Jerry Glenn, Director
The Millennium Project Global
Futures Studies & Research
2013 Year in Review
- New Pope sets a new tone for the 1.2 billion Roman Catholics
- Global Slavery Index estimates there are about 30 million slaves in 2013.
- Nearly 40% of humanity uses the Internet
- Malala Yousafzai survives Taliban assignation and becomes a new world force
- Nelson Mandela passing reminds the world of greatness
- The largest petition to recall a government in history: 22 million sign petition in Egyptian for Morsi’s resignation
- Egyptian military crackdown on the Moslem Brotherhood
- China lands a robot rover on the Moon, India launches spacecraft to Mars
- Elon Musk continues private sector space program SpaceX Falcon 9 launching a geostationery satellite at 1/3 the cost
- Syrian Civil War worsens while it agreed to disarm chemical weapons
- Hassan Rouhani opens Iran to the West and signs nuclear processing agreement
- No. Korean conducts 3rd underground nuclear bomb test and executes Pres’s uncle
- US Government Shutdown begins the decline of the Tea Party’s power
- China tensions with Japan & neighbors increase; US & China warships monitor
- US Affordable Health Care Website problems
- CO2 passes 400 parts per million in the atmosphere; 2013 7th hottest year recorded
- Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines with the most powerful tropical storm to make landfall on record with gusts reaching 235 mph.
- Shanghai and California initiate cap and trade systems
- First hamburger publically cooked and tested from pure meat tissue grown without growing a cow
- UN adopts the Arms Trade Treaty of conventional weapons
- Edward Snowden release of US intelligence write tapping heads of state.
- Largest meteor in a century hits Russian city of Chelyabinsk
- USA makes
recreational use of marijuana legal in Colorado and Washington and Uruguay
becomes the first country to make it legal to produce and sale marajuana
- US Government
shutdow for 16 days; Tea Party begins to lose power in the US
- Human adult cell
nuclei inserted in egg cells with previous nuclei removed that produced
new embryonic stem cells clonded for new stem cell line.
- Higgs particle
confirmed that gives rise to matter
- Google Glass
demonstrated
- President Obama
annouces Human Brain Initiative
- Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 5th Assessment Report
- The were 628 recorded
cyber-attacks over a 24 hour period on July 24, 2013 with majority
targeting the USA
For comparison, here’s my list from last three years:
2012 Year in Review
- Humanity
continues to be succeeding /winning more than it is losing, according to
the 28 variables in the State of the Future Index
- Higgs-like
Particle discovered that may explain how matter is created
- Skydive from
the edge of space (24 miles) going faster than sound (Mach 1.24)
- Moslem
Brotherhood takes over the leadership of Egypt
- Egypt’s Morsi
goes from world hero (cease fire agreement) to world pariah dictator
within 24 hours
- China and its
ocean neighbors contest boundaries increasing tensions with and among Japan, Philippians, Vietnam, Malaysia,
and Brunei
- North Korea
successfully launches intercontinental missile for orbital satellite
- Wikipedia and
others went dark to successfully block the US Congress’s SOPA (Stop Online
Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect IP Act).
- Big Data
becomes popular subject for decisionmakers to explore how to use
- China’s third
human space launch carring the first Chinese woman into space rendezvoused with China’s Space Lab
- SpaceX’s Dragon
is the first successful private sector station re-supply vehicle
- Mars Landing of
Curiosity Robot
- China proposes
space power collaboration with India
- Driverless cars
by Google are legal in US (California, Florida, and Nevada)
- President
Obama’s endorsement of Gay Marriage
- London Olympics
– nurtures spirit of world peace
- Facebook’s IPO
financial loss
- Pope’s
assistant exposes some of the Vatican’s inner political corruption.
- Severe political
stalemate in Washington, D.C., US continues
- More than 100
journalists have been killed so far this year, making 2012 the deadliest
year for media since UNESCO began keeping records on the issue
- Syria’s civil
war accellorates.
- Likely 2012
will be the hottest year in US recorded history
- Climate
continues to change: USA is 60% in drought, super hurricane Sandy, heavy
flooding in Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Nigeria, North Korea, Pakistan,
Philippines, Romania, Russia, Singapore, UK
- Euro financial
crisis continues with riots especially in Greece and Spain
2011 Year in Review
- World grew to 7 billion people
- Arab Spring/Awakening
- Occupy Movements initially on Wall Street
- Other protests took to the streets in Greece, Russia, China, Spain, others
- Japan Disasters
- Tenth Anniversary of 911 Terrorist
- Bin Laden Killed
- US pulled out of Iraq
- Steve Jobs Died
- Tablet computers
- Space Shuttle retired
- China produced more cars that the US or Japan
- Severe political stalemate in Washington, D.C., US
- Robot 25% of Japan over 65 years old
- Robonaut 2 humanoid robot (without legs) on International Space Station
- IBM Watson computer beats human Jeopardy champions
- Super High Vision 7,680 by 4,320 parcels created by Sharp is 16 times HD resolution
- Brittan’s Royal Wedding
- Unprecedented volume of Methane found bubbling up from shallow Arctic sea floor
- Large Hadron Collider discovered a particle composed of a quark and anti-quark
- Programmable quantum photonic chip
- 26 Year old in charge of nuclear weapons in North Korea
- More Internet users in China than the entire population of the USA
2010 year in review
- 2010 was the warmest year the earth has yet recorded.
- China passed Japan in 2010 to become the world's second-largest economy behind the United States, and has the second largest number of billionaires in the world.
- BP Gulf Oil catastrophe
- Wikileaks
- Philippines may pass India this year as the largest call center than India – Financial Times.
- Airports across Europe closed for a week by Volcano ash (Eyjafjallajökull) causing chaos for millions.
- North Korea’s sinking a South Korean ship and shelling one of its islands.
- Stuxnet computer worms attacking Iran’s nuclear program.
- Financial crises and severe government cut backs across much of Europe.
- Synthetic biology breakthrough creating an artificial life form.
- US health care law
- Haitian earth quake and cholera, Pakistan floods
- Mexican organized crime violence continues to escalate
- More electronic than paper books sold by Amazon.
- Tea Pot boils in the USA
- Sarah Palin shots a defenseless animal.
- Gays ok in US Military.
- Polar Ice continues to melt faster than forecasted, while few results in Copenhagen and Cancun.
- Frozen water discovered on the Moon – One the lunar pole about 600 million metric tons (158 billion gallons) in 40 craters.
- H1N1 declared a pandemic
- Combat troops out of Iraq