A Brief History of the Next Fifteen Years

Bernard Rogeaux’s article does not in any sense aim to describe what is going to happen in the world in the next fifteen years, but rather to present, by way of a purely fictional narrative, the major problems that confront us – or that may confront us – in the near future.
Employing the pretext of a secret meeting between the heads of state of the five greatest powers in 2021, following a series of violent events and crises that have turned the world upside down, Bernard Rogeaux offers the reader a possible scenario for the tragic development of our human race. This scenario is rooted in the present situation and the trends currently at work in the world: the risk of the exhaustion of hydrocarbon reserves, global warming, international migrations, conflicts over access to resources etc. – all in a context of general nervousness among political leaders and blindness among citizen-consumers.
This is, quite clearly, only a possible future and there is no certainty it will come to pass. There is still time to anticipate such developments and opt for different paths generating less gloomy prospects. And this is doubtless the aim and the virtue of this story: to alert readers so that they realize that their futures perhaps depend on what happens today, and to encourage the asking of the right questions about subjects ranging from consumption and democracy through to ethics.