Walter Greiling


Walter Greiling was a German chemist and futurologist. He sometimes used the pseudonym Walt Grey.

Life

Greiling studied social and natural sciences in Frankfurt and Marburg. He partially earned his living as a worker in coal and sulfide mining.
Greiling did research in the field of agricultural microbiology. He worked at the Technische Hochschule in Hannover, as an assistant, as well as for the :de:Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv|Hamburgisches Welt-Wirtschafts-Archiv. He participated in designing the Brussels Atomium for Expo 58, was an editor of the social and economic magazine :de:Wirtschaftsdienst|Wirtschaftsdienst, editor-in-chief of Chemische Industrie, and a collaborator of the London and Cambridge Economic Service. He led the information service of the :de:Verband der Chemischen Industrie|main association of the chemical industry of Germany and wrote several books on developments in sciences and technique.

Greiling's predictions till 2100

Greiling, in his work Wie werden wir leben? Ein Buch von den Aufgaben unserer Zeit, foresaw the rest of the 20th century as a time in which there would, for the present, further be overexploited natural resources. He predicted that from 1990 to 1995, there would begin systematic international efforts to mitigate climate change and that, shortly after the turn of the millennium, there would for the first time come about a sudden and crisis-laden shortage of the international supply of petroleum. World population would balance out at about nine billion, rather earlier than later in the 21st century. During the 21st century, mankind would succeed to cooperate internationally in shifting to biological raw materials. This and big undertakings to humidify the Sahara, Turkestan and further regions of the Earth would make it possible to feed ten billion people with comparative ease. Greiling warns of attempts to use nuclear energy.

Works