Peak Oil, 1925. In 2000, 20% of new buildings will be solar equipped. By the late 1990s, 90% of the world's energy will be nuclear-generated. These and other erroneous projections are being collected as part of the Forecast Project on the website Inventing Green: The Lost History of Alternative Energy in America.
posted by Miko on Jul 27, 2009 - 65 comments

The sky is falling! From Romulus to Ronald Reagan: a comprehensive timeline of apocalyptic predictions. If you decide to put some stock in one or more of these prophecies, you may need to do some preparatory research.
posted by brundlefly on Jun 22, 2005 - 11 comments

Airplanes, movies, guided missiles, submarines, the electric chair, air conditioning , the fax machine - in 1870 " Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt, Faith Popcorn: all of them famous prognosticators. Yet each comes off a piker when compared to the true master of industrial clairvoyance, Jules Verne."
posted by Voyageman on Apr 1, 2002 - 7 comments

A Brief History of the Apocalypse
posted by signal on Feb 26, 2002 - 15 comments

Anyone else remember Wired's theory of The Long Boom from 1997? I guess they were wrong.
posted by endquote on Sep 30, 2001 - 20 comments

Have we entered a Neil Howe and William Strauss have written a series of books (really, the same book rehashed three times, but who's counting?) on generational cycles. Their theory is that we are due for a "fourth turning" in the first part of the 21st century: a catalyst event that causes an extreme change in public mood, causing us to go through a decade or two of crisis. For example, the 1929 stock market crash was a catalyst, and the Depression and WWII were the time of crisis. Was 9/11 such a catalyst?
posted by litlnemo on Sep 15, 2001 - 15 comments