Renowned scientist, author and futurologist James Martin yesterday urged business leaders to change their focus from profits in the short term to the risks and opportunities of the longer term.The Bermuda resident, who painted a remarkably accurate picture of today’s tech-savvy world in his Pulitzer prize nominated book “The Wired Society” back in 1977, anticipates great upheavals over the coming decades and believes that the world is the middle of “the biggest revolution in history”.Speaking at a presentation at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute entitled “The Transformation of Humankind” - the title of a new book he is working on - Dr Martin spelled out two starkly different scenarios for the human race.By the latter part of this century, the world could face either a “New Dark Age”, characterised by famine, huge natural catastrophes and hi-tech terrorism, or a time of “high civilisation”, marked by immense wealth, longer life expectancy and sustainable use of resources. The direction we take will depend on the decisions we make, he says.Among the sponsors of the presentation, were Allied World Assurance Company, the Association of Bermuda International Companies, the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers and the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies.And there was plenty in Dr Martin’s talk to make international company executives in the audience shift uncomfortably in their seats.“I think we need to move to a time when the big meetings of CEOs - such as Davos [the World Economic Forum] - don’t just concentrate on short-term profits, but start to look at the long term,” Dr Martin said.“I was at a business conference in Europe recently and there was nothing said in the entire conference that looked more than about two years into the future. We need our business leaders to take a longer term view than that.”Dr Martin also offered plenty of information on long-term emerging risks.For example, he said that models predict that there will be a sea level rise of about three feet by the end of the century, adding to the possibility of flooding and adding to the destructive power of storm surges.The high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will continue to rise, adding to the greenhouse gas effect, he said. If China continues to build coal-fired power stations at the current rate of two per week, “it’s going to be extremely difficult to protect the climate, whatever we do”, he added.The warming will likely lead to destabilisation of the climate system, resulting in more extreme weather.There will be increasing competition for natural resources, such as water. Each year, the world uses about 160 billion tons more water than is being replenished by rainfall. Some ancient aquifers have already run dry and China’s Yellow River - which is the size of the Mississippi - now frequently peters out before it even reaches the sea.The problem could be greatly eased if more countries followed the example of Bermuda by collecting rainwater that falls on roofs. “It’s an easy solution,” Dr Martin said. “Bermuda’s got something incredibly important to teach the world.”Dr Martin predicts a “Darwinian” future in which only the fittest will survive. Climate change will cause a wide area north and south of the equator to become less productive in terms of food production, as some of it turns into a “dust bowl”. The more desirable areas to live will move closer to the poles, with areas such as Patagonia in the south and Russia in the north being likely destinations for new “climate change cities”.Survivors will include the likes of China, the US, Russia and India, said Dr Martin, who was not so confident about the prospects for Europe.Technology will continue to progress at remarkable rates. By the end of the century, Dr Martin expects there to be supercomputers capable of performing one trillion trillion operations per second. Health care advances could extend the life expectancy of children born in the richer parts of the world to 120.But there will be threats in the form of terrorists using more advanced methods to create mayhem and rogue states using trained computer hackers to disrupt essential systems such as electricity grids. Defence technology will become so advanced that all-out war between developed countries would spell the end of civilisation.New technology is likely to reduce job numbers and time spent at work, since “80 percent of jobs can be done by machines”, Dr Martin said.“Some time we will get to the point where we have to take leisure seriously,” Dr Martin said. “There could be a leisure revolution.”Dr Martin added that the Oxford Martin School, which he founded at Oxford University and has bankrolled, is working on many of the challenges and opportunities of the 21st century.