14 Century-Old Environmental Predictions: Where Are They Now?
11. Prediction: “There will be no wild animals except in menageries. Rats and mice will have been exterminated. The horse will have become practically extinct. A few of high breed will be kept by the rich for racing, hunting and exercise. The automobile will have driven out the horse. Cattle and sheep will have no horns. They will be unable to run faster than the fattened hog of today. A century ago the wild hog could outrun a horse. Food animals will be bred to expend practically all of their life energy in producing meat, milk, wool and other by-products. Horns, bones, muscles and lungs will have been neglected.”
What happened: This prediction starts off weak and finishes with a flurry. There are plenty of rats and mice; horses are not nearly extinct, but they are used mostly for recreational purposes, as Watkins suggested.
12. Prediction: “To England in Two Days. Fast electric ships, crossing the ocean at more than a mile a minute, will go from New York to Liverpool in two days. The bodies of these ships will be built above the waves. They will be supported upon runners, somewhat like those of the sleigh. These runners will be very buoyant. Upon their under sides will be apertures expelling jets of air. In this way a film of air will be kept 
between them and the water’s surface. This film, together with the small surface of the runners, will reduce friction against the waves to the smallest possible degree. Propellers turned by electricity will screw themselves through both the water beneath and the air above. Ships with cabins artificially cooled will be entirely fireproof. In storm they will dive below the water and there await fair weather.”
What happened: Design-wise, Watkins was pretty spot-on with this one. But the ocean-going vessels he wrote of are used more often for short-run ferry trips (i.e London-Amsterdam).
13. Prediction: “There will probably be from 350,000,000 to 500,000,000 people in America and its possessions by the lapse of another century. Nicaragua will ask for admission to our Union after the completion of the great canal. Mexico will be next. Europe, seeking more territory to the south of us, will cause many of the South and Central American republics to be voted into the Union by their own people.”
What happened: As I write, the Census Bureau reports the U.S. population to be 305,740,570. The number falls short of what Watkins predicted, but not by much. Watkins’ prediction would have been closer if: A) The rate of population growth not slowed substantially, and; B) Had we not been involved in several long wars/conflicts/occupations/etc., taking the lives of close to a million Americans.
14. Prediction: Hot and Cold Air from Spigots. Hot or cold air will be turned on from spigots to regulate the temperature of a house as we now turn on hot or cold water from spigots to regulate the temperature of the bath. Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished. Rising early to build the furnace fire will be a task of the olden times. Homes will have no chimneys, because no smoke will be created within their walls.
What happened: Yes and no. We usually only have one ’spigot’ that delivers both hot and cold air. Central heating and cooling is something that has not caught on in the U.S. as it has elsewhere. Iceland, for example, has an excellent geothermal network that meets the heating and hot water requirements for around 87% of the nations’ housing.
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All images except © Jan Cerovsky (coal-fired power plant) are via flickr under a Creative Commons License; wjarretc (high-speed train); Geral Yuvallo (mosquito); foilman (horse & carriage); redjar (grocery refrigeration); markus hoppe (black rose); fihliwe (gridlock); tigerzeye (fighter jets); wot nxt (greenhouse); jeredb (strawberry); MotoWebMistress (horses); phillipC (ferry).
Brilliant post Tim - Watkins was both eerily accurate and amazingly optimistic. I wonder what he’d have made of the mess we’ve created in some areas of ‘progress’?
“Coal is not directly used for heating and cooking any more in the U.S.” Wrong. I know of plenty of people in Western Maryland and the surrounding coal mining areas who have coal-burning furnaces in their homes. It’s messy, but it’s still in use.
I partially agree to the wars shortening the population census, but do not leave out the thousands of babies that would have been born had they not been aborted!
Glenn- Thanks for your insight. And Karen, you make a valid argument.
We’re right about in the middle of that 350 to 500 million population prediction for the US and its possessions, once you remember that in 1900 the Philippines were a US possession. Add Puerto Rico’s 4 million and the Philippines’ 80 million to our 305 million, plus the scattered small possessions like Guam, and you’re pushing 400 million.
14) Central plants will supply this cool air and heat to city houses in the same way as now our gas or electricity is furnished.
Most large cities like New York, Chicago, and even Detroit have municipal systems, usually controlled by the power companies that deliver hot steam that is used to heat the boilers of larger buildings. The steam (in Detroit at least) is mostly surplus from power plants and the incinerator, and in some cases produced by small facilities specifically for heating.
Tim,
Care to make some predictions for the next 100 years?
Ooh, I was waiting for someone to ask me that. Sounds like fodder for a New Year’s post. I have a few things in mind, but I haven’t really worked through them yet.
I have tertiary syphilis.
Boy we sure have come a long way?