Comment

2020 Vision

It seems like years I have been waiting to use that title for a comment. Not going to waste the opportunity now. As someone who is fascinated by current tech advances and the changes it will bring to society, I was heartened to read in today’s Daily Telegraph, about George Freeman, Minister of Transport and Innovation, talking about the imminent launch of e-planes to commute between cities and given the pace of development these eight seaters will soon become 16, 24 and 36 seaters - and as their vtol capabilities are also being perfected, they won’t need the runways and infrastructure that regional airports have. It’s not hard seeing which way the wind is blowing and we wrote about it here, some months ago.

That makes Heathrow runway 3 somewhat less than compelling, especially as it would need a lifecycle of some 50 years to make it viable and fossil fuel will, by then, be well and truly beyond the pale. Extrapolating on that issue a bit further, Mark Carney, the outgoing governor of the Bank of England has raised alarm bells about the obliteration of many peoples pensions if they are invested in oil based industries whose shares are subject to annihilation in the face of climate change and the flight from such technologies.

And there’s more! Become your own futurist and amuse yourself in the dawn of the 2020's by utilising your own 2020 vision. What have Greta Thunberg and Extinction Rebellion stirred up? Where will the greatest population explosion be in this decade? Will we learn to use, or control, AI effectively? And for the construction industry - how will infrastructure develop to cope with multiple demographic changes?

David Chadwick

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