Thanks for your response. I am often attacked for having an exceptionally optimistic perspective on the future. But I do not try and describe a utopia. There are massive threats to human existence now (e.g., climate change), and there will be even bigger threats to human existence in the future (e.g., advanced A.I., 3D printed viruses, rogue nanotech, etc.). However, I believe that if you apply adaptation as an explanatory mechanism to the human species as superorganism you can theorize how these challenges and obstacles will be overcome (simply because the alternative is extinction).

In nature, when an organism is confronted with significant and sudden environmental change they undergo punctuated equilibrium like change via natural selection (or if they don't they become extinct). With our species this actually happens. Except the selection pressures are on our institutions. We can also predict using Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns what technologies will exist in 2020, 2030, etc. Using both theories together we can hypothesize about what the most likely scenario state of our battle with climate change will be. For example, two very important technologies that have already been developed will be able to modify the chemical composition of the global atmosphere by 2030. Those include nanotech that can absorb CO2 and genetically modified bacteria programmed to live on large quantities of CO2. Both will allow us to stabilize greenhouse gas emissions.

Technology evolves as biology does. Only x1million times faster. And the rate of technological change is accelerating. That is why I am not concerned about climate change. I do fear larger problems that we will face in the future. But hopefully if we start thinking about them now we will be able to put the necessary safe guards in to protect against those as well.

As for your fear of Islam spreading... I would really not worry about that at all. All polls indicate that religious belief worldwide is declining. Consider the fact that by 2030 the entire world will actually be online all the time and most countries standard of living will be considerably higher. (there will also be Watson-like A.I. in every smart phone). With those technologies and situations I expect religion to collapse quite quickly. The institutions may remain for longer - but already the nature of belief in god has changed substantially over the past 100 years. In most of the developed world religion is a shell of its former self in terms of influence and authority. That will happen throughout the rest of the world as well.