The World 2050

[beneficii]

The United States will have a population of approximately 420 millions.  
50% of them will be white, 28% Hispanic and 8% Asian.  
The immigration policies will have become even stricter.  
Scientific advances will extend longevity.
The population of Western and Southern states will increase even more.  The population in these states will increase 2 to 3 times faster than it will in the Northeast and the Midwest.
America's midsection will empty out.
The House of Representatives will have more than 435 seats.
Montana, Idaho and Wyoming will be considered liberal states.
The average age of the population will be greater than it is now.
The percentage of single person households will increase to 26%
There will be a 50% increase in space devoted to the built environment by 2030, with most of the development taking place in the West and the South.  This will result to a loss of farmland.
There will be water shortages in the East, the West, the Great Plains and the Southwest with lakes and rivers disappearing.
Cities such as Denver, Las Vegas, LA and San Diego will be buying water supplies from elsewhere.
New energy sources will be used: Wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, renewable sources.  The '50s will be known as the "Solar Age".  
Cars will be using fuel cells.
Cities will become more compact and suburbs will be considered costly and inefficient.
There will be more interracial marriages and more tolerance towards different cultures, languages and religious beliefs.


Two cities whose population will increase significantly are Lagos and Mexico City.
China by 2021 will be considered a military superpower.  They will also join the WTO and modernize.
The same problems that exist now will exist in 2050 (India/Pakistan, China/Taiwan, the Koreas, Bosnia, Kossovo).  There will also be tension in Sierra Leone, East Timor, Chechnya maybe even Colombia.  The US will not interfere this time.
The Third World will urbanize.
Coastal cities worldwide will become vulnerable to storms and flooding.  Bangladesh will suffer the most.  Many amphibians will become extinct.


Extremophiles will be discovered on Mars (underground) and on moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Maybe on Venus too.
More oil reserves will be discovered.
Human cloning will be widespread and out of control.
Recreational space travel becomes more common.
Competitions between national teams in soccer will not exist anymore.
Tattoos become more popular (almost a necessity in fashion retail).
Artificial organs are used as transplants and the number of experiments on animals decreases.
An enormous number of fish species become extinct.
A shield is created by scientists that protects the Earth from higher temperatures.  
Sea level rises.
The internet replaces tv.

"More oil reserves will be discovered."

But their production rate won't be nearly enough to make up for the decline in the global production rate since the peak.

[beneficii]

BTW, I think the US will be far less different from the modern US than people think, at least culturally and politically (though to the left socially, as boomers die off).

Weren't the boomers supposed to be the more left-leaning group?  You know, they were hippies.  What happened to that, and how do we know that the U.S., with a young generation that is probably less liberal than the boomers, will become more liberal by 2050?

[beneficii]

The millenials will have a "come to Jesus" moment. This generation does have a valuable conservative tendency. We are more anti-abortion than many think here. America is very due for another Christian "Great Awakening" . We may be at the beginning of the beginning with regards to the Awakening. Libertarianism is compatable with a massive revival.

Where do you think things will go with gay rights and creationism?

[beneficii]

Creation will be taught beside evolution in more areas.

In that case, the quality of our science education will go down the tubes.  Creationism is unfalsifiable, introduces an actor that scientifically speaking we know nothing about--including its motivations and energy source--, and is religious.   Evolution is falsifiable (such as if we find bunny rabbits in the pre-Cambrian, if it can be shown that successive mutations cannot accumulate, or other evidence that goes against common descent with modification), is supported by multiple lines of evidence (homology, fossils, DNA, etc.), and is a cornerstone of modern biology.