low. New converts to democracy in Europe and the Middle East are sliding back into authoritarian rule. And populist leaders who are expected to curb certain civil liberties are winning votes. Societies the world over are experiencing a strong backlash to a system of government that has largely been the hallmark of developed nations for generations.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yg27w\"}}“A lot of focus gets put on places like Russia, the Middle East or China,” says Joan Hoey at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) in London. “But the problem is here, in the heart of the most mature democracies in the West.”Hoey's stark assessment is shared by many others. Western states are worrying about the health of democracy for the first time since perhaps the end of World War Two, says Larry Diamond, a political sociologist at Stanford University in California and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank that ‘promotes political and economic freedom’. “We’ve not seen anything like this in decades, and we don’t know where it’s heading,” he says. “We don’t know how serious it is.”Diamond has been watching democracy around the world go through what he calls “a mild but protracted recession” for about a decade. Parts of the world new to the democratic system – such as former Soviet countries in Eastern Europe or states working through the aftermath of the Arab Spring – are slowly slipping back into authoritarianism.<blockquote> We’ve not seen anything like this in decades, and we don’t know where it’s heading. We don’t know how serious it is   </blockquote>But last year, everything changed. Democracy is now in trouble in some of the most mature democracies in the world, he says. “We can now talk of a crisis.”In fact, the decline of democracy has been measured. Every year since 2006, Hoey and her colleagues at the EIU have produced a report called the Democracy Index, which provides a comprehensive ranking of nearly every country in the world on a 10-point scale. It combines regional data and multiple surveys conducted in 167 countries to measure the quality of political processes, civil liberties, the functioning of government, public participation and political culture. Each country is then classed as a full democracy, flawed democracy, hybrid regime or authoritarian regime.The results of <a href=\"http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/01/daily-chart-20\">last year’s report are sobering</a>. Overall, the global average score fell with 72 countries dropping in the ranking compared to 2015, and just 38 moving up. The number of “full democracies” dropped from 20 to 19, with the US now classed as “flawed”. According to the EIU's measure, around half the world's population (49.3%) live in a democracy of some kind. But only 4.5% of people live in a “full democracy” - half as many as in 2015.And the EIU's measure is not the only one that suggests a rapid, fundamental shift in global politics. Andrew Reynolds, a political scientist at the University of North Carolina and founder of the Electoral Integrity Project, which assesses the quality of democracies around the world, has argued that the US state of <a href=\"http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2016/12/27/14078646/north-carolina-political-science-democracy\">North Carolina should no longer be considered a democracy</a> after it brought in voting restrictions that reportedly disenfranchised black voters.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yg1yx\"}}So, what's going on? What’s behind the erosion of a political system that’s guided the world’s most developed economies for decades?A common explanation is that the world is still reacting to the global financial crisis and the austerity policies that followed. This had a major corrosive effect on democracy, changing the way people viewed their political leaders. According to this view, the effect will be short-term – when economies start to pick up again, politics will return to normal. But what we're seeing is not a temporary blip, says Hoey.Take the US. Its relegation to “flawed democracy” in the EIU’s ratings is not because of the 2016 presidential election. “The US has been teetering on the brink for many years,” says Hoey. “Donald Trump is a beneficiary of a deep-seated and long-standing problem.”The level of public trust in democratic institutions in the US has been plummeting for decades. According to a survey carried out in 2015 by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organisation in Washington DC that investigates demographic trends, only <a href=\"http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/public-trust-in-government-1958-2015/\">19% of people trust the government to do the right thing “always or most of the time”</a>. In 1958, when the American National Election Study asked the same question, 73% of people did.Some may argue that this is because governments no longer feel like they are “of the people, by the people, for the people”, as Abraham Lincoln put it in his Gettysburg Address. Over the last half century, the business of governing has arguably become more technocratic, with positions of power populated by larger numbers of professional politicians and policy wonks. Many long-established political parties once had closer ties with specific groups of people. Left-wing or social democratic parties in particular were set up to represent the will of the working class. Those ties have stretched to breaking point, however.More generally, old divisions between left and right that once gave voters clear alternatives have fallen, especially since the 1990s and the end of the Cold War. Parties that represented two competing visions of how society should be run throughout the 20th Century have suffered a body blow, says Hoey. As parties on both sides moved to the centre, the gulf between political elites and the electorate opened up even more. “Politics is no longer about the big questions and big issues,” says Hoey. “It has become soulless.”Cue populists like Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, the former leader of UK party Ukip. Such politicians have been able to win support by talking about issues that established parties have been unwilling to address candidly. Ukip wields no hard political power – its only elected member of Parliament defected last week – but its outspoken views on immigration and criticism of EU technocrats shaped the Brexit debate. Similarly, Trump also crafted his campaign around immigration and a pledge to “drain the swamp” of political elites that no longer shared the values of millions of voters.<blockquote> Many are suddenly talking about the need to defend democracy. 'But defend democracy against what? Against the people?'   </blockquote>The resulting political shocks were a wake-up call, says Hoey. But in failing to talk about the things that mattered to people, the mainstream parties had it coming. People want their voices heard and when they had an opportunity to make a difference with a direct vote – one that promised to make a bigger difference than the usual box-ticking every four years - they grabbed it. “The chickens have come home to roost,” she says.As a result of the populist backlash, political elites – which includes many in the media – are suddenly talking about the need to defend democracy. “But defend democracy against what? Against the people?” asks Hoey. By getting the public involved in the biggest political debate in decades, Brexit was phenomenal, she says. “People who hadn’t voted for years came out.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yg1tx\"}}Yet many still identify the populist backlash itself as the problem, rather than an expression of a deeper issue. Brexit and Trump voters are stigmatised for being bigots – “deplorables” – or for being misled by misinformation or lying politicians. But to dismiss millions of people like that will get us nowhere, says Hoey.   “Our political parties have run away from talking about the issues that matter to people,” she says. “If you're not asking the really big questions about what kind of society you want to live in, what’s left?” If people care about something, it needs to be discussed – no matter how difficult a topic.“You need to have clashes of opinion,” she argues. “If you want to revise democracy that’s the only way to do it. There are no other fixes.”For Hoey, Brexit and the election of Trump are electoral shocks that could be good for democracy in the long-run. “All these years, nobody’s really cared about democracy,” she says. “Suddenly everyone’s talking about it and that’s great.” But Diamond sees a darker side. “Many deep thinkers about politics, from Plato to the authors of the US constitution, have worried about the vulnerability of pure democracy to the tyranny of the majority.”The reason that many countries have representative democracies – in which people elect representatives to make decisions on their behalf – or other structures, such as second chambers of government, is that the will of the people needs to be balanced with things like equality and civil liberty. Some states have constitutions that set out their citizens' incontrovertible rights explicitly. Most have independent judicial systems. “You need brakes, like in a car,” says Diamond. “If all you have is the accelerator pedal it’s not a very safe vehicle.”<blockquote> Many deep thinkers about politics have worried about the vulnerability of pure democracy to the tyranny of the majority </blockquote>The danger inherent in the democratic process is that a leader can be elected who removes those brakes. When people feel threatened, either physically – by terrorism, say – or economically, they tend to be more receptive to authoritarian populist appeals and more willing to give up certain freedoms.Trump has support for banning immigration from certain Muslim-majority countries, for example. And last year, the UK government was able to pass the most sweeping internet-surveillance legislation of any democracy. “In the US and most of Western Europe, the checks and balances are very likely to be strong enough to prevent severe damage to democratic freedoms and constitutional safeguards,” says Diamond. “But 'very likely' is not 'certain'.”Diamond is struck by how quickly democratic processes and institutions are being dismantled in European countries like Hungary and Poland – states that have long been absorbed into the European Union. “Maybe we are going to have some shocking lessons about the durability of democracy,” he says.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yg1q5\"}}Diamond agrees with Hoey about the underlying causes of the populist surge across the West. “When people are saying they can't stomach any more immigration, when they don't know if they're going to be able to retire or what kind of jobs their kids are going to get, the political elite needs to listen and adapt or things are going to unravel,” he says.But simply talking about these issues may not be enough. To compete with more authoritarian rivals, Diamond thinks mainstream politicians will need to concede ground, stepping back from liberal social and economic policies – on equality, immigration or global trade – that have been advanced in recent years. For example, Geert Wilders' nationalist party in the Netherlands did worse than expected in this month’s elections. This was because the Dutch prime minister saw what was happening and made some significant policy adjustments, says Diamond.Despite being on the back foot, many people believe democracy is the best system of government humans have come up with, an end point to political evolution. In non-democratic countries around the world – in parts of Asia, in sub-Saharan Africa – <a href=\"http://afrobarometer.org/blogs/do-africans-still-want-democracy-new-report-gives-qualified-yes\">survey data shows that people want it</a>. As China has become richer and its economy more modern, you can see a growing aspiration for democracy from the middle classes, says Hoey. “It's human nature to want to be free.”<blockquote> The political elite needs to listen and adapt or things are going to unravel </blockquote>Which is why people like Joshua Wong devote themselves to fighting for it. Feelings are strong on both sides, however. When Wong travelled to Taiwan in January, he was met by around 200 pro-China protestors at the airport. One broke through police lines and tried to punch him. Wong ended up being placed under police protection for his visit. Is democracy really the only morally legitimate system for choosing a society's leaders?“I don’t see any stable authoritarian states out there,” says Diamond. He believes governments in places like China, Russia and Iran will eventually collapse. ”The only well-functioning authoritarian regime in the world is Singapore and I'm not sure even that is going to last,” he says. “In any case, you can’t build a theory on a city state of just a few million people.”Not everyone thinks things are so clear cut, however. Daniel Bell at Tsinghua University in Beijing argues that a lot of Western ideas about democracy verge on dogma. A Canadian political scientist trained in the UK, Bell has spent many years living and working in China. “In the West we tend to divide the world into good democratic regimes that set the path for all the others, and bad authoritarian regimes that are on the wrong side of history,” he says.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yg1f7\"}}Bell points out that non-democratic states can take many forms. There are family-run dictatorships like in North Korea, military dictatorships like in Egypt, monarchies like in Saudi Arabia. Each is quite different. And some, like China's meritocratic system – in which government officials are not elected by the public, but appointed and promoted according to their competence and performance – should not be dismissed outright. “To put them all in the same camp is ridiculous,” says Bell. “It’s not a good way of trying to understand what’s going on in China.”  The Communist Party of China has 88 million members. Its membership is managed by the Department of Organisation, which is essentially a huge human resources department. To be a member of the party, candidates must pass a set of examinations. Government officials are thus selected from across the country and from various sectors of society according to merit. Promotion from low-ranking official to the very top of government is then – in principle – simply a matter of performance.One obvious issue is a lack of transparency in how merit is measured. At the lower levels of government, the system is becoming more open to public scrutiny. Some Chinese cities are now experimenting with putting budgets online and allowing people to comment on the budgets, which lets citizens see how their local officials are performing. But how the party selects its top-tier leaders is not generally known, says Bell. “If they were a bit more open, it would help to legitimise the system abroad.”<blockquote> If [China] say they’re going to do something by 2030, we can be pretty sure they’re going to do it </blockquote>The biggest challenge to Chinese politics is corruption. A democratic system can live with corruption because corrupt leaders can be voted out of power, at least in theory. But in a meritocratic system, corruption is an existential threat. If political leaders are seen to be corrupt, they cannot claim superior merit and thus lose the one quality that justifies their position. Because of this, China needs more mechanisms to keep its politicians accountable. Chinese officials have studied the British civil service to learn how to deal with corruption, for example. “Elections are a safety valve that isn't available in China,” says Bell. “But they know this. It's why they're having the longest and most systematic anti-corruption drive in recent history.”  There are obvious flaws in China's system, says Bell. But he also ticks off several advantages. Political officials at the top all have substantial experience at running a country – “unlike in the US with the current president”. The government is also not subject to the electoral cycle and can focus on its policies. “If they say they’re going to do something by 2030, we can be pretty sure they’re going to do it,” he says.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yg3n1\"}}This has allowed China to pull millions out of poverty in just a few decades, build a vast amount of new infrastructure in the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170223-chinas-zombie-factories-and-unborn-cities\">biggest construction drive the world has ever seen</a>, and begin to tackle its substantial urban pollution and greenhouse emissions. Officials used to be judged mainly on how well they did at reducing poverty, says Bell. Now they are expected to make environmental improvements too.<blockquote> The West has tried to export democracy not only at the point of a gun, but also by imposing legislation </blockquote>Bell says lots of surveys show that the Chinese system has strong support within the country at most levels of society, where the government is viewed as providing a form of guardianship. He agrees with Hoey that as China gets richer and its middle class grows, more people will want to have a say in how the country is run. But that need not necessarily mean a call for democracy. Instead, perhaps more people will sign up to join the ruling party. Everybody now has equal rights to take the examinations that put you on the road to becoming a public official, he says. “There are different ways of participating in politics.”Whatever happens, democracy is much more likely to flourish when it is homegrown. The attempts in the last few decades to export democracy around the world have proved to be an absolute disaster, says Hoey. “The whole idea is wrong in principle because democracy is not ours to dispense,” she says. “It has to come from the people to have any meaning. It needs to have roots deep in the values and culture of the country.”Yet the West has tried to export democracy not only at the point of a gun – such as in the many military interventions in the Middle East – but also by imposing legislation. The EU pushes its Western values and body of laws on new members, for example. This can be quite intrusive, says Hoey. As a result, rather than being seen as a universal human aspiration, democracy can sometimes come across as a specifically Western product – and rejected as such.With the political climate around the world shifting and many countries adopting a more nationalist outlook, the US and Western Europe have abandoned most of their ambitions for regime change around the world. But looking inwards may be no bad thing. “If the West wants to promote democracy then they should do it by example,” says Hoey.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the most important issues of the 21st Century.\nInspired by these responses, we're publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest challenges we face today</a>.","CalloutPosition":"middle","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-30T10:06:09.101Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"The uncertain future of democracy","HeadlineShort":"The uncertain future of democracy","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"The West’s grandest challenge could be preserving the post-war stability that has existed for more than half a century.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The West’s grandest challenge could be preserving the post-war stability that has existed for more than half a century.","SummaryShort":"The US is now rated a ‘flawed democracy’ – and it's not the West's only problem","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-30T09:15:10.770465Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"707953ec-6bcb-4ae3-93bf-adb9105e159c","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170330-the-uncertain-future-of-democracy","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-03-30T10:59:06.973777Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170330-the-uncertain-future-of-democracy"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170330-the-uncertain-future-of-democracy","_id":"5984eafe0b1947497fcefdee"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"HOW CAN WE AVOID RESISTANCE TO ANTIBIOTICS?“More needs to be done to improve our ability to diagnose, treat and prevent drug resistant infections and to speed up development of new antibiotics to replace those no longer effective in protecting us against deadly infections. Modern medicine depends on doctors having effective drugs to treat infections. But many common infections are becoming more difficult to treat because bacteria are becoming resistant to the drugs available. Drug-resistant infection – or antimicrobial resistance – is a very serious health threat to us all. Already it results in around 700,000 deaths a year globally. Within a generation it could be 10 million; it could mean we can no longer safely carry out not only complex, lifesaving treatments such as chemotherapy and organ transplants but also more routine operations like caesareans and hip replacements.”— Tim Jinks, Head of Drug Resistant Infections at Wellcome Trust{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04y7h52\"}}WHAT CAN WE DO TO CONSERVE WATER — ESPECIALLY IN THE FACE OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND URBANISATION?“The one major challenge we will face due to urbanisation will be 'water security'. We are already grappling with this problem across our developing member countries and with deteriorating river or surface water quality, lack of sufficient ground water sources and increasing dependence on sea water as a supply source. We have to bring in innovations in water management. Treatment technology, water aquifer mapping, recycling and reuse of wastewater, and more are areas of R&D investment.”— Vijay Padmanabhan, Asian Development Bank, Technical Advisor (Urban)HOW DO WE FIGHT ‘FAKE NEWS’?“The fundamental challenge we now face is how to handle a setting where anybody can get their views disseminated without intermediaries to prevent the distribution. Somehow there still has to be some process of collectively coming to some agreement of what we are going to believe and what we think are consensual facts. A lot of what I have seen in terms of approaches to deal with that are trying to do things that are focused on assessing the content of factual claims to try to verify whether they are true or not. I don’t think that at its heart will be the mechanism. I think that it is going to be not figuring what to believe but who to believe.“Most individuals can’t personally verify most factual claims that we hear. If you think about some of the things you personally believe that are fact, there are many that you have not personally verified. It would be tremendously inefficient for all of us to try to personally verify all of these things. We have to have a setting where we trust other people.”— Paul Resnick - professor of information at the University of Michigan Discover more: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170301-lies-propaganda-and-fake-news-a-grand-challenge-of-our-age\" target=\"_blank\">Lies, propaganda, and fake news: A challenge for our age</a>IN AN INTERCONNECTED WORLD, HOW DO WE FIGHT GLOBAL DISEASE?“Vast amounts of international travel, increasing urbanisation and a changing climate means that viruses can cross borders and spread around the globe faster than ever before. Recent outbreaks like SARS, Ebola and Zika have all shown how unprepared the world is to deal with epidemics. To stand any chance of tackling this threat, we need new vaccines, stronger healthcare systems and a better coordinated global response. At Wellcome, we’re working to address this threat in a variety of ways; we are a founding partner of the Coalition for Epidemics Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) that will develop new vaccine candidates against infections we know could cause a serious epidemic. The WHO also needs to be much better funded and have the mandate to respond swiftly and effectively when diseases do begin to spread. Only by investing, coordinating and working together can we expect to prepare the world for the next inevitable epidemic.”— Mike Turner, Head of Infection and Immunobiology at Wellcome Trust<blockquote> If we suffer another flu pandemic similar to the 1918 ‘Spanish flu,’ the World Bank estimates that there could be 71 million deaths and a global recession costing over $3 trillion </blockquote>“First, many countries have weak national systems for detecting and responding to outbreaks. Second, we have too few vaccines, medicines, and diagnostics for emerging infectious diseases with outbreak potential. Third, at the international level, we simply don’t yet have a robust, joined-up approach to providing the essential components of a preparedness and response system – like surge capacity in producing vaccines in a crisis, an interconnected global surveillance system, or a global reserve corps of emergency responders. Closing these three gaps is one of the most urgent global priorities if we are to avert a potential world catastrophe. For example, if we suffer another flu pandemic similar to the 1918 ‘Spanish flu,’ the World Bank estimates that there could be 71 million deaths and a global recession costing over $3 trillion.”— Gavin Yamey, professor of the practice of global health, Duke University Global Health Institute{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04y7cfy\"}}“The recent Ebola and Zika epidemics exposed our global vulnerabilities to deadly microbial threats and highlighted the need for proactive measures in advance of outbreaks and swift action during them. At the same time, it shows our ability to prevent, diagnose, and treat deadly infectious diseases through new technologies. It is a time of great potential for devastation or advancement for one of the greatest challenges of our lifetimes.”— Pardis Sabeti, Associate Professor of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology and of Immunology and Infectious Diseases, Harvard UniversityDiscover more: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170324-bill-gates-we-need-a-new-approach-to-tackling-epidemics\" target=\"_blank\">Bill Gates: How to fight the next Zika</a> <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170302-chelsea-clinton-america-is-suffering-an-opioid-epidemic\" target=\"_blank\">Chelsea Clinton: American is suffering an opioid epidemic</a>HOW WILL WE DEAL WITH OVERPOPULATION?“Technological improvements, while potentially important in reducing the per capita impact [of climate change], are not sufficient to make us sustainable unless we also stop growth in human numbers and reduce average consumption, while simultaneously lessening the gap between the richest and the poorest people on the planet. So far, non-renewable resources are what primarily drive our economic engine. But by definition, non-renewables are being depleted and for the most part will stop being economically available in this century. So we must plan rapidly for the day when humanity can live using just renewable resources, while maintaining the biodiversity that makes the planet habitable.”— William Ryerson, founder and president, the Population Institute and Population Media CenterHOW WILL THE ERA OF BIG DATA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SHAPE OUR HEALTH?“Our major challenge is related to our new capability of digitising human beings. That is, via biosensors, DNA sequencing and imaging, we can define each individual’s medical essence. But the problem is that this generates many terabytes of data, which includes real-time streaming of key metrics like blood pressure. Aggregating and processing the data, derived from many sources, with algorithms and artificial intelligence (particularly deep learning) is a daunting task. Once we can do this, we’ll be on our way to a virtual medical coach – your smartphone providing instantaneous feedback on all your health and medical metrics to help prevent you from getting sick.”— Eric Topol, Scripps Transatlantic Science InstituteHOW CAN WE SAFELY USE GENE EDITING TECHNOLOGY IN HUMANS?“As a co-inventor of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology, I am delighted to see that this groundbreaking ability to ‘cut and paste’ genes so efficiently is being harnessed as a strategy to create new food, therapeutics, materials and methods for controlling the spread of disease. A challenge moving forward is how best to engage the public with this fundamental science that really can positively impact human life and the world we live in. I believe that we must continue to discuss and consider the profound societal and ethical impacts of CRISPR technology and ensure that it is not abused.”— Jennifer Doudna, professor of Molecular and Cell Biology and Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, co-inventor of CRISPR-Cas9 technology<blockquote> The human genome isn’t something we should seek to build a wall around, protecting it from all change </blockquote>“Recent advances in gene editing suggest a future in which we can radically upgrade human genomes. We might use tools to rewrite genes that influence traits such as intelligence and lifespan. We should bear in mind when we contemplate this enhanced future that the obvious answers aren’t always the right ones. The human genome isn’t something we should seek to build a wall around, protecting it from all change. But a rush to enhance ourselves may erase aspects of our humanity that proper reflection reveals as valuable. More IQ points aren’t better than fewer in the straightforward way that more money is better than less. We risk oversimplifying what’s involved in enhancement. Proper reflection on what about us we might want to preserve takes time – it should draw on a wide range of perspectives about what it means to be human. It’s difficult to set aside this time for ethical reflection when new technological possibilities seem to be coming thick and fast.”— Nicholas Agar, professor of ethics at the Victoria University of Wellington{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04y7c50\"}}HOW DO WE MAKE CITIES MORE SUSTAINABLE AND PLEASANT FOR THE PEOPLE WHO LIVE THERE ?“Virtually every neighbourhood in the US has a neighbourhood organisation – 30 years ago this didn’t exist. The issue is coming up with software that will create a mega database that will understand every part of the built environment at the place level, and eventually, the metropolitan level. Right now, nobody knows what’s in Midtown [Manhattan]. We don’t know what percentage of that is office; what percentage of that is retail. We didn’t have those data sets 15 years ago, and we didn’t have the software, and we certainly didn’t have the computing capability.So when a city or when a business improvement district makes a major capital investment in the future, you could foresee the time that we’ll be able to say, ‘okay, let’s build the Second Avenue subway. It’ll cost us $5bn and this is the expected economic and tax revenues we will get from that based on this data set, and we will then decide what to do – and we will look at secondary consequences like gentrification and see how we’re going to address that based upon those future projects we make.’ We will learn much better how to plan, build, and pay for these places; invest in the right thing. Right now conclusions are based on guestimations, like ridership. We’re getting closer to saying this is going to be the economic and fiscal benefit of doing that, and here are the unintended consequences we need to be concerned about: congestion, gentrification, or displacement, whatever. All those tools will help place managements. This is a new field of place management.”— Chris Leinberger, Nonresident Senior Fellow - Metropolitan Policy Program, Brookings Institute“The battle for sustainable development will be won or lost in cities. 150 million people are moving to cities each year. By 2050, over 7 billion people will live in cities (80% of the world), and cities will be responsible for 75% of global carbon emissions. Cities are places where infrastructure gets locked in for decades, if not centuries, but city planners must make investments now in a world where technology is changing rapidly where people live, work and play, and how they access buildings, transport, energy and waste management. The fastest growth is happening in thousands of secondary cities where mayors and city managers are not well schooled in technical urban planning. Often, these secondary cities must collaborate with each other to deliver services effectively across boundaries within larger metropolitan areas.”— Homi Kharas, senior fellow and deputy director of Brookings Institute’s Global Program\"Climate Change exacerbates the challenges thrust upon impoverished people. The use and habitation of spaces demonstrates this clearly – the quantity, quality, and increasingly, the ability of one’s space to protect from harsher and unexpected elements. Solutions should be structural as well as grassroots: sound policy as well as micro-local community-based.Scratching the surface are programmes offered by governments and utilities, to assist homeowners to weatherise their structures. Impoverished communities still lack the resource and capacity to capture full use of technologies – methods are already known and commonplace in sustainable new construction. The most robust and innovative energy efficiency programs are yet to benefit those that would feel the greatest impact from the captured savings.\"— Nootan Bharani, Lead Design Manager, University of Chicago's Place LabHOW CAN WE KEEP EXTENDING OUR LIFE EXPECTANCIES?“Recent research has shown that a country’s ratio of health to social service spending is predictive of some key health outcomes, like life expectancy, infant mortality, and maternal mortality. Genetics and health care play a role, but social, environmental, and behavioural factors have far greater impact on the whole health of a population. Some examples of social service investments include job training, supportive housing, and nutritional support – all of which have traditionally had an underestimated focus of attention.”— Elizabeth Bradley, Professor of Grand Strategy, Head of Branford College, Professor of Public Health and Faculty Director of the Yale Global Health Leadership InstituteHOW CAN RAPIDLY DEVELOPING REGIONS GROW EFFECTIVELY?“The majority of Africans will live in towns and cities by 2050. Management consultancies and international financiers routinely claim that rapid urbanisation is one of the great pluses in the investment case for Africa. As things stand, this is hyperbolic nonsense. For towns and cities to drive economic growth and livelihood improvement, more imaginative and effective urban planning and management are imperative; and the provision of public goods must replace a narrow focus on the wellbeing of elites.Firstly, citizens have to be involved. Community participation in slum redevelopment initiatives has proven to be a far more productive and cheaper way of going about things than imposing ill-conceived, expensive schemes from above. Secondly, the technology exists to facilitate the rapid planning required – for example, data collection with mobile phones and satellite imagery have already been beneficial. Thirdly, urban-dwellers everywhere – voters – can mobilise even more effectively to ensure that their elected representatives deliver more. The final, essential, component is political will. This has been conspicuously lacking, but more determined and competent mayors and city leaders are emerging and the power of example is considerable.”— Edward Paice, Director, Africa Research Institute{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04y7c31\"}}HOW CAN WE BETTER INFORM PEOPLE ABOUT NATURAL DISASTERS?“We do a great job as a society of funding and supporting innovative research – we really admire that aspect of it. What we do a very bad job at is making the interface between that esoteric research and how people can actually use the information. People want predictions (for earthquakes). But people have to understand the scientific process. That’s problem number one: the communication phase. People on the outside turn to us (researchers) for answers, and we are so caught up in the scientific process that we know no answer that we’re talking about is final. There’s this gap that we’re not helping people understand, and it’s actively discouraged – if you have a young scientist who’s brilliant on TV explaining earthquakes, they may say no, I’m not going to do this because it’s going to hurt my career.”— Lucy Jones, Science Advisor for Risk Reduction for the United States Geological SurveyCAR OWNERSHIP CONTINUES TO RISE WORLDWIDE — HOW WILL WE ACCOMMODATE THIS?“Whatever technology may accomplish, we will still need to think about how space [in cities] is used: automated and ride-sharing vehicles take up as much room as regular cars, whether they're on the road or parked off the street. Going into the future, urban space still needs to be designed to maximise places for people to congregate, which are key to building social connections, fostering a sense of belonging, and encouraging community efficacy. Space for human connection is often not considered at all against technological solutions in cities. Not nearly enough attention is given to the social impacts of these new solutions – we must carefully consider how they may change the physical shape and design of our cities in the future. Most importantly, we must be aware of how they might isolate us. After all, by limiting our ability to socialise, technology may only generate new problems to replace the ones it ‘solved’.”— Shin-pei Tsay, &lrm;Executive Director, Gehl Institute\"According to the World Health Organisation, over 1.2 million people a year die from crashes on the world’s roadways. This is epidemic in scale. Traffic safety experts predict that over 90% of roadway fatalities can be eliminated when driverless vehicle technology reaches its full potential. Regulators, police organisations and liability experts responsibly caution that we cannot let driverless technology get in front of safety. However, like with all epidemics, we also have a responsibility to realise the full potential of cures as soon as possible. While we must be prudent, we also must not let those with vested interests in human driven cars slow progress. We must work together to safely accelerate the realization of driverless vehicles. Reaching this imperative one day sooner could save over 3,000 lives!\"— Larry Burns, former corporate vice president of Research and Development for General Motors-Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter, called “<a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\" target=\"_blank\">If You Only Read 6 Things This Week</a>”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"<a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170228-a-guide-to-humanitys-greatest-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">Future Now asked 50 experts</a> – scientists, technologists, business leaders and entrepreneurs – to name what they saw as the most important issues of the 21st Century.\nInspired by these responses, we're publishing a series of feature articles and videos that take an in-depth look at the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/grand-challenges\" target=\"_blank\">biggest challenges we face today</a>.","CalloutPosition":"top","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"Grand Challenges","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-03-28T06:57:13.692Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"12 questions we need to prioritise in 2017","HeadlineShort":"12 grand challenges that matter in 2017","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"In addition to known global problems such as climate change or poverty, what are the \"grand challenges\" we face in 2017? We asked a series of experts for their answers.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"In addition to known global problems such as climate change or poverty, what are the \"grand challenges\" we face in 2017? We asked a series of experts for their answers.","SummaryShort":"They will shape our future if we don't address them","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-28T06:36:14.433896Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"823d9ddb-af25-40bb-b37b-5533f2258917","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170328-12-questions-we-need-to-prioritise-in-2017","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-04-04T14:50:07.951436Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170328-12-questions-we-need-to-prioritise-in-2017"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170328-12-questions-we-need-to-prioritise-in-2017","_id":"5982e56f0b1947497fcdecab"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"BBC Future Now is extending our series about the grandest challenges faced by humankind.","SummaryShort":"Privacy threats, water shortages, smart robots – how will we cope?","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Description":"","LinkUrl":"","Name":"Grand Challenges","CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-03-01T19:35:36.820419Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"5160bb81-c58c-49e4-97e0-739dee7cb7f6","Id":"tag/grand-challenges","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-07-24T11:03:08.823013Z","Project":"","Slug":"grand-challenges"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/grand-challenges","_id":"5981d5c50b1947497fcd49b0"}],"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-22T09:15:54.843065Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"316f64cb-59e8-42d8-a23e-275ecfb847e2","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-22T19:16:24.957314Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-05-22T09:15:54.843065Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"316f64cb-59e8-42d8-a23e-275ecfb847e2","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-22T19:16:24.957314Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170519-your-guide-to-earths-biggest-problems","_id":"598396230b1947497fce4c06"},{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":800066,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/52/kl/p052kl90.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"","SynopsisShort":"India","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/52/kl/p052kl90.jpg","Title":"india3.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p052kl90","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p052kl90","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p052kl90","_id":"5981f0bd0b1947497fcd6c43"}],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1152964,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/52/kl/p052kl9w.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"International companies have long outsourced IT tasks to call centres in India to save money - but now those human centres may be replaced by robots (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"India","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/52/kl/p052kl9w.jpg","Title":"india2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p052kl9w","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p052kl9w","_id":"5984fb5d0b1947497fcf06a0"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1785718,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":2545,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/52/n3/p052n35l.jpg","SourceWidth":3804,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Repetitive, labourious tasks, like the brick-laying seen here in Uttar Pradesh, are especially at risk of being replaced with smart machines (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"India","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/52/n3/p052n35l.jpg","Title":"DBT3T2.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p052n35l","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p052n35l","_id":"5984fb5e0b1947497fcf06a1"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":727385,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":1080,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/52/kl/p052klcs.jpg","SourceWidth":1920,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"India is trying to future-proof job loss by acquainting students and workers to changing tech - workers are seen here in a Bangalore automation factory (Credit: Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"India","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/52/kl/p052klcs.jpg","Title":"india1.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p052klcs","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p052klcs","_id":"5984fb5f0b1947497fcf06a2"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Edd Gent","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-14T21:13:54.13525Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"87336c95-67bf-493a-81fc-d4f177829d17","Id":"wwfuture/author/edd-gent","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-01-14T21:13:54.13525Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"edd-gent"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/edd-gent","_id":"5981d2380b1947497fcb85ce"}],"BodyHtml":"Ravi is one of thousands of Indian IT workers who will lose their jobs this year, caught between a slump in India’s previously booming IT industry and new technology threatening to replace human workers.Until last month he worked at Cognizant Technology Solutions – a firm headquartered in the US but with the bulk of its workforce in India. The company is under pressure to cut costs and is expected to shed between 6,000 and 10,000 'underperformers' this year.Market volatility and rising protectionism in countries like the USA, where much of India’s IT outsourcing work comes from, saw Cognizant’s revenue grow at its slowest pace in two decades last year, and its peers in the Indian IT industry are in the same boat.<blockquote> Software can carry out routine IT support work and repetitive back office tasks – the very tasks global companies originally outsourced to India </blockquote>But at the same time, rapidly improving automation technology is allowing software to carry out routine IT support work and repetitive back office tasks previously performed by humans – the very tasks global companies originally outsourced to India to take advantage of cheaper labour.In February, Cognizant’s CFO said it would “aggressively” employ automation to “optimise” its services. Meanwhile, India’s third-largest IT firm, Infosys, said automation allowed it to shift 9,000 workers from low-skill jobs to more advanced projects, like machine learning and artificial intelligence, last year. Its competitor Wipro redeployed 3,200 in 2016, and predicts it will move another 4,500 this year.Yet this has been accompanied by a significant slowing in hiring. IT body Nasscom’s annual review predicted a 20-to-25% reduction in jobs in the industry over the next three years.“Cognizant has not conducted any layoffs,” a Cognizant spokesperson said. “New machines and technologies are about helping cut costs, improve efficiencies, and increase sophistication in building and delivering services. They are not about altogether replacing the human element, but about elevating the role people play and the value they bring to their roles.”But it can be hard to pinpoint exactly whose jobs have been lost to automation. Researchers in the UK, for example, have shown that some roles in today’s global economy are <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-34066941\">more at risk than others</a>. Ravi, whose name has been changed, worked as a software tester – a role particularly vulnerable to automated takeover. \"In testing, already it has been introduced and it's coming in very fast,” he says. \"If a job requires four manual testers, automation can reduce it to one.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p052kl9w\"}}He’s now job hunting, but says opportunities for the kind of work he was doing before are limited and he will probably have to adapt: take a course on automated software testing and then try to secure a position. He worries this may be a repeating pattern.\"Maybe after five years some new technologies are coming and we have to learn those, too,” he says.India’s IT weak spot?Since the 1990s Indian firms have carried out back office tasks, and IT services like data entry, running call centres and testing software for foreign companies at cut-price rates by throwing cheap labour at them. But as machines become adept at this repetitive, rule-based work, the low-skill jobs – where the bulk of Indian IT workers are employed – are the most at risk.“It’s been happening for the last two or three years in an accelerated fashion,” says Gopinathan Padmanabhan, head of innovation at IT company Mphasis. “It’s a reality you can't shy away from.”This shift will go hand-in-hand with new opportunities in emerging areas – data science, artificial intelligence and big data – but these will require new skills and probably fewer employees.\"They will have to find new roles and train themselves to become relevant in the new age,” says Padmanabhan. “And we're not talking about too far into the future… the next three to five years.”Of course, losing jobs to automation is a concern across the developed world. But India’s case is unique.<blockquote> World Bank data estimates 69% of today’s jobs in India are threatened by automation </blockquote>A stable job at one of the big IT companies is a major aspiration for many Indians, which probably explains why fears of technological unemployment have featured so prominently in newspapers here in recent months.But despite contributing 9.3% of the country’s GDP, according to Nasscom, the IT industry only employs 3.7 million of the nation’s roughly half a billion working adults. So how big of a threat is it actually to the Indian workforce?World Bank data estimates 69% of today’s jobs in India are threatened by automation. And India isn’t alone: China’s figure was 77% and other developing countries also scored highly.India is already struggling to create jobs amid rapid growth. Its working-age population increased by 300 million between 1991 and 2013, according to UN figures, but the number of people employed only rose by 140 million.Still, robots replacing jobs en masse is unrealistic in the medium term in India – or anywhere else – but the effects are already being felt. Last September, Indian textiles giant Raymond said it would replace 10,000 jobs with robots over three years.Union leader Vinodh Kumar works at BMW’s factory in Chennai – India’s automotive hub. His facility isn’t in danger of automation, but he knows union leaders at Hyundai’s plant where the entire body shop and most of the paint shop was automated.“The majority of the body shop employees lost their jobs,” he said. “The permanent employees they tried to relocate, but the contract labourers and the trainees lost their jobs.”Other sectors at risk include pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, logistics and security.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p052n35l\"}}Mohandas Pai, former CFO of Infosys, says it is unlikely to impact high-skill jobs like architects or high-quality coders, or even lower-end jobs in the service industry like restaurant staff and hairdressers.\"The fat middle is at threat, which is rule-based work. Like work in banks, work in offices, work in factories,” he says.‘Hollowing out’ the middle classThe World Bank’s 2016 World Development Report noted a global trend towards “hollowing out” of the labour force. As technology streamlines routine tasks, middle-skill jobs like clerical workers and machine operators decline while both high-skill and low-skill ones increase.And in developing nations like India, that can be a huge problem.\"Those middle-skill jobs have traditionally been the path out of poverty,” says World Bank senior economist Indhira Santos. “So that polarisation into the labour market could translate into a polarisation of society and income.”This trend isn’t down to technology alone – globalisation and urbanisation contribute. But pulling away “the ladder to the middle class”, as the report puts it, could be particularly damaging in a developing country like India.After all, there is a reason why companies are turning to new technologies. “Automation is an imperative to improve competitiveness, quality and efficiency,” says CEO of Siemens’ India Sunil Mathur. That helps compete against cheap imports, boost exports and increases domestic demand and therefore jobs, he says.Samay Kohli, co-founder of home-grown warehouse robotics company Grey Orange, agrees. India lags well behind the developed world on labour productivity, which acts as a major handbrake on growth.“You have to automate to be globally competent,” he says. “If we don't improve our infrastructure, our productivity we will not have a chance to compete globally.”<blockquote> The Butler robot can pick up to 600 items an hour. That eclipses the 100 items a human worker can manage </blockquote>Grey Orange builds ‘Butler’ robots that fetch and store products and ‘Sorters’ that automatically scan and sort packages in the warehouses of e-commerce and logistics giants like Flipkart, Jabong and DTDC.Kohli says the Butler can pick up to 600 items an hour. That eclipses the 100 items a human worker can manage – invaluable efficiency in a country where supply chain costs are double those of Western countries.Increasing worker productivity could stifle employment, but Kohli claims they are simply filling gaps. Annual staff turnover in warehousing is 300%, he says. Rural Indians come looking for better earnings, but onerous targets, low wages and urban living costs mean they rarely last long. But robots are harder to sway.Kohli claims job numbers in their facilities have stayed level, but attrition has reduced.“This labour is just brute labour,” he says. “Even though they're doing jobs, they never get out of poverty. When they start using these kinds of collaborative robots in the mix they work better, more efficiently and are happier with their jobs.\"Heads of IBM Research India Sriram Raghavan agrees that in a developing country like India, automation normally fills gaps rather than replacing people. India has 330,000 fewer doctors than the WHO’s minimum recommendation, but Raghavan says automation can help plug this kind of talent shortage. Smart machines combined with the internet could allow doctors and teachers to provide personalised services to many more people than they can today.The plight of IT workers like Ravi, though, demonstrates that automation is already encroaching on areas without gaps to be filled. Pai says India has the luxury of time compared to developed countries, as labour will remain cheaper than automation for a decade, and huge unmet demand for infrastructure and services can produce lots of jobs.But the World Bank report highlights an ever-accelerating race between skills and technology and that countries like India need to act now to future-proof their populations’ capabilities.Future-proofing jobs from robotsWith automation taking on the routine tasks at the heart of today’s workplace, the jobs of the future will focus on skills like critical thinking, collaboration and creativity.<blockquote> The jobs of the future will focus on skills like critical thinking, collaboration and creativity </blockquote>India’s education system has a reputation for learning by rote and Indian Institute of Technology Madras engineering professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala agrees most institutions aren’t adequately preparing young people.But things are changing. He leads a government-sponsored pilot where professors from leading colleges use virtual labs to teach students at struggling engineering colleges. And start-ups are introducing extra-curricular robotics classes teaching problem-solving skills vital for future jobs.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p052klcs\"}}Most importantly, he says the country’s young population is sharp, adaptable, and future-oriented.\"If automation displaces one thing they move to another,” he says. “They are recognising the need to continually upskill.”IBM’s Raghavan says smart machines that automatically analyse students' performance and preferences can help guide them through this fast-moving terrain by combining data on their skills with job opportunities and available courses.He says: \"Then it’s less about a race, but getting people on a journey. Maybe the skill profile changes every five years rather than every 10, but at the same time technology is helping navigate that landscape.\"That may sound like blue-sky thinking, but in February, Microsoft and LinkedIn announced Project Sangam – a programme providing LinkedIn training, with progress automatically added to profiles so companies can shortlist candidates, as well as personalised job recommendations.Resistance is futileJhunjhunwala thinks India’s development challenges are so large, it needs all the help it can get. And fighting automation is futile anyway.\"The changes going on in the world, including automation, are not something decided by us – but it's going to happen,\" he says. \"We don’t want to be passive and let automation impact us. We want to develop something with this automation.\"And in the race between technology and skills – as India tries to keep pace with the very technology that helped launch its economy on the world stage – he thinks the country has a secret weapon: a deeper value placed on education than in the West. After all, the pinnacle of India’s ancient caste system was the educated Brahmin priest – not the Kshatriya warrior.\"It's part of our Indian heritage,\" says Pai. \"India is the only civilisation in the world where the educated gurus were placed on the totem pole higher than the king. In all other nations, soldiers and might ruled and knowledge bowed to the mighty. In India, knowledge is above the might of the state.\"Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-19T00:29:02Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Why automation could be a threat to India's growth","HeadlineShort":"The biggest threat to India’s growth?","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[{"Content":{"Headline":"Future Now","HorizontalEnabled":true,"HorizontalUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now","Name":"future-now","PartnerAssetSelect":"","PartnerBackground":null,"PartnerBody":"","PartnerEnabled":false,"PartnerHeadline":"","PartnerImage":null,"PartnerUrl":"","PartnerVideo":null,"PartnerVideoImage":null,"Promotion":null,"PromotionHeadline":"","PromotionImageUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://www.bbc.com/future/columns/future-now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:51:17.980617Z","Entity":"horizontal","Guid":"29e77956-709b-4843-bd87-fb61047318ff","Id":"wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:58:12.148067Z","Project":"wwfuture-now","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:horizontal:wwfuture-now/horizontal/future-now","_id":"5981d2640b1947497fcba6c0"}],"Intro":"Smart machines, robots, and other forms of automation could either be an economic poison or cure in a developing country like India – and this change will affect how businesses worldwide outsource work.\n","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"Artificial intelligence tag","LinkUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://dbpedialite.org/things/1164","Name":"Artificial intelligence"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:13:32Z","Entity":"tag","Guid":"f4525572-24a1-4e13-b15a-f4dc27e2d8eb","Id":"tag/artificialintelligence","ModifiedDateTime":"2014-11-18T09:13:32Z","Project":"","Slug":"artificialintelligence"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:tag:tag/artificialintelligence","_id":"5981d5cb0b1947497fcd4e3f"}],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Smart machines, robots, and other forms of automation could either be an economic poison or cure in a developing country like India.","SummaryShort":"One trend could turn the IT hotspot's workforce on its head","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future 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bonds","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/17/p05317yw.jpg","Title":"resil5.jpg","CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05317yw","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05317yw","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p05317yw","_id":"5983b8650b1947497fce5dd4"}],"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":64696,"MimeType":"image/png","SourceHeight":889,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/0h/p0530hl8.png","SourceWidth":1580,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Credit: Swiss Re/Cat Perils and Swiss Re Institute","SynopsisShort":"Resilience data","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/0h/p0530hl8.png","Title":"resil2.png"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p0530hl8","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p0530hl8","_id":"5983b8650b1947497fce5dd6"},{"Content":{"FileSizeBytes":1839705,"MimeType":"image/jpeg","SourceHeight":2286,"SourceUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/live-galileo-interface-mt-resources-imagebucket-1a92e5tj3b5d6/p0/53/1j/p0531j9b.jpg","SourceWidth":3500,"SynopsisLong":"","SynopsisMedium":"Resilience bonds could help places vulnerable to natural disasters, like Mexico, better prepare for catastrophe - not just help clean up after it. 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(Alamy Stock Photo)","SynopsisShort":"Resilience bonds","TemplateUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/wwfeatures/$recipe/images/live/p0/53/10/p05310tk.jpg","Title":"resil3.jpg"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Entity":"","Guid":"","Id":"p05310tk","ModifiedDateTime":"0001-01-01T00:00:00Z","Project":"","Slug":""},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:image:p05310tk","_id":"5983b8650b1947497fce5dd5"}],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"The editor of <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/britain\">BBC Britain</a>, Amanda Ruggeri is a journalist who has written for the Globe & Mail, Guardian, New York Times, New York Magazine, National Geographic Traveler and the Atlantic. ","Email":[],"Links":null,"Name":"Amanda Ruggeri","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2015-06-17T15:59:58.147018Z","Entity":"author","Guid":"d4c5cf67-cd24-46b3-8dc1-17b77b9bf385","Id":"wwfuture/author/amanda-ruggeri","ModifiedDateTime":"2015-06-17T16:07:42.931965Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"amanda-ruggeri"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:author:wwfuture/author/amanda-ruggeri","_id":"5981d2390b1947497fcb873c"}],"BodyHtml":"In a conference room overlooking downtown Miami, British executives are talking about why they know south Florida’s streets so well. It isn’t because of the sunshine. It’s because of the area’s risk for disasters like hurricanes and flooding.“There are hundreds of my colleagues… who know the zip codes of these counties in this part of the world almost as well as the residents here,” says Rowan Douglas, head of capital, science and policy at the London-based risk management group and insurance broker Willis Towers Watson. “This area of the world is protected to some degree by a global community of everyone else who buys their insurance policy. My mother-in-law in northwest Spain is sharing risk with Florida.\"<ul> <li>ALSO READ: <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise\" target=\"_blank\">Miami's fight against rising seas</a></li> </ul>No policy or premium stands alone. Our global economy is so intertwined that if you buy insurance, you’re helping to cover the fallout from far-away crises, whether an earthquake in Mexico or flood in Louisiana. As a result, nearly everyone’s pocketbook is affected by one simple fact: rebuilding after a major catastrophe nearly always costs more than preparing for it in the first place.And climate-related disasters (like droughts and tropical storms) are getting more common. From 2005 to 2015, the UN found there were 335 weather-related disasters each year across the globe, <a href=\"https://www.unisdr.org/2015/docs/climatechange/COP21_WeatherDisastersReport_2015_FINAL.pdf\">almost twice the number seen from 1985-1994</a>. The average catastrophe also is getting more expensive. While the inflation-adjusted cost of natural disasters was about $30 billion annually in the 1980s, <a href=\"http://media.swissre.com/documents/Closing_the_Gap_2015_FINAL.pdf\">it’s now more than six times that</a>: an average of $182 billion a year.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0530hl8\"}}Governments have improved at implementing policies that protect against some types of disasters. For example, zoning laws can restrict the population living in hurricane-prone areas. But it hasn’t been enough. From 2003 to 2013 alone, <a href=\"http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5128e.pdf\">natural disasters caused $1.5 trillion in damages</a>, killed more than 1.1 million people and affected more than 2 billion. At the same time, it’s not as if governments are finding they have more room in their budgets to clean up a crisis – or to build the resilience measures that could help prevent them.Enter a new idea that could transform not only the global economy, but how disasters affect us: a resilience bond. As well as guaranteeing help to communities after a catastrophe, it would help fund projects and strategies they need to become less vulnerable to begin with. “Resilience bonds are, in my view, the next exciting and innovative frontier in infrastructure and resilience finance,” says Samantha Medlock, former senior advisor to the Obama White House on resilience and now senior vice president at Willis Towers Watson.The concept is part of an overall trend, experts say, that could transform how communities work: as risk modelling has become more and more sophisticated, the private sector is getting closer to being able to turn not only risk, but resilience, into numbers.It’s like a life insurance company being able to tell you not only how likely you, specifically, are to have a heart attack in the next five years, but also exactly how much walking a half hour a day or cutting out red meat could reduce that risk… and <a href=\"http://www.rms.com/perils/liferisks\">what that increase in health is likely to be worth</a>, in cash, to your future.<blockquote> It will be a financial and scientific revolution, and it will save billions of dollars and thousands, if not millions, around the world of lives – Rowan Douglas </blockquote>That ability to put ‘hard numbers’ on what previously have been seen as ‘soft’ concepts, like the value of resilience, is huge, industry insiders say. “It will be a financial and scientific revolution, and it will save billions of dollars and thousands, if not millions, around the world of lives,” says Douglas.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p0531j9b\"}}Fix-it mentalityWhen it comes to preparing for future disasters, humanity tends to be woefully optimistic. In the same way that it’s difficult to convince individuals to fork out money for a life insurance policy, it’s tough to get governments to carve out spending for just-in-case scenarios when they also need to prioritise streets and schools.Worldwide, <a href=\"http://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2017/01/17/438996.htm\">just 26% of economic losses</a> due to natural disasters were covered by insurance in 2016. “That means people dying or suffering, and governments and aid agencies and charity and philanthropy filling that gap. Or not filling that gap, as the case may be,” says Daniel Stander, managing director of consulting company <a href=\"http://www.rms.com/\">Risk Management Solutions</a> (RMS), which works with companies and governments to model and manage catastrophe risk.Buying insurance for your household (or city) is one thing. Another is making your community resilient to begin with. Here’s the problem: it’s difficult to pay for something when the risk of doing nothing is hard to quantify.In other words, it’s not enough to only determine how likely a city is to experience a magnitude eight earthquake at a specific depth. You also have to know how many buildings that would destroy, lives it would disrupt – and the likelihood and extent of that financial loss. Without figuring out both the cost and the probability of risk, you can’t determine the value of resilience – like adopting an earthquake-resistant building code.The resulting lack of hard numbers means communities historically haven’t been rewarded upfront for thinking ahead – whether by credit ratings agencies, insurance companies or even their own central governments. And that’s made it difficult to decide to spend on resilience now… rather than kicking the decision to the next mayor or CEO and hoping a disaster won’t happen on your watch.<blockquote> Buying insurance for your household (or city) is one thing. Another is making your community resilient to begin with </blockquote>But that tends to be a bad move long-term – especially as for major crises, making the needed changes now tends to be cheaper than rebuilding after. <a href=\"https://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.nibs.org/resource/resmgr/MMC/hms_vol1.pdf\">One recent study</a> reported that each dollar spent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) on disaster preparedness in the US saved $4 later. Other cases can be more extreme. One <a href=\"http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pdacp539.pdf\">analysis of flood prevention measures in Kinshasha</a> in the Democratic Republic of Congo found that every dollar spent on measures like constructing small dams, cleaning drainage canals and seeding watersheds with grass saved at least $45.58 during the following rainy season.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05317yw\"}}But with a fix-it ethos still more common than a plan-ahead one, it’s no wonder that governments have found themselves vulnerable to big financial losses. In the US, flooding is the largest source of financial exposure for the federal government after only Medicare and social security. That has led to struggles. In 2011, the worst global natural catastrophe loss year on record, the country had $116 billion in damage claims. Fema’s National Flood Insurance Programme (NFIP), which provides insurance to flood-prone communities, is more than $24 billion in debt. But it wasn’t until September 2016 that NFIP bought its own re-insurance programme, effectively transferring more than $1 billion of risk out of taxpayers’ wallets and into the reinsurance market.People will have to shift their entire thinking about how disaster recovery is funded – and by whom, experts say. “There’s a perception that, following a disaster, the federal government’s role is to make you whole and rebuild homes and infrastructure and community at the federal taxpayer’s expense. And that is simply not true,” Medlock says. “There are limits to what the federal government can – and should – do.”Fat catThe insurance industry itself, which dates back at least 14th-Century Genoa, may make sense for helping to cover that gap. “No one understands the risk of loss from climate hazards better, I would argue, than the insurance industry,” Stander says. “They’ve become experts at translating hazard into damage, and then damage into cold, hard cash.”But many traditional insurance products aren’t quite right for governments. Take a homeowner’s policy. You pay an insurer, who keeps your money, just in case of, say, a burglary. If you do get burgled, you tell the insurer what you lost and they pay back the value of the items. But as anyone who has had to make a claim knows, that process can take weeks or months. You also run the risk that the insurer could argue over the value… or decide to not pay out at all, as New York University found out to its detriment after a 2015 flood, <a href=\"https://www.nyunews.com/2015/11/03/nyu-sues-for-1-47-billion-over-denied-sandy-insurance-coverage/\">leading it to sue its insurer for $1.5 billion in denied coverage</a>.Governments can’t run the risk of losing taxpayers’ money. And when it comes to disaster response, no one wants a delay – not least of all because, with each passing day, losses can escalate. Medlock points out Hurricane Sandy. After it hit the east coast of the US in 2012, it took the US Congress about 90 days to agree on an appropriations package for federal disaster assistance. “That three-month delay is very inefficient,” Medlock says. “It creates tremendous uncertainty for survivors, for communities – and for regional economies.”<blockquote> With a fix-it ethos still more common than a plan-ahead one, it’s no wonder that governments have found themselves vulnerable to big financial losses </blockquote>One innovation developed in response is a parametric catastrophe (or ‘cat’) bond. When you buy a cat bond, the insurer doesn’t hold the money in their bank account – it sits in an account beyond their control, so there’s no chance of it disappearing when you need it. There’s another twist, too: whenever there’s a crisis, you don’t have to tell the insurer (let alone prove) exactly what was lost. Instead, the payout happens automatically as soon as a certain parameter is reached – often as quickly as 48 hours later. For a storm cat bond, it might be when storm surge reaches a certain height. That was the trigger chosen by <a href=\"http://www.mta.info/press-release/mta-headquarters/mta-secures-200-million-insurance-protection-future-sandy-storms\">New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) for its first cat bond</a>, which it issued in response to Hurricane Sandy in 2013. (According to reports, <a href=\"http://www.artemis.bm/blog/2017/05/02/new-york-mta-targets-125m-parametric-metrocat-re-2017-1-cat-bond/\">the MTA is now issuing its second cat bond</a>). It's worth noting that to have an immediate payout, the parameters that trigger a cat bond, like minimum strength of the storm, require certainty and clarity -- a lesson learned, according to reports, after a Mexican cat band took more than three months to pay out after Hurricane Patricia in 2015.The <a href=\"http://www.swissre.com/rethinking/crm/mexico_making_measurable_difference.html\">first federal government to purchase a cat bond was Mexico</a>, which bought a parametric bond in 2006 that was structured by reinsurer Swiss Re to cover damage from earthquakes (and later, hurricanes). Today, says Nikhil da Victoria Lobo, Swiss Re’s Americas leader for global partnerships, some 40 federal governments worldwide have purchased similar protection. “When we started this discussion in 2006, it was about one risk – earthquakes; one country – Mexico; and one transaction – Mexico’s first cat bond. Today, there are so many sovereign nations doing this,” he says.But that’s still only one-quarter of countries worldwide. And whenever governments are unprepared for a catastrophe, the consequences get even worse. The knock-on effect of a disaster can include everything from disrupting supply chains to a power outage that stops production. So far, most entities have been able to manage disruptions, Standard & Poor wrote in a recent <a href=\"https://www.environmental-finance.com/assets/files/How%20Environmental%20And%20Climate%20Risks%20Factor%20Into%20Global%20Corporate%20Ratings%20Oct%2021%202015%20(2).pdf\">report</a>. But “looking ahead,” it added, “the picture is less certain.”If a disaster causes an economic cascade effect, S&P wrote, <a href=\"https://www.agefi.com/uploads/media/S_P_The_Heat_Is_On_How_Climate_Change_Can_Impact_Sovereign_Ratings_25-11-2015.pdf\">in the most extreme cases</a>, certain governments could see a downgrade of four-to-five notches in their credit rating – the equivalent of moving from investment-grade to junk bond status. By affecting everything from car insurance payments to homeowners’ insurance, that’s enough to send a country’s economy into a tailspin.The trick is to prevent disasters from becoming so deadly and damaging to begin with. And that’s where the resilience bond comes in.Pilot projectA <a href=\"http://www.refocuspartners.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/RE.bound-Program-Report-December-2015.pdf\">resilience bond</a> is “an innovative variation on the cat bond”, says Medlock. It would work like this: imagine City X wants to build higher seawalls or fix its levee, but doesn’t have access to funds. When it goes to buy a multiyear, parametric cat bond for flooding, the insurer takes the expected impact of that planned investment into account and lowers the premium the city has to pay. With that cost saving in the budget, City X now has the money to fund its seawalls and levee – even if no disaster ever occurs.At the moment, this hasn’t happened yet. But it’s close. “We’re probably not years away from this sort of a concept becoming real,” says Medlock. “We could be months away.”One government leader interested in piloting the concept is Greg Guibert, the chief resilience officer of Boulder, Colorado. He recently partnered with the Stanford Urban Resilience Initiative for a workshop on innovative solutions for resilience finance. Just a few days later, he says “my head is kind of spinning” from the potential tools he was introduced to – especially the concept of a parametric resilience bond.Like many other local leaders, Guibert has had difficulty with funding resilience. Disaster recovery money came in after a devastating 2013 flood, he says, “but the federal funds have dried up. So we’re looking at more innovative avenues for financing.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p05310tk\"}}A resilience bond appeals because you could use a dividend from a resilience bond to capitalise even less infrastructure-based types of resilience programmes, like community-building exercises that strengthen disaster response by encouraging neighbours to look out for one another. “I’m never going to be able to add enough zeros to a city budget required to achieve that otherwise,” Guibert says.But as long as a resilience bond remains untested, it can be a hard sell to others at the local level.“The ultimate value of local government is to protect the residents and property,” says Guibert. “So if you make a large alteration in how you do that, you really want some assurance that you’re making an appropriate choice for our citizens. That can be a hard leap when we’re talking about really major investments.”It isn’t just local governments that would need to come on board before the first resilience bond actually makes a trade. Other entities that are integral for providing financing – like the US Government Finance Officers Association, or rating agencies – will have to agree in the innovation’s merit, too. “Until those people give credit to that decision-maker, and thereby bring down their financing costs, you’re never going to create a tangible and monetised cash flow” to fund the project, says da Victoria Lobo.But from the amount of excitement around the products to <a href=\"https://www.spratings.com/en_US/topic/-/render/topic-detail/climate-change-assessing-the-potential-long-term-effects\">S&P’s increasing recognition of climate change</a>, da Victoria Lobo says, “I think we’re a lot closer than we think we are.”No one knows exactly how much of an effect a product like this could have on encouraging resilience investment. But with both the number and the expense of natural disasters on the rise, it seems fair to say that this kind of incentive won’t come a moment too soon.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>. If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday.","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":[],"Campaign":null,"CollectionOverrides":null,"CollectionType":"column","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Title":"Future Now"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-11-29T09:57:23.381569Z","Entity":"collection","Guid":"dd1bc468-5335-4ed5-9bae-52ec085b4391","Id":"wwfuture/column/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-11-29T16:56:06.352997Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"column/future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:collection:wwfuture/column/future-now","_id":"5981d2400b1947497fcb91e3"}],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-05-16T00:01:00Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"‘Resilience bonds’: A secret weapon against catastrophe","HeadlineShort":"A secret weapon against catastrophe","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":null,"Intro":"The costs of natural disasters are becoming too much to bear – and it’s driving up premiums no matter where you live. The solution may be a transformative type of insurance never seen before.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":[{"Content":{"Description":"Apple News Publish: Select to publish, remove to unpublish. (Do not just delete or unpublish the story)","Name":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Entity":"option","Guid":"13f4bc85-ae27-4a34-9397-0e6ad3619619","Id":"option/publish-applenews-system-1","ModifiedDateTime":"2016-02-05T14:32:31.186819Z","Project":"","Slug":"publish-applenews-system-1"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:option:option/publish-applenews-system-1","_id":"5981d4ee0b1947497fccd0ce"}],"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":[{"Content":{"AssetCustom":"","AssetIbroadcast":null,"AssetImage":[],"AssetImagePromo":null,"AssetInfographic":"","AssetInline":[],"AssetSelect":"","AssetVideoIb2":null,"AssetVideoMps":null,"Author":[],"BodyHtml":"The first time my father’s basement flooded, it was shortly after he moved in. The building was an ocean-front high-rise in a small city north of Miami called Sunny Isles Beach. The marble lobby had a waterfall that never stopped running; crisp-shirted valets parked your car for you. For the residents who lived in the more lavish flats, these cars were often BMWs and Mercedes. But no matter their value, the cars all wound up in the same place: the basement.When I called, I’d ask my dad how the building was doing. “The basement flooded again a couple weeks ago,” he’d sometimes say. Or: “It’s getting worse.” It’s not only his building: he’s also driven through a foot of water on a main road a couple of towns over and is used to tiptoeing around pools in the local supermarket’s car park.Ask nearly anyone in the Miami area about flooding and they’ll have an anecdote to share. Many will also tell you that it’s happening more and more frequently. The data backs them up.It’s easy to think that the only communities suffering from sea level rise are far-flung and remote. And while places like the <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36255749\">Solomon Islands</a> and <a href=\"https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/world/asia/climate-change-kiribati.html?_r=0\">Kiribati</a> are indeed facing particularly dramatic challenges, they aren’t the only ones being forced to grapple with the issue. Sea levels are rising around the world, and in the US, south Florida is ground zero – as much for the adaptation strategies it is attempting as for the risk that it bears.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykt1\"}}One reason is that water levels here are rising especially quickly. The <a href=\"http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-Compact-Unified-Sea-Level-Rise-Projection.pdf\">most frequently-used range of estimates</a> puts the likely range between 15-25cm (6-10in) above 1992 levels by 2030, and 79-155cm (31-61in) by 2100. With tides higher than they have been in decades – and far higher than when this swampy, tropical corner of the US began to be drained and built on a century ago – many of south Florida’s drainage systems and seawalls are no longer enough. That means not only more flooding, but challenges for the infrastructure that residents depend on every day, from septic tanks to wells. “The consequences of sea level rise are going to occur way before the high tide reaches your doorstep,” says William Sweet, an oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).The flooding would be a challenge for any community, but it poses particular risks here. One <a href=\"https://www.nwf.org/~/media/PDFs/Global-Warming/Reports/Changing-Tides_FINAL_LOW-RES-081516.ashx\">recent report</a> estimated that Miami has the most to lose in terms of financial assets of any coastal city in the world, just above Guangzhou, China and New York City. This 120-mile (193km) corridor running up the coast from Homestead to Jupiter – taking in major cities like Miami, Fort Lauderdale and West Palm Beach – is the eighth most populous metropolitan area in the US. It’s also booming. In 2015, the US Census Bureau found that the population of all three counties here was growing – along with the rest of Florida – <a href=\"https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045216/12011,12086\">at around 8%,</a> roughly twice the pace of the US average. Recent studies have shown that <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v6/n7/full/nclimate2961.html\">Florida has more residents at risk from climate change</a> than any other US state.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykpp\"}}It has <a href=\"http://riskybusiness.org/report/come-heat-and-high-water-climate-risk-in-the-southeastern-u-s-and-texas/\">more property at risk, too</a>. In Miami-Dade County, <a href=\"http://www.miamidade.gov/business/library/reports/real-estate-market/2016/04-apr-through-06-jun.pdf\">developers had 1.6 million sq ft</a> (149,000 sq m) of office space and 1.8 million of retail space under construction in the second quarter of 2016 alone. Sunny Isles Beach, home to 20,300 people, has eight high-rise buildings under construction; swing a seagull in the air, and you’ll hit a crane. As you might imagine, the value of development in this sun-soaked part of the country is high, too. Property in Sunny Isles alone is now worth more than $10 billion. Many of the wealthiest people in the US reside in Florida, including <a href=\"http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/personalfinance/among-forbes-400-billionaires-florida-gaining-favor-as-a-place-to-call-home/2296459)\">40 billionaires</a> on the Forbes 400 list of richest Americans; on a recent week, <a href=\"http://www.foxnews.com/real-estate/2017/02/06/54m-palm-beach-compound-is-weeks-most-expensive-new-listing.print.html\">the most expensive real estate listing</a> in the US was a $54 million mansion in Palm Beach.Despite <a href=\"http://www.newsweek.com/timeline-every-ridiculous-thing-trump-has-said-about-climate-change-576238\">his history of referring to climate change as a “hoax”</a> and his <a href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39415631\">recent rollback of emissions-slashing initiatives</a>, President Donald Trump is one of these property owners with a stake in the issue. The president frequently visits his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, 75 miles (121km) north of Miami, which is itself an area <a href=\"http://weatherplus.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2016/10/13/king-tides-rise-again-south-florida-under-a-coastal-flood-advisory/\">experiencing flooding from high tides</a>. There also are six Trump-branded residential buildings in Sunny Isles, one of which still provides the president with income, and a Trump-branded condominium complex in Hollywood.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykfv\"}}Look beyond all the glass and steel, though, and – despite the federal government’s sidelining of the issue – there’s another thrum of activity. It’s the wastewater treatment plant constructing new buildings five feet higher than the old ones. The 105 miles (169km) of roads being raised in Miami Beach. The new shopping mall built with flood gates. The 116 tidal valves installed in Fort Lauderdale. The seawalls being raised and repaired. And the worried conversations between more and more residents every year about what the sea-rise models predict – and what to do about it.The communities aren’t short of solutions. “Nobody’s doing better adaptation work in the country than south Florida,” says Daniel Kreeger, executive director of the nonprofit <a href=\"https://accoonline.org/\">Association of Climate Change Officers</a>. But the question isn’t whether this work will save every community: it won’t. Even those tasked with making their cities resilient admit that, at some point in the future, certain areas here will no longer be “viable” places to live. Rather, the challenge is to do enough to ensure that the economy as a whole continues to thrive and that tourists still come to enjoy the sun, sand – and swelling sea.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yykd2\"}}It’s a challenge that many officials and experts are determined to meet. Getting there, though, requires a shift in how everyone from mayors to taxpayers, insurers to engineers, property developers to urban planners thinks about their communities – and the everyday decisions that shape them. The eyes of the world are on them: if one of the richest communities on the planet can’t step up, what hope is there for everyone else?“If the science is correct on this – which it is going to be – the question is, ‘How extreme are the implications?’” says Kreeger. “We are literally going to have to rewrite how businesses function, and how cities are designed. Everything’s going to change. And that’s particularly going to be exacerbated in coastal communities.“This would be no different than if I came to you and said ‘Hey, in 40 years, gravity’s going to change. I can’t tell you exactly what it’s going to be. But let’s assume roughly between 50% and 80% stronger or weaker than it is now.’ You’d look around and say ‘Shoot, what’s that going to affect?’\"And the answer is: it affects everything.”* Sea level rise is global. But due to a variety of factors – including, for this part of the Atlantic coast, a likely weakening of the Gulf Stream, itself potentially a result of the melting of Greenland’s ice caps – south Floridians are feeling the effects more than many others. While there has been a mean rise of a little more than 3mm per year worldwide since the 1990s, in the last decade, the <a href=\"https://tidesandcurrents.noaa.gov/stationhome.html?id=8723214\">NOAA Virginia Key tide gauge</a> just south of Miami Beach has measured a 9mm rise annually.That may not sound like much. But as an average, it doesn’t tell the whole story of what residents see – including more extreme events like king tides (extremely high tides), which have been getting dramatically higher. What’s more, when you’re talking about places like Miami Beach – where, as chief resiliency officer Susanne Torriente jokes, the elevation ranges between “flat and flatter” – every millimetre counts. Most of Miami Beach’s built environment sits at an elevation of 60-120cm (2-6ft). And across the region, underground infrastructure – like aquifers or septic tanks – lies even closer to the water table.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk9v\"}}On a nearly two-hour tour of Fort Lauderdale’s adaptation strategies, the city’s head of sustainability, Nancy Gassman, points out incremental differences in elevation: slight rolls in the sidewalk or paving that usually go unnoticed. “That might seem weird that I’m pointing out a couple of feet difference,” she says. “But a couple feet in south Florida – it’s time. Elevation is time for us.”Not only are sea levels rising, but <a href=\"https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-sea-level\">the pace seems to be accelerating</a>. That’s been noted before – but what it means for south Florida was only recently brought home in a <a href=\"https://www.rsmas.miami.edu/users/swdowinski/publications/Wdowinski-et-al-OCM-2016.pdf\">University of Miami study</a>. “After 2006, sea level rose faster than before – and much faster than the global rate,” says the lead author Shimon Wdowinski, who is now with Miami’s Florida International University. From 3mm per year from 1998 to 2005, the rise off Miami Beach tripled to that 9mm rate from 2006.An uptick also happened between the 1930s and 1950s, says Wdowinski, making some question whether this is a similar oscillation. But that’s probably wishful thinking. “It’s not necessarily what we see now. This warming of the planet has been growing for a while,” he says. “It’s probably a different process than what happened 60 years ago.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk6p\"}}“Can we definitely say it’s the ocean warming?” says Sweet, who has authored several sea-level rise studies. “No. But is it indicative of what we’d expect to see? Yes.”Modelling specific future scenarios is difficult – partly because scientists are still collecting and analysing data, partly because there are so many variables. What if the US or China reverses its trend on stabilising emissions? What if a major volcano erupts? What if a glacier melts more quickly than expected? But enough credible projections have been done to put together a range of scenarios that researchers are confident about.One graph compiled in 2015 by the <a href=\"http://www.southeastfloridaclimatecompact.org/\">Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact</a>, a non-partisan initiative that collates expertise and coordinates efforts across Broward, Miami-Dade, Monroe and Palm Beach counties, is especially revealing (see below). At the bottom is a dotted green line, which rises slowly. Before you get optimistic, the footnote is firm: “This scenario would require significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in order to be plausible and does not reflect current emissions trends.” More probable is the range in the middle, shaded blue, which shows that a 6-10in (15-25cm) rise above 1992 levels is likely by 2030. At the top, the orange line is more severe still, going off the chart – to 81 inches (206cm) – by the end of the century.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyk14\"}}But as more data comes in, even the worst-case estimates may turn out to be too low: for example, researchers recently discovered that ice is melting more rapidly than expected from both Antarctica and Greenland, plus gained a <a href=\"http://www.nature.com/articles/nature17145.epdf\">better understanding of how melting ice sheets actually</a> affect sea-level rise. “The unlikely scenarios are now, all of a sudden, becoming more probable than they once were thought to be,” says Sweet.The most dramatic impacts may not be felt for 50 or 100 years. But coastal communities are already experiencing more storms and extremely high tides known as king tides. In the same study, Wdowinski found there were a total of 16 flood events in Miami Beach from 1998 to 2005. From 2006 to 2013, there were 33.Although the <a href=\"https://www.epa.gov/cre/king-tides-and-climate-change\">timing of king tides</a> results from the positions of the Sun, Moon and Earth, rising seas heighten their effect. At extreme high tides, water levels have surged to an inch below the Intracoastal Waterway, says Jennifer Jurado, Broward County’s chief resiliency officer. “Once that’s breached, you’re open to the ocean – the supply of water is endless. The system is really at capacity. These are flood conditions, even with just the high tide and supermoon… You see men in business suits trying to trudge through water.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjx5\"}}Even without floods, the rising water table affects everything. The cities here are built on porous limestone. The water doesn’t just come over seawalls; it seeps up from beneath the streets. Nearly <a href=\"http://imnh.isu.edu/digitalatlas/hydr/concepts/gwater/aquifer.htm\">90% of the drinking water in south Florida comes from aquifers</a>, and these are finding their fresh water pushed further and further inland as the salt water exerts more and more pressure. Take Hallandale Beach, a small city of just under 40,000 residents. Saltwater already has breached five of the eight freshwater wells that the city draws from, says Vice Mayor Keith London. And around a quarter of Miami-Dade residents use septic tanks. If these don’t remain above the water table, the result could be thoroughly unpleasant.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjvm\"}}Another issue is beach erosion. Florida’s sand may be one of its biggest draws for tourist dollars, but <a href=\"http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/17/13660014/miami-beach-sand-erosion-nourishment-climate-change\">it, too, is vulnerable</a>: though sand never stays put, rising sea levels and worsening storms mean the need to replenish is intensifying. A massive town-by-town project is currently underway; Miami Beach (which, famously, <a href=\"http://miamibeach.org/directory/living/history-of-miami-beach\">was manmade from the start</a>) <a href=\"http://www.miamitodaynews.com/2017/03/28/fyi-miami-march-30-2017/\">just wrapped up</a> its 3,000ft (914m) section, to the tune of $11.9 million.Of course, another part of the problem is that south Florida is built on a swamp. “The only reason we live here is we learned how to drain it, we learned how to kill mosquitos, and we created air conditioning,” says Jim Murley, chief resilience officer for Miami-Dade County. Residents cut canals to drain inland areas, using the fill to raise the land and build properties. These canals are now open doors for tidal flooding and storm surge. They also cut down mangrove forests and levelled sand dunes – both natural barriers to flooding.“There is going to need to be a very serious conversation about how we deal with this,” says George Vallejo, the mayor of North Miami Beach. “The development that has happened here over the last 40 or 50 years has not been helpful to this situation. We’ve paved over a lot of the Everglades, we’ve paved over a lot of greenage.“We’ve done a lot of things that, in retrospect, we would have done differently, knowing what we know now.”*That’s the bad news. But there’s good news, says Gassman, whose no-nonsense demeanour and doctorate in marine biology (with a focus on coastal ecosystems) makes her particularly convincing. “That’s all if nothing changes. I think that’s another thing that the public doesn’t necessarily understand: the predictions that they’re hearing, time and time again, are if we do nothing. But we’re not doing nothing.”That’s point one. Point two is that the topography of the area isn’t quite what you’d expect. She brings out a map of Fort Lauderdale dotted with squares of purple and orange. Purple means an area is likely to be underwater at 2ft (61cm) of sea level rise; orange means it’s possible. A surprisingly small amount of the map is splashed with colour. And the at-risk areas – which are mostly by the bay, not the ocean – aren’t where you might think. “It’s not the whole city,” she says. “While there are problems in some areas, we’ll have to adjust, but these areas are not in places you’d expect – and we’ll have time to address some of these issues.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjjq\"}}Not every community might be so lucky. Play the inundation game with <a href=\"https://coast.noaa.gov/slr/beta\">Noaa’s perversely addictive mapping tool</a> in Hollywood, just 10 miles (16km) south of Fort Lauderdale, and you’ll find that the same 2ft (61cm) rise could put streets and most properties of an entire square-mile swathe underwater – not insignificant for a city measuring just 30 sq miles (78 sq km). (Hollywood also has its own intervention programme underway, including the installation of 18 flap gates to keep seawater from coming up through the drainage system). Still, it’s a good reminder that the problem, as overwhelming as it seems, can be broken down into smaller pieces.Which is exactly what Gassman and others are trying to do. Touring the city with Gassman is to see it in an entirely new way: not just a city of graceful mansions and pretty canals, but of seawalls that are leaking or too short, fire hydrants that are made of iron (“a fundamental, emergency-based infrastructure that’s made out of a material that’s potentially corrosive from saltwater”), drains that are overflowing and electrical boxes that need to be raised.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjdx\"}}“See, those cars are disappearing from view,” she says, pointing to the dip in the road in front of us. We turn onto Isle of Capri Drive. “Look what’s happening. Look how far I’m going to go down. This area floods all the time.”Fort Lauderdale is dubbed the Venice of America. That’s supposed to be because of its 165 miles (266km) of canals, but recent flooding has made the nickname more on the nose than residents would like.For both Fort Lauderdale and other communities across south Florida, the main problem is drainage. The systems here were designed to let stormwater drain into the ocean when it rains. Because homes and gardens are higher than the crown of the road, the streets flood first in a storm, by design. Water runs into the storm drain and is piped into the ocean or waterways that lead there.At least, that’s what is supposed to happen. With sea levels now often higher than the exits to the run-off pipes, saltwater is instead running up through the system and into the streets. To make matters worse, when the sea gets even higher, it can breach the seawall, flood people’s yards and flow down to the road – where it stays.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjcz\"}}Since 2013, Fort Lauderdale has been installing tidal valves to deal with the problem. Each of the one-way valves, which allows stormwater through but not saltwater, looks like a big rubber tube and can be attached inside the storm drains. Gassman pulls one out to show me. “If you stick your hand in there and push a little bit, see how it opens?” I do. “Right there, you were fresh water. Now you’re about to be salt water.” She flips the valve around. I push: sure enough, it’s a no-go.In some areas, the valves alone have been enough. But there’s a catch: the floodwater still can’t leave if the tide is above the level of the outflow pipes. That happened early on at one of the first places they installed a valve, Gassman says. A king tide came over the tops of the seawalls, flooded the street – and then remained higher than the outfall. “The valve wouldn’t open. So the roads stayed flooded 24/7,” she says. “We have had complaints that the valves aren’t working. But no. The valves are working.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyjbs\"}}Despite the limitations of the valves, it doesn’t take an engineer to figure out that raising seawalls would fix flooding that resulted from high sea levels, if not from rain. But until recently, Fort Lauderdale had a height requirement for seawalls that was a maximum, not a minimum – for aesthetic reasons. Though some now do specify a minimum height, enforcement remains difficult. A new seawall runs from $600 to $2,000 for a linear foot; adding a 12in (30cm) cap costs about $60 per foot. For the average homeowner, a seawall measures 75-100ft (23-30m). “How are you going to force everyone to put in money?” asks Gassman.It turns out you can’t, at least for now. Last year, Fort Lauderdale proposed that everyone should be made to raise their seawalls to a certain height by 2035. Thanks to opposition from the public, the proposal failed. Instead, property owners are required to keep their seawalls in a state of good repair. Someone can be reported to the authorities if their seawall is breached by the tide, but <a href=\"http://gyr.fortlauderdale.gov/greener-government/climate-resiliency/seawall-maintenance\">the specific new height requirement only kicks in</a> if someone came to ask for the permit – which is required to do significant repairs, or to build a new wall. And Fort Lauderdale makes an interesting test case: if costs seem prohibitive in this relatively well-off area, it’s not going to work in south Florida’s less affluent communities – some of which also are suffering from similar flooding.Despite Fort Lauderdale’s best efforts, seawalls here remain a patchwork of heights and states of repair. At Cordova Road, Gassman and I look over the finger isles pointing into the Stranahan River. Across the road from the marina, one house has bright-green grass: it’s new, put down after a flood last spring swamped their property with salt water.Gassman points to an older house on the corner. Their seawall is about a foot lower than their neighbour’s. “That foot of difference allows water to run over their property and flood the road,” she says. “That one property, if we could fix that seawall, we could reduce a lot of flooding, right here.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj6h\"}}It’s not just residents who need to make changes. The city also owns a seawall along this stretch; it, too, was breached recently. Replacing the nearly half-mile stretch could cost up to $5 million. But getting the funds is just the first challenge. The end of the seawall meets a bridge. If you raise the seawall two more feet, what do you do with that bridge to protect it? And what about the docks that residents are currently allowed to have here, all of which will have to be re-done? “The people that live here want a solution and they want it now,” says Gassman. “But there’s both a public and a private cost. And changing one piece of infrastructure starts to domino into needing to change all sorts of things.”As well as seawalls, cities are investing in pumps. Many have put pump stations in the worst-hit neighbourhoods. But only Miami Beach has adopted an integrated, major pumping system as part of an aggressive overall defence strategy. Starting in 2013, the programme – which Torriente estimates will cost between $400 and $500 million – is multi-pronged. Pump stations have sprouted across Sunset Harbour, an industrial-turned-hip neighbourhood on the barrier island’s bay side, and are moving south.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj30\"}}Roads are being raised, too, sometimes by up to 2ft (61cm), to an elevation which the Southeast Florida Climate Compact’s projections put as a likely sea level height around 2065. Seawalls are being raised to a new minimum – something that residents in Miami Beach were more amenable to than in Fort Lauderdale. The city also is requiring that all new properties build their first floor higher.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyj1r\"}}It’s an ambitious agenda. And it’s one that’s working. Areas where roads have been raised and pumps installed have been much drier. But, as Gassman noted, it’s not enough to change one piece of infrastructure without changing everything else. In this case, what happens when you raise a road without raising all of the properties around it? Water can go into the properties.That’s not supposed to happen when the pumps work. But they can fail. Antonio Gallo’s Sardinia Enoteca Ristorante is one of a number of businesses that have found their ground floors are now below the current road and sidewalk height. Last year, the pumps failed to kick in after a brief period of rain; the restaurant flooded, with diners stuck inside. When Gallo went to file his insurance claim, it was turned down. According to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), which runs a national flood insurance programme for at-risk business and property owners like Gallo, anything below street level is considered a basement. Until Fema changes their policy, that includes all of the businesses now below the raised streets. Miami Beach is working closely with Fema to get not only Gallo’s situation, but the general basement classification, re-assessed.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhw8\"}}Miami Beach’s efforts are the most aggressive. But resilience also can be built into existing projects. A lot of public infrastructure is built to last for at least 50 or 75 years, and that means planning for what the world will look like then. This is where the Compact’s range of scenarios comes in handy. If you’re laying down something easily replaceable, like a sidewalk, you could build for one of the more optimistic scenarios. An airport? It’s a good idea to go for a higher-risk scenario.Murley, the chief resilience officer of Miami-Dade County (the county's first), points to a 4,200ft-long (1280m) <a href=\"http://www.portofmiamitunnel.com/\">tunnel that runs from the Port of Miami to highway I395</a>. Opened in 2014, its main objective was to re-route lorries that previously went through downtown Miami. But the tunnel was also given a huge gate that, in a hurricane, drops down to seal it at both ends. “That’s an example of resilience. We wouldn’t have built that 10 years ago,” says Murley. “We would have built the tunnel, but it would have had an open front. We might have had sand bags.”A larger-scale example of built-in resilience is going on at the Central District Wastewater and Treatment Plant on Virginia Key, a barrier island where Biscayne Bay and the ocean meet, just east of downtown Miami. It is one of three wastewater treatment plants run by the largest utility in Florida, which serves 2.3 million of the county’s 2.6 million residents. Like the other two, it sits right by the water.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhnr\"}}The plant already had a $500 million project on the go, making changes to comply with new <a href=\"https://www.miamidade.gov/water/library/reports/consent-decree/resolution-approving.pdf\">Clean Water Act requirements</a>. But because parts of the facility are expected to last 75 years or more, resilience to higher sea levels and storm surge has been baked into the design. Analysts ran what would be needed in a worst-case scenario: a category five hurricane during a king tide, with maximum rainfall. “What the results told us was that we ought to be building stuff at 17-20ft (5-6m) above sea level on the coast. Our current facilities, by and large, range from 10-15ft (3-4.5m),” says Doug Yoder, deputy director of Miami-Dade’s water and sewer department. The new design standards prioritise building at those elevations first for parts of the plants that convey flow – like the electrical wiring and pumps. “At least we won’t have raw sewage flooding the streets,” says Yoder.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyhll\"}}Private developers will need to think about these issues, too. According to the non-partisan research organisation Risky Business, <a href=\"https://riskybusiness.org/site/assets/uploads/2015/09/RiskyBusiness_Report_WEB_09_08_14.pdf\">current projections put between $15 billion and $23 billion of existing Florida property</a> underwater by 2050. By the end of the century, that leaps to between $53 and $208 billion.But many developers aren’t thinking to 2050 or 2100. Their focus is on the time from construction to sale. In a hot real estate market like south Florida, where a lot of investors are foreign or periodic visitors, that timeframe is far shorter – a few years at most.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyh7v\"}}Until regulations enforce common building standards, few private developers are likely to adopt resilient designs. “I think it’s very hard for a developer or builder to do something the code or government doesn’t require in their zoning or building code,” says Wayne Pathman, a Miami-based land use and zoning attorney and the chairman of the new <a href=\"http://miamigov.com/sealevelrise/\">City of Miami Sea Level Rise committee</a>.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yyh4g\"}}One exception is <a href=\"http://brickellcitycentre.com/\">Brickell City Centre</a>, a $1 billion, 9-acre complex of stores, restaurants, offices, condominiums and hotel in Brickell, a corner of downtown Miami filled with cranes and skyscrapers. Developed by Hong Kong-based Swire Properties, the complex is sleek and airy – and, says Chris Gandolfo, vice president of development for Swire’s US operations, resilient. “Starting years ago, Swire was progressive in its thinking on rising tides,” he says.Gandolfo ticks off some of the adaptation strategies that were used: building higher than the current flood plain; flood gates that can seal off the underground car park; an elevated seawall. It also has sustainable features like green roofs, native plants and what the developers have dubbed a “climate ribbon” – a walkway that captures the bay winds to cool the structure and lower energy costs, and works as a cistern to re-use rainwater for irrigation. “We may not make immediate returns,” Gandolfo says. “But I think it’ll have long-term returns.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygyp\"}}All of this puts a catch-22 at the heart of south Florida’s development. The state levies no personal or business income taxes and has a low corporate income tax, meaning property taxes provide a major source of revenue. But unless it is managed very carefully, new development brings new challenges.“Every one of these buildings that goes up expands your vulnerability and magnitude of risk,” says Kreeger. “On the flip side, you’re not getting help from the state, because the state legislature and governor are in total denial about climate change. So you’re bringing in money today which is going to help you. But you’re also bringing a bigger problem tomorrow.”*Thinking about any of this is a relatively new trend. Although scientists began speaking about sea level rise for several decades, the topic only saw real traction among local governments and businesses a few years ago.Part of the reason is that the issue was being ignored by so many others. Most officials say that the Compact, signed in 2010, has been a major driver in helping local governments collect the data they need and coordinate together on what to do about it – and it was signed after the realisation that, despite concrete problems that had to be solved today, state, federal and international governments weren’t doing what was needed to address them.The Florida governor is a climate change sceptic and has directed attention away from the issue. Former employees have said they even were told <a href=\"http://www.miamiherald.com/news/state/florida/article12983720.html\">not to utter</a> the phrase “climate change”. Ignoring the issue now appears to pervade the highest levels of US government: the new Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39221092\">doubts whether carbon dioxide plays a primary role</a> in climate change, while President Trump recently <a href=\"http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39415631\">signed an executive order</a> overturning emissions-slashing regulations. Draft versions of the White House budget propose <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/budget-reflects-trumps-vow-to-cut-epa-in-almost-every-form/2017/03/15/0611db20-09a5-11e7-a15f-a58d4a988474_story.html?utm_term=.9dc6b02f6063\">cutting the EPA budget</a> by 31% and employee numbers by 20%, as well as steep cuts to Noaa – including <a href=\"https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/\">26% of the funds from its Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research</a> and entirely eliminating the <a href=\"https://www.flseagrant.org/about/strategicplan/\">Sea Grant programme</a>, whose Florida section brings together 17 different universities to study sea level rise challenges and solutions.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygnl\"}}Local governments are forging on, but such circumstances make the challenge even greater. With budgets that run in the tens of millions, not billions, local governments already need to be fiscally creative. Meanwhile, planning depends on up-to-date data – there’s no point in raising seawalls if you don’t know how high they need to be. And some of the most reliable projection scenarios, as well as sea level rise data, is gathered from Noaa.Yet the impact from these changes won’t stop at party lines. Even President Trump’s family isn’t immune. Three feet of sea level rise – which the range of predictions put together by Compact estimates is likely to happen within the next 60 years – will flood Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach.“It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or Republican commissioner when a neighbour calls you and tells you that their lawn is flooded,” says Gassman. “The water doesn’t care about politics. The water goes where the water goes. And someone who has a flooding problem that’s impacting their quality of life or their property values, they don’t care what flavour their politician is. What they care about is that the city is thinking about it, and that they’re planning to do something about it.”*Some of the communities in south Florida doing the most to adapt to the effects of sea level rise are doing so largely because of public pressure. In 1993, Miami-Dade put together its first plan to reduce carbon emissions. Hardly anyone came out for the committee hearing, Yoder says. Fast-forward to 2015: a hearing on the county’s budget was dominated by one resident after another asking why the county wasn’t doing more about sea level rise.So much so, in fact, that the county decided to hire Murley, its first resilience officer. One of his immediate tasks was to look into getting onto the <a href=\"http://www.100resilientcities.org/\">Rockefeller Foundation’s 100 Resilient Cities</a> programme. Accepted cities receive funding and tailored guidance on how to make themselves adaptable to future challenges, from high unemployment to earthquakes and sea-level rise.Greater Miami is just at the start of the process, Murley says. But he’s not the only one hoping that the resources made available will help guide the area far into the future. When I try to get in touch with the commissioners or mayor of Sunny Isles, I get a call back from Brian Andrews, a crisis PR consultant. He says sea level rise is something the city is aware of, but that “we’re waiting for the county” to gather data and send guidelines for an action plan. “They’re getting millions and millions from the Rockefeller Foundation for this,” he says. “We’re a little city. We couldn’t do it on our own.”{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygjp\"}}Despite how awareness of the issue has grown in some communities – particularly those, like Miami Beach and Fort Lauderdale, that have seen the most flooding – it’s still common for sea-level rise to get shunted to the end of the list of priorities. “As an elected official, when I go knock on doors, resiliency and sea level rise is never discussed,” says Esteban Bovo, chair of the Miami-Dade County Commission. “It’s never talked about. It’s crime, how much we’re going to invest in police, how much we’re going to invest in traffic, how much we’re going to invest in public safety, libraries – those are the topics of conversation.”* Later, I find myself playing with the Noaa sea-level tool again. I zoom in on Sunny Isles. At 1ft, the low-lying mangrove swamps of the Oleta River State Park, just over the water, are submerged and the wooded backyard of the Intracoastal Yacht Club disappears. At 2ft, the St Tropez Condominiums and the newly-built Town Center Park are underwater, as are many shops around 172nd Street. At 3ft, things start to get serious. Blue blots out the entire shopping plaza and the Epicure Market. At 4ft, the entire west side of Sunny Isles is uninhabitable. At 6ft, it’s gone. Only the spine near the beach – where my father lives – remains.{\"image\":{\"pid\":\"p04yygcl\"}}It’s easy to look at Compact’s range of estimates and think that, since a 3ft or 4ft rise may remain fairly far off, everything will be fine for a few more generations. But it’s not. With public infrastructure – from fresh water to flushing toilets to roads – woven between communities, if just one area gets affected, others may suffer. Meanwhile, resilience is only one piece. As shown by the Compact chart’s steep orange line, if emissions continue to rise, adaptation will become increasingly difficult – if not impossible. And unlike raising seawalls or installing tidal valves, that, of course, can’t be controlled by a community or region alone. “Climate change mitigation to reduce greenhouse gases is a global issue and has to be dealt with globally,” says Gassman. “Adaptation to the inevitable effects of climate change is a local issue.”Later, peering out the window as my plane takes off over Miami, I no longer see the dense green squares of the city's western edge, the sharp skyscrapers downtown and the surprisingly slender line of barrier islands. Instead, I see what might be lost. From here, the ocean looks vast.But as the plane climbs, I remind myself that human innovation was enough to drain the swamp and make Florida what it is today. It was great enough to get me here, 15,000ft in the air. And it just might be enough to save what I see below.Join 800,000+ Future fans by liking us on <a href=\"https://www.facebook.com/BBCFuture\">Facebook</a>, or follow us on <a href=\"https://twitter.com/bbc_future\">Twitter</a>.If you liked this story, <a href=\"http://pages.emails.bbc.com/subscribe/?ocid=fut.bbc.email.we.email-signup\">sign up for the weekly bbc.com features newsletter</a>, called “If You Only Read 6 Things This Week”. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Earth, Culture, Capital, and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. ","BusinessUnit":"worldwide","CalloutBody":"","CalloutPosition":"","CalloutSubtitle":"","CalloutTitle":"","Campaign":null,"Collection":[],"DisableAdverts":false,"DisplayDate":"2017-04-04T00:15:20Z","Geolocation":null,"HeadlineLong":"Miami’s fight against rising seas","HeadlineShort":"Miami’s fight against rising seas","HideRelated":false,"Horizontal":[],"Intro":"Just down the coast from Donald Trump's weekend retreat, the residents and businesses of south Florida are experiencing regular episodes of water in the streets. In the battle against rising seas, the region – which has more to lose than almost anywhere else in the world – is becoming ground zero.","IsSyndicated":true,"Latitude":"","Location":null,"Longitude":"","Option":null,"Partner":null,"PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Programme":null,"RelatedStory":null,"RelatedTag":[],"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"Just down the coast from Donald Trump's weekend retreat, the residents and businesses of south Florida are experiencing regular episodes of water in the streets as sea levels rise.","SummaryShort":"‘The water doesn’t care about politics’","SuperSection":[],"Tag":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-04-04T09:19:02.015567Z","Entity":"story","Guid":"1c1ef5bc-6b25-4e85-9b19-cd2f6f751e11","Id":"wwfuture/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-05-02T06:36:19.799891Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:story:wwfuture/story/20170403-miamis-fight-against-sea-level-rise","_id":"598525250b1947497fcf1c67"}],"RelatedTag":null,"StoryType":"image","SummaryLong":"The costs of natural disasters are becoming too much to bear – and it’s driving up premiums no matter where you live. The solution may be a type of insurance never seen before.","SummaryShort":"A new type of insurance could transform how the world prepares for disasters","SuperSection":[{"Content":{"General":{"AdTargetingId":"future-now","Banner":"future-now","Description":"Your guide to a fast-changing world","Name":"Future Now","PrimaryVertical":"wwfuture","Theme":"futuristic-blue"},"TopStories":[]},"Metadata":{"CreationDateTime":"2017-01-11T17:39:36.114056Z","Entity":"supersection","Guid":"de26824e-4fe3-447a-b25d-16aeb2720252","Id":"wwfuture/supersection/future-now","ModifiedDateTime":"2017-08-01T14:02:04.111568Z","Project":"wwfuture","Slug":"future-now"},"Urn":"urn:pubstack:jative:supersection:wwfuture/supersection/future-now","_id":"5981d5c30b1947497fcd4881"}],"Tag":[{"Content":{"AssetImage":null,"Description":"Climate change tag","LinkUrl":"https://web.archive.org/web/20170805161910/http://dbpedialite.org/things/47512","Name":"Climate 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