09:46, Monday 12 Feb., 2007 Link

30 year prediction:

By 2037, China, by virtue of their ability to see and manage environment impact on a larger scale than other countries, will have invented cheap renewables to reduce their dependancy on fossil fuels, and will be working on fixing the atmosphere (perhaps they'll also have genetically engineered rafts of algae on the Pacific, excreting plastics). The West will rely on Chinese innovation to dig us out of our ecological mess.

Just as the West will be a secondary market for Chinese consumer goods, BRIC being central, our prime-time TV entertainment will be dubbed Indian television which will be written and produced better than anything we can make domestically, yet - like our clothes that are always 12 months behind the global styles, and our cooking utensils that aren't really optimised for the kind of food we eat - will leave us feeling strangely culturally decentred.