“A point far off in imaginary space.” In 1970, two books tried to predict 2020. How right were they?

Fifty years ago, in 1970, two books, one written and edited in the United States, the second in Canada, both gathered prominent writers to predict what the year 2020 would be like. As one might expect, no one got it entirely right. There were hints of things to come.

Now it’s 2020. The world is facing the unexpected. A worldwide pandemic that has, of Oct. 16, sickened 39.3 million and killed 1.1 million world wide; sickened 8.09 million in the US and killed 218,000; sickened 194,000 and killed 9,722 in Canada.

The west coast of the United States is still on fire. Earlier in 2020, in its summer Australia was also on fire. As fires rage in the United States the Amazon rainforest and the wetland of the Pantanal are also burning. causing a disaster of the local environment

There are a still growing number of Atlantic hurricanes. There were record high temperatures this summer in Siberia. In many countries, democracy is under attack from authoritarian and oligarchic political figures. Covid-19 has cratered the world economy, plunging it into a situation that is being compared with Great Depression. Tens of thousands of people around the world are on the move, displaced by war, politics, famine and the changing climate. The Black…