2050

“This is happiness,” Willa Cather’s fictional narrator gasps as he sinks into his grandmother’s garden, “to be dissolved into something complete and great.” A generation later, in a real-life counterpart, Virginia Woolf arrived at the greatest epiphany of her life  - and to this day perhaps the finest definition of what it takes to be an artist - while contemplating the completeness and greatness abloom in the garden.

Selected recent 2050-related headlines:

Within next 10 years, there will be 1 billion older people worldwide. By 2050 nearly one in five people in developing countries will be over 60. Check out this infographic by HelpAge International, an agency that helps older people lead dignified and healthy lives to see how the world demographic will change in the coming years. Delve into the latest data on ageing via the HelpAge International website.

PwC's World in 2050 report examined, inter alia:

• The changing face of world economic power
• The impact of global growth on carbon emissions
• Looking beyond the BRICs
• The growth in emerging economies.