The five issues I’ve highlighted below – wetland management, electricity markets, internal migration, water management, and rural revitalization -  all present significant challenges to policy makers at mid-century, and to those of today looking forward. Each comes about thorough a common constellation of trends that we’re already tracking.  And, while these five certainly don’t represent the entire spectrum of policy concerns, they are good representatives of the range of issues that are likely to be important.

1. Wetland management – Gradually rising sea levels, although not as dramatic as expected at the early part of the century, began having noticeable impact by 2025. The early concerns about the loss of wetlands to development and flood control lessened initially as the wetlands reconstituted in some places and grew larger in others. By 2040, however, tensions between metropolitan sea level managers in cities like Miami, New Orleans, Tampa, New York, Boston, and San Diego and proponents of so-called natural control had intensified. Over the next ten years, both sides turned – mostly unsuccessfully – to the courts and legislatures in an effort to meet the growing challenges. Late in 2049, after two years of quiet but universally praised work, the President’s Panel on Rising Sea Levels (known by almost everybody as The Flood Commission) issued their report. First among the 312 recommendations was the critical need for a federal response.

2. Electricity markets – When Tangier – the Cisco/Edison Power joint venture – completed regional testing of its new grid in 2017, the most noticeable result was not that the grid had worked, but the virtual marketplace that had grown out of the venture’s social marketing efforts. By 2031, 3/4 of the country was in a position to market electricity back to providers, and the virtual marketplaces that had so captured the attention of the media and pundits in the 20s, had morphed into fully operational exchanges. As renewables and nontraditionals were integrated, the exchanges moved beyond the buying and selling of kWh to futures and derivatives. In November 2048, four traders working out of AllianZ’s offices in Des Moines – responding to internal modeling data -  began shorting the nuclear transmission market. One of the traders – a late hire to the firm – leaked the action to his local exchange. Hundreds of thousands of households dumped nuctrans credits, sending the market into a spiral. After three days of turmoil, with plants burning off excess energy, and the national reserve teetering on unsustainable, the SEC called a halt to the markets. Independent analysis failed to predict a way to safely reopen over the New Year holiday, and by ’49 it was clear that a different sort of regulation was necessary – able to balance the energy needs of the country with the embedded market.

3. Internal migration – Although Palm Springs had been suffering since the conservation acts of 2021, strict water reuse programs and the award to the city of the first NatEnviro landscaping certification in California for its wide-scale xenoscaping had done much to ensure continued prosperity. When the Western Fires began in 2039, the citizens watched as town after town across the southwest was consumed. The acres of dead vegetation, harvested after the passage of the conservation acts, had been used for sand and dust dampening. As gray water sources diminished, the already depleted fresh water aquifers simply couldn’t keep up. By October, huge sections of the region had been depopulated. On November 3rd, Palm Springs evacuated. Former residents fleeing to cities further north, and further east, found themselves in communities of refugees from floods and fires along the coasts. Social services began to crumble. By the late ’40s, cities found themselves unable to support the additional population, and federal action was called for.

4. Water management – While the resurgence in rural living during the ’20s and ’30s (see below) had done much to reduce the water strain on individual cities, regional disparities increased as water tables over the west dropped, and those in the east grew. In April of 2043, the $220B Roanoke-Little Rock transregional aqueduct finally opened, proving the viability of large scale transport projects. Despite Belcorps’s assurance that four similar projects were shovel ready, the US Regional Water Authorities looked to the President for authorization to proceed. The Supreme Court ruling in Kingston v. Oklahoma in June of 2044 overturned Kelo, and required state and local governments to demonstrate critical local need before appropriating land. The Hay Bale demonstrations – pitting farmers against construction crews – had convinced some members of Congress that aqueduct off-flow channels ought to be considered for those areas through which it passed. With another record drought predicted for the Summer of 2050, consensus throughout Washington and in state capitals across the country was that better solutions were needed.

5. Rural revitalization – After experiencing a virtual depopulation in the latter half of the 20th Century and early years of the 21st, rural America began to experience a rebirth in the early 2020s. Initially driven by the economic meltdown in the last years of the century’s first decade, and business’s efforts to cut costs, telecommuting workers found lower costs and a better quality of life further away from the cities. Once the private energy markets were established and functioning in the late ’20s and early ’30s, and personal renewable energy production became not only viable but potentially profitable, large numbers of Americans undertook what became known colloquially as the “return to the farm”. By the mid-2040s however, it became increasingly clear that there was insufficient infrastructure, either physical or services, to handle the increasing population. Fearing another more virulent outbreak of malaria with the coming summer heat, local and federal authorities declared their intention to come together in February of 2050 to draw up a blueprint for the new ruralism.