Unlike previous reports, the GT2030 report tries to account for predictions made in previous versions. What it doesn't do is grapple with the serious flaws in its overall approach. While some of this year's predictions are worthwhile, the report fails to account for how badly this same process has served previous reports.

The Global Trends reports tend to be two-sided. They offer specific, big claims that are almost always wrong on the one hand, while smaller, more vague observations about how the world is slowly changing tend to be more accurate on the other. In this sense, NIC predictions read like a Fareed Zakaria book: the really interesting parts that matter never turn out to make sense, while the very obvious things are written about so broadly they can't help but be right.

This year, GT2030 predicts that "Asia," defined broadly, will surpass the combined economic and military might of the Europe and the United States. If the rise of a multipolar world doesn't seem very new, that's because it was the thesis of Zakaria's most recent book, The Post-American World, written in 2008. In it, Zakaria predicted that the U.S. would experience a relative decline as other countries, particularly those in East Asia, catch up.

That the United States will be "first among equals" in the future isn't a terribly fresh prediction for NIC to make, but it does have the virtue of being likely. Similarly, the claim that the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are not unified by ideology and are focused on their regional power bases is also likely to be true.

The report does have an important role to play, though. In being published by the NIC, it enjoys immediate credibility among policymakers and politicians -- the ones responsible for making important decisions about the planet's future. The broad trends GT2030 identifies are happening right now, and it is vitally important our leaders understand those trends and try to adapt to them. When GT2030 writes, for example, about conflicts over access to water and the challenges posed by climate change, it's not exactly breaking new ground -- but those are both critical issues that leaders need to understand.

But ultimately, what do these sorts of reports accomplish? The NIC is hardly the only group that publishes studies about future trends. There is an entire industry devoted to futures studies: their acolytes, called futurists, give PowerPoint presentations and write books about how the world will change in the future. I used to work for one: Alvin Toffler, who wrote a groundbreaking book in 1970 called Future Shock. His book, four decades after the fact, remains a fascinating artifact: his description of "information overload" (a term he invented) rings especially true in an age of Twitter and Facebook, but his description of cities running out of oxygen, and disposable clothing made of paper, sounds a bit silly.