RUSSIAN JOURNAL OF EARTH SCIENCES VOL. 9, ES2003, doi:10.2205/2007ES000273, 2007
[26] The analysis of the complete list of the world conflicts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars) that took place from 2500 B.C. till now has shown that until the beginning of VII century B.C. these conflicts occurred without any permanent regularity. It looks like a stochastic process of the "white noise" type. It confirms the historic facts of permanent occurrence of conflicts at the early stages of the human civilization evolution, as a natural form of its existence. Only with the advent of higher forms of the society's formation it is possible to notice a certain periodic regularity in a sequence of data on the world conflicts. This regularity is determined and studied in the article [Zgurovskij and Yasinsky, 2007]. By using the specified regularity there appeared the possibility to foresee the upcoming system conflict, to analyze a set of threats generating it, to determine the impact of these threats on its development and to build scenarios of possible evolution of the society during and after the specified conflict. Certainly, it would be good to be mistaken in pessimistic prognoses, but from the scientific point of view, they are necessary in order to prevent the undesirable outcomes.
[28] The quantity of world conflicts for each sampling interval DT was defined as arithmetic mean of quantity of all conflicts on this time interval.
![]() |
Figure 3 |
[30] 1. Life cycle of each wave
Cn generates five sequential evolutionary phases (stages)
{Cn, i},
i = 1, , 5:
[31] Cn, 1 (ORIGINS); Cn, 2 (GROWTH); Cn, 3 (CULMINATION); Cn, 4 (RECESSION); Cn, 5 (EXTINCTION);
[32] 2. Duration of lifetime T(Cn) of each following wave Cn is determined by the duration of lifetimes of two previous waves, namely:
![]() | (1) |
[33] 3. Intensity of conflicts for Cn waves
![]() | (2) |
increases (Figure 2): I(Cn+1) > I(Cn), due to the technological progress of the mankind, where N (Cn) - number of conflicts shaping the wave Cn.
[34] The world conflicts that are uniquely determined by characteristics 1-3 we shall call Cn -waves of system world conflicts or in other words Cn -waves.
[35] We see that from 705 B.C. up to now six
Cn -waves have been identified.
Their so-called "structural portraits" and basic performances are shown in Table 6
and in Figure 3. Ratios
T(Cn)/T(Cn+1),
n =1, 2, 3,
, 6 are shown
in Table 7. As we see, they are varying around the "golden section" value - 1.618.
[36] Therefore, we present the sequence
{T (Cn)},
n = 1,
, 6, 7 in the following form:
![]() | (3) |
where
kc 85 years - the greatest common divisor for all values of
lifetime duration
T(Cn) (invariant temporal quantum
kc ), a row of numbers
Fs={13, 8, 5, 3, 2, 1, 1, 0} represents an inverse sequence of Fibonacci numbers.
[37] Meanwhile six terms of sequence
T (C1), , T(C6) respond to the law of overmatching
of units of Fibonacci series, we come up with the hypothesis, that occurrence of system world
conflicts is subordinate to this law. Therefore, according to (1), the seventh (forecast) element
of the sequence
{T(Cn)} should be:
![]() | (4) |
![]() |
Figure 4 |
![]() | (5) |
[39] According to (5) the intensity of the seventh (forecast) conflict is:
![]() | (6) |
[40] Thus, relationships (3)-(6) present the systematic regularity of world conflicts over the course of time in the values of these conflicts' lifetime duration T(Cn), their intensity I (Cn) and values of Fibonacci numbers sequence ( Fs ).
[42] Let us study the nature of "the conflict of XXI century" on the basis of the analysis of a totality of threats generating this conflict. We will determine a degree of approach or removal of these threats for various groups of the countries.
[43] We shall analyze each of these threats [Zgurovsky, 2007]:
![]() |
Figure 5 |
[45] To quantitatively estimate a decrease of organic fuels resources for different countries we will use the parameter: "Consumption of traditional fuels percentage wise of the general energy needs of the country" (Human Development Report, 2006; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/).
[47] Another threat is connected with changes in the population demographic structure. For example, the greatest increase in the population within the next fifty years is expected in the poorest regions of the world: in Africa it will double, in Latin America and the Caribbean basin the population will increase by 1.5 times, while in Europe it will decrease by 0.8 times. An uncontrollable growth of the urban population in developing countries also presents a considerable threat. By 2050 it will double, and will be reaching 7 billion. It shall result in aggravation of transport, ecological and social problems, increase in crime and other consequences of uncontrolled urbanization.
[48] An important trend of the nearest decades will be impetuous changes in religious groups of the world population. Thus, within the period from 1980 to 2025 the number of Moslems will increase from 16.5% up to 30%, the number of Christians will reduce from 33% to 30%, that of Hindus will change from 13.3% to 10%, and Buddhists - from 6.3% to 5%. The total number of representatives of other religious groups will also decrease from 31.1% to 25% (Japan Vision 2050. Principles of Strategic Science and Technology Policy Toward 2020, 2005; http://www.scj.go.jp/en/vision2050.pdf). These changes will necessitate searching for new conditions of tolerant coexistence of the world population.
[49] To estimate growing threats resulting from the imbalance of the world population and the planet resources we shall use the indicator representing the ratio of the gross national product per capita to the population density of the given country. We shall use the data from the sources (Human Development Report, 2006; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/; and Geo Hive database, maintained by Johan van der Heyden, 2007).
[51] To estimate the inequality in distribution of economic and social assets for each of the considered countries we shall use Gini index (Human Development Report, 2006; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/) representing these characteristics.
[53] According to the data of the international organization UNAIDS only during 2004-2006 the number of HIV-infected people in the world has increased from 36.9 to 39.5 million. This general tendency with minor variations is observed in all regions of the world.
[54] Despite of the successes achieved in combating tuberculosis, annually in the world there are 8 million new morbid events causing 2 million of fatal outcomes. In countries with a high level of HIV/AIDS spreading, the number of those suffering from tuberculosis has 3-4 times increased for the last 15 years (http://www.who.int/gb). 80% of them have been registered in Africa, South East Asia and the Western part of coastwise of the Pacific Ocean.
[55] Malaria is traditionally widespread in Africa and Latin America. For the last five years
malaria incidence has 2-3 times increased in Afghanistan, Ghana, Papua New Guinea, Pakistan,
Uganda; 30 times in Mozambique and Democratic Republic of Congo; threatening morbidity
rates (70 times growth) are registered in Mali. In other countries where cases of malaria are
recorded, the morbidity rates are varying within the limits of
50% for the last 5 years.
[56] We used the data on the indicated diseases presented by the World Health Organization (http://www.who.int/healthinfo/statistics/programme/en/index.html).
[58] High living standards did not become the necessary precondition of successful eradication of corruption. The analysis of the long-term trends revealed by the international organization "Transparency International" shows that for the last twelve years the corruption level has decreased in some countries with low levels of income, such as Estonia, Colombia, and Bulgaria. In the same time, in rich countries, for example, in Canada and Ireland a noticeable growth of corruption level is observed. Such risk factors as the opacity of state institutions, excessive impact of some oligarchic groups, violations in financing political parties, etc. exist both in rich and in poor countries; and, unfortunately, in the majority of countries the tendencies towards the growth of corruption still remain.
[59] To estimate effect of corruption on social, economic and spiritual evolution of the world we shall use "an index of corruption perception" which is defined by the international organization "Transparency International" (http://www.transparency.org.ru).
[61] Especially critical is the situation in urban regions of poor countries where due to the rapid growth of population this problem quickly becomes aggravated. The indicated negative factors especially affect the children's health. As estimated by WHO, in 2005 1.6 million children under 5 years of age (on the average, 4500 children daily) died of aftereffects of the usage of unsafe water and because of inadequate hygiene. In the course of the world population growth and especially that in less developed regions of the world, the struggle for control over fresh water resources will become bitter, which represents one more global threat to the mankind.
[62] Limited access to clean potable water will be estimated by the inverse magnitude to the indicator of access to the clean potable water presented in the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation, 2005 (http://www.wssinfo.org/en/welcome.html).
[64] Isolation or "inverse globalization" - is a sign of the "other side of a medal" of globalization, being an evidence of insufficient development of democratic institutes of the country, its deviation from methods of competitive struggle in the global markets. In that case the power and wealth in this country are concentrated within a small group of people, separating the remaining society from democratic norms of using the public rights and resources. The opacity which is characteristic for the isolated societies generates the highest level of political corruption, suppression of healthy competition mechanisms, leads to a decrease of competences of people, financial and public institutes. Such status of a society is unbalanced and sooner or later comes to the ended with a collapse for those political and financial circles, who are striving to maintain this order.
[65] We shall estimate the isolation by means of inverse magnitude to an index of globalization [Dreher, 2006]. In this connection we shall also call isolation "inverse globalization".
[67] The estimations obtained on climatic models referred to by ICECC, show that the average temperature of the Earth may raise from 1 up to 15o C between 1990 and 2080 (in different regions, or on the average on the Earth). Predictably, warming will lead to other climatic changes, including a rise of the World Ocean level by 0.1-5 meters (it is probable in 30-40 years), and to changes in the quantity and distribution of atmospheric precipitation. As a result, natural cataclysms, such as flooding, droughts, hurricanes, etc., would become more frequent, the harvests would become poorer and many biological species may disappear. The struggle for control over diminished natural resources, both between the countries, and between separate groups of the population may become aggravated, which also would provoke new global conflicts.
[68] Taking into consideration, that emissions of carbon dioxide considerably exceed those of methane, we shall estimate the threat of global warming by the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2 ) emission (Human Development Report, 2006; http://hdr.undp.org/en/reports/global/hdr2006/).
where HIV - number HIV -infected people (percentage of the population in the age of 15-49 years); TB - degree of tuberculosis spreading (number of patients per 100000 population); GI - an index of inverse globalization (it is calculated as 1/index KOF); WI - index of limited access to clean potable water (percentage of the population in the country not having access to potable water); CP - corruption perception index (varies from 0 up to 10, where 0 is maximum level of corruption, 10 - minimum); GINI - index of inequality in distribution of allocation of material and social assets (varies in the range of 0-65, where 0 is minimum inequality, 65 is maximum inequality); DI - demographic status (it is estimated by the ratio of gross national product per capita in the country to the population density in the country); CO2 - carbon dioxide emission (it is measured in metric tons); TFC - consumption of traditional fuels (it is measured in percentage of the total power consumption in the country).
[70] Initial data on each threat are normalized, so that its values vary over the range (0-1). Thus, 0 will correspond to maximum threat, 1 - to minimum. In other words, after such normalization any of threats becomes "closer" for the concrete country to the extent its numerical value is closer to zero, and "more distant" for the country, if its value is closer to 1.
[71] For example, normalization for HIV and TB is fulfilled by using relationships:
![]() |
![]() |
[72] Similarly the normalization for all other threats is fulfilled. As a result, we have a vector of the normalized threats:
![]() | (7) |
[73] Let us correlate with each j -th country some number | Trj|, which is the Minkovsky norm of the vector Trj consisting of normalized threats at p=3:
![]() | (8) |
where | Trj| is the threats vector norm for j -th country. Let us identify the norm of vector | Trj| as a degree of remoteness from the totality of threats.
[74] On the basis of the computed norms of the vector of threats | Trj| for each country j let us introduce relationship of order between countries' clusters (Table 8).
![]() | (9) |
[75] From Table 8 it follows that cluster 1 includes a group of "the most satisfactory countries", from the point of view of safety, for which the degree of remoteness from the totality of threats is highest. Moreover the world leaders in terms of sustainable development index for 2006 (Finland, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, United Kingdom, Australia, United States, Canada, Austria, Table 4) also belong to cluster 1 (Table 8) as the most satisfactory countries, from the safety point of view.
[76] And, on the contrary, cluster 5 includes the countries most vulnerable in this respect. For them the remoteness degree from the totality of threats is minimal. The comparison of cluster 5 of Table 3 and cluster 5 of Table 8 shows that the countries with the lowest values of sustainable development index (like Cameroon, Madagascar, Uganda, Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe) at the same time are most vulnerable in respect of safety.
[77] Ukraine, China, Russia, India, Romania, Egypt, Mexico, Argentina and a number of other countries belongs to cluster 3 with the average remoteness from the totality of global threats. The most dangerous global threats for Ukraine are the level of spreading HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis which is one of the highest in the world and a very high level of corruption.
[79] The answer to this question can be found in the works of two outstanding scientists of the past century - V. I. Vernadsky: "In the geological history of biosphere human beings will have great future, if they realize it and do not use their mind and labor for self-destruction" [Vernadsky, 1944] and N. N. Moiseyev: "If the mankind is not going to radically change its behavior on the Planetary scale, then in the middle of XXI century there may appear conditions under which people cannot exist" [Moiseyev, 2000]. Taking into consideration that the statistical data on the world conflicts (presented in (List of wars, 2007; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars) for the time span from 2500 B.C. up to now) corresponded to the constant paradigm of the mankind existence "to meet people's own interests", then according to [Vernadsky, 1944] and [Moiseyev, 2000] with the persistence of this paradigm on the Planetary scale, already in the middle of XXI, it would not be possible for people to exist.
[80] If we assume that the mankind will change the paradigm of its existence on the Planetary scale for another, for example, for the paradigm of "harmonious coexistence", then the systemic regularity of world conflicts over the course of time determined for the previous paradigm corresponding to the Fibonacci series, obviously, will lose its validity. Thus, the mankind will find new prospects for prolongation of its mission on the Planet.
Citation: 2007), Sustainable development global simulation: Opportunities and treats to the planet, Russ. J. Earth Sci., 9, ES2003, doi:10.2205/2007ES000273.
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