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The World Future Society, Bethesda, Md., has released a report forecasting major global developments for this year and beyond, examining key trends in technology, the environment, the economy, international relations, etc. Among the most significant findings:

Generation Y will migrate heavily overseas. For the first time, the U.S. will see a significant proportion of its population emigrate due to overseas opportunities. According to futurists Arnold Brown and Edie Weiner, Generation Y--those born between 1978-95--may be the first generation in U.S. history to have many of its members leave the country to pursue large portions of their lives, if not their entire adult lives, overseas. They also predict that, by 2025, 75% of Americans will live along the nation's coastlines.

Dwindling supplies of water in China will impact the global economy. With uneven development across China, the most water-intensive industries and densest population are in regions where water is scarcest. The result is higher prices for commodities and goods exported from China, so the costs of resource and environmental mismanagement are transferred to the rest of the world. As a nation, China already outconsumes the U.S. on basic commodities such as food, energy, meat. grain, oil, coal, and steel.

Outlook for Asia: China for the short term; India for the long term. By 2025, both countries will be stronger, wealthier, freer, and more stable than they are today, but India's unique assets--such as widespread use of English, a democratic government, and relative transparency of its institutions--make it more economically viable further out.

Workers increasingly will choose more time over more money. The productivity boom in the U.S. economy during the 20th century created a massive consumer culture--people made more money, so they bought more stuff. In the 21st century, however, workers will choose to trade higher salaries for more time with their families. Nearly one-third of U.S. workers recently polled said they would prefer more time off rather than more hours of paid employment.

Children's "nature deficit disorder" will grow as a health threat. Children today are spending less time in direct contact with nature than did previous generations. The impacts are showing up not only in their lack of physical fitness, but in the growing prevalence of hyperactivity and attention deficit. Studies show that immersing children in outdoor settings--away from television and video games--fosters more creative mental activity and concentration.

We will incorporate wireless technology into our thought processing by 2030. In the next 25 years, we will learn how to augment our 100 trillion very slow interneuronal connections with high-speed virtual connections via nanorobotics. This will allow us to boost our pattern-recognition abilities, memories, and overall thinking capacity, as well as to interface directly with powerful forms of computer intelligence and to each other.

A robotic workforce will change how bosses value employees. As robots and intelligent software increasingly emulate the knowledge work that humans can do, businesses will "hire" whatever type of mind can do the work--whether it be robotic or human. Future human workers may collaborate with robotic minds on projects for a variety of enterprises, rather than work for a single employer.

The costs of global-warming-related disasters will reach $150,000,000,000 per year. The world's total economic loss from weather-related catastrophes has risen 25% in the last decade. According to the insurance firm Swiss Re, the overall economic costs of catastrophes related to climate change threaten to double within a decade. However, the size of these estimates reflects increased growth and higher real-estate prices in coastal communities.

Companies will see the age range of their workers span four generations. Workers over the age of 55 are expected to grow from 14% of the labor force to 19% by 2012.

A rise of disabled Americans will strain public transportation systems. By the year 2025, the number of Americans aged 65 or older will expand from 35,000,000 to more than 65,000,000, according to the Census Bureau. Individuals in that age group are more than twice as likely to have a disability as those aged 16 to 65.

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