“Some revolutionary events, which we call wildcards, will inevitably occur.”

John L. Petersen, The Road to 2015: Profiles of the Future, 1994

Futurists proffer an assortment of forecasts about the earth and humanity in the twenty-first century, some considered so unlikely that they are termed “wild cards.” According to futurist John D. Rockfellow, a wild card is “an event having a low probability of occurrence, but an inordinately high impact if it does [happen],” either causing misfortune and calamity or progress and success. Other futurists have described forecasting wild cards as “thinking about the unthinkable.”

In the past, only the most imaginative of futurists could have anticipated many of the wild cards that have had a tremendous impact on human life. Consider these events that have occurred since the 1950s:

DDT: Following its application during World War II, the pesticide DDT was...