Giant strawberries and mega melons: Predicting the future in 1900
Ever wondered what our long-dead ancestors thought the world would be like in the year 2000 and beyond? The American-published Ladies Home Journal in December 1900 contained a fascinating article that gives us an insight into where the scientific brains of the day believed we were heading, and some of them have an eerie relevance. In an age where it's possible to breed glow-in-the-dark pigs and giant hybrid fruits I found the following section of particular interest:
Strawberries as Large as Apples will be eaten by our great-great-grandchildren for their Christmas dinners a hundred years hence. Raspberries and blackberries will be as large. Plants will be made proof against disease microbes just as readily as man is to-day against smallpox. It will be possible to grow any flower in any color and to transfer the perfume of a scented flower to another which is odorless.
Getting scarily close on predicting genetic modification, our ancestors were certainly on the ball about another form of technology: Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn. By an automatic signal they will connect with any circuit in their locality without the intervention of a “hello girl”.
Uncanny, isn't it. And it all begs the question as to where we'll be in another 100 years time, when our children's children will experience the real cost of climate change or (giving things a positive slant) we'll have succeeded in slowing it. Back in 1900, progress was all about unchecked power; going faster, getting bigger, and controlling nature. Perhaps we don't see it that clearly anymore. So let's compile our own list of where we'll be in the year 2100. Will we have slowed global warming down, or will it be time to resort to giant space mirrors? Over to you...
In 100 years time we'll have done something which I'm really, really looking forward to – implanted brain boosters into our pets which will enable them to speak.
(Trouble is I won't be around to enjoy hearing what the descendents of my mog 'Queen B' think about their life. Unless we come up with a cure for human death pretty soon.)
Posted by: Henrietta | April 20, 2007 5:50 PM