In his science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K Dick imagined a mega-city of the future (in the year 2021), a time when planet Earth has become an urban dystopia, dysfunctional, polluted and in toxic shock, where most humans are dying of radiation sickness, and even once-common farmyard animals are endangered.
The 1968 novel was the inspiration for Ridley Scott's celebrated film Blade Runner, in which Harrison Ford tracks down four homicidal replicants in a decaying megalopolis. And of course Ford gets his robots. It's a cracking tale – but is the world really heading towards such an environmental catastrophe? And what can we do to prevent it?
Looking at it from today's perspective, city life in the next decade seems likely to be a lot more comfortable than Dick's replicant-infested vision, but there are still looming problems. Today we worry about global warming, carbon emissions and biodiversity. But we also have the benefits of the internet and some remarkable new technology.
Scientists and manufacturers are working together to drive forward changes that, together, could have the power to transform our lives, reduce global warming, foster a recycling society and enhance biodiversity. Or as Mitsubishi Electric's Environmental Vision 2021 puts it, to make "positive contributions to the earth and its people through technology and action".
As a society, we are also much more concerned about shaping a sustainable future than ever before. Compared with the early years of environmental movements, our current resolve to resist global warming has become an almost unstoppable tide.
"Following the green movement of the late eighties, things went quiet," said Martin Charter, director of the Centre for Sustainable Design, in Surrey, UK. "That hasn't happened this time. Public interest has not let up."
If the past decade has been about nailing concerns about climate change into law, the next will be about embedding it into everyday life.
Manufacturers and innovative technology will be twin keys to a sustainable future. For while manufacturing may today appear part of the problem – churning out masses of throwaway goods that are so energy-intensive to create, yet so quickly dumped in landfill – technology will be absolutely vital to the solution. And the changes are being developed right now.
Take photovoltaic (PV) solar cells – a technology in its relative infancy today, but one that experts predict will be racing ahead by 2021.
PV is constantly being improved and updated and photovoltaic cells will soon be commonplace on factory and house rooftops, experts predict. "Solar energy is going to accelerate in the UK without the need for [government financial] support within two to four years," says Andrew Curry, director of the UK-based Futures Company. "Solar will be competitive sooner than people expect, perhaps in three years," said Sam Newman, solar expert at the Rocky Mountain Institute, a US energy think tank.
Other means of capturing solar energy are round the corner, and will be part of daily life in the next decade. One is "PV integrated", a technique that uses a thin film of PV cells integrated into a building's surface or roof materials such as tiles, rather than placed on top. They are cheaper to make, if a little less efficient than current PV technology.
In Wales, industrial conglomerate Tata, working with Pilkington, BASF and others, has developed a photovoltaic-like coating for steel panels in industrial buildings, which saves materials as PV panels are not needed.
More remarkable still, people off grid in developing countries may be able to power devices such as mobile phones by plugging them into electricity supplied by portable plastic strips of organic PV, a type of solar technology under development that uses conductive organic polymers.
While today the world grows accustomed to smart phones, ever-smarter apps, chip-and-pin technology and all the wonders that can be embedded in bar codes and digital media, all that will be as nothing compared with the sensor technology currently under development by some world-class manufacturers. In 10 years' time, most new vehicles will be fitted with sensors so smart that every car will have a central processing system ready to adapt its aerodynamics to the road conditions – thus achieving huge fuel savings.
The holy grail, of course, is the electric vehicle, whose development will be driven by China's huge appetite for innovation and economic development, experts say. Only 200 electric vehicles were sold in the UK in 2010 – their green credentials currently compromised by a heavy reliance on fossil fuel power stations to produce the electricity that powers them. But if manufacturing industry and government initiatives are pushed ahead, perhaps they could be sold in the millions worldwide in 10 years' time.
A positive vision of environmental progress by the year 2021 – and a far cry from the nightmare vision of Philip K Dick. Though there will always be room for edge-of-the-seat thrillers about murderous replicant robots – environmentally friendly ones, of course.
