By 2008 the fact of climate change is almost universally accepted, but discussion about solutions has become a loud and acrimonious pitting of interest against interest while

negotiations for the second stage of the Kyoto Protocol are still bogged down. The election of a more competent American president provides the only relief to an increasingly dismal situation as the magnitude of the changes required to avoid disaster sink in.

But in 2010 the third session of the new Global Council of Religions reaches agreement of a series of core and agreeable values that are shared between all the world’s major faiths. In the years following the value of creation for its own sake, the value of a unified human identity, and the value of human ancestors and decendants are promoted widely and consistantly in churches, mosques, synagogues and temples around the world. This, combined with the emergance of America from its period of conservative darkness, prompts a feeling of spiritual hope and freedom similar to that of the 1960’s.

As Australian cities run out of water and food prices rise due to the American drought the pressure for strong targets in the second round of Kyoto grows, but it is only the Great Flood of London and the horrific scenes that follow it that prompts the 60% emission reductions that are finally agreed.

By 2015 almost all countries have stablised their emissions, but it is the introduction of the parallel carbon economy that year that begins rapid change. Everyone is allocated carbon currency giving them the right to a certain level of emissions and purchases of carbon-causing products and services require both money and carbon credits. The market in carbon credits explodes and vast fortunes are made as economists grapple to understand the dynamics involved.

Over the next decade everybody becomes highly aware of the value of the right to pollute - especially in the rich countries, where carbon allocations are falling to equalise emission rights among all people. Huge resources are put into global population control and, helped by the vast transfer of resources as the rich buy carbon credits from the poor, several of the UN Millenium Goals are met, albeit several years late.

As the power of the market and of human creativity and industriousness is released at an individual level, a substantial part of economic activity becomes devoted to giving people what they want within the constraints of carbon allocations. People buy local food to save the carbon-causing air miles towards their holiday, there are no such things as incandesent lightbulbs and everybody has a smart-meter on their mantlepiece showing how many carbon credits they are using to power their homes. Emmission rates fall much, much faster than expected.

By 2025 emissions are at 1970 levels, carbon emission rights become the same for every person on earth and, for the first time in human history, the global population falls. In the years that follow emissions continue to drop and carbon allocations begin to rise but our society and economy is by now so transformed that this is of little significance. Indeed, a substantial part of the world’s population now proudly emit no greenhouse gas, yet continue to live comfortable, interesting and satisfying lives.

But the biggest change is in our attitudes and world view. The new lives we live in the post-carbon economy, coupled with the spiritual resurgence of newly-relevant religion has transformed how we see ourselves and the world. We live at a slower pace, spend more time with friends and family, and value knowledge, art and personal growth before the material. We become far less suceptible to mass media and consumer propaganda. Indeed, looking back at the old movies from 2006 we find it hard to imagine a time when people sought status by purchasing a car and then sitting in traffic jams for three hours a day. What were they thinking? How could they have been so stupid?

Above all, we now see the world as one, and most people feel a real sense of connection with the rest of humanity and the rest of nature. We feel connected to our ancestors and to our decendants and feel that our lives exist within the flow of the human experience. We have a meaning and a depth to our lives that those living only 30 years ago found hard to imagine and we shudder at the thought of a time when the second highest cause of death among young people was suicide.

Over the next century humanity stabilises its relationship with the earth and learns to manage its awesome technological power. Population stabilises near four billion. There is universal education and healthcare and abject poverty is seen as abnormality and not as an enduring condition. The world becomes both more unified and more diverse.

And then, following the incredible discoveries in physics made in 2087, we begin to explore the stars.