What Earth in 2050 could look like - Shannon Odell
While we’re already feeling
the devastating effects
of human-caused climate change,
governments continue to fall short
on making and executing emissions pledges
that would help thwart further warming.
So, what will our world look like
in the next 30 to 80 years,
if we continue on the current path?
While it’s impossible to know exactly
how the next decade will unfold,
scientists and climate experts have
made projections,
factoring in the current state of affairs.
This future we’re about to describe
is bleak,
but remember there’s still time to ensure
it doesn’t become our reality.
It’s 2050.
We’ve blown past the 1.5 degree target
that world leaders promised to stick to.
The Earth has warmed 2 degrees
since the 1800s,
when the world first started burning
fossil fuels in mass scale.
Reports on heatwaves and wildfires
regularly fill the evening news.
Summer days exceed 40 degrees in London
and 45 degrees in Delhi,
as extreme heat waves are now
8 to 9 times more common.
These high temperatures prompt
widespread blackouts,
as power grids struggle to keep
up with the energy demands
needed to properly cool homes.
Ambulance sirens blare through the night,
carrying patients suffering from
heatstroke, dehydration, and exhaustion.
The southwestern United States,
southern Africa, and eastern Australia
experience longer, more frequent,
and more severe droughts.
Meanwhile, the Philippines, Indonesia,
and Japan
face more frequent heavy rainfall
as rising temperatures cause water
to evaporate faster,
and trap more water in the atmosphere.
As the weather becomes more erratic,
some communities are unable
to keep pace with rebuilding
what’s constantly destroyed.
Many move to cities,
where they face housing shortages
and a lack of jobs.
A resource squeeze is felt
in newborn intensive care wards,
as the rising temperature
and air pollution
cause higher rates of premature
and underweight births.
More children develop asthma
and respiratory disease,
and rates balloon in communities regularly
exposed to forest fire smoke.
The global emissions added
to the atmosphere each year
finally start to level off,
thanks to government action,
but it’s decades too late.
We fail to reach net zero in time.
As a result, by 2100 the Earth has
warmed another 0.5 to 1.5 degrees.
Over half of our remaining
glaciers have melted.
As the sea heats up, its volume increases
due to thermal expansion.
Together, this elevates sea level
by well over a meter.
Entire nations, like the Marshall Islands
and Tuvalu, are uninhabitable
as large swaths of their islands
are submerged.
Some islands, like the Maldives,
spend billions building
interconnected rafts
that house apartments,
schools, and restaurants
that float above its drowned cities.
Resettled climate migrants
in Jakarta, Mumbai, and Lagos
are forced to abandon
their homes once again,
as rising tides and extreme storms flood
buildings and crumble infrastructure.
Overall, 250 million people are displaced.
Some affluent cities like New York
and Shanghai attempt to adapt,
elevating buildings and roadways.
Ten-meter-tall seawalls line
the cities’ coasts.
Children learn about extinct sea life
which once inhabited the ocean’s reefs,
all of which have vanished thanks
to rising surface water temperatures.
Grocery prices skyrocket,
as food and water scarcity
touch all communities.
Fruits and products long grown
in the tropics and subtropics
rarely show up on shelves,
as intense heat waves paired
with increasing humidity
make it deadly for farmers
to work outdoors.
Unpredictable heatwaves,
droughts, and floods
cripple small-scale farmers
in Africa, Asia, and South America,
who previously produced one-third
of the world’s food.
Hundreds of millions of people are
pushed into hunger and famine.
Climate predictions can feel
overwhelming and terrifying.
Yet many of the experts responsible
for these assessments remain optimistic.
Since countries have first begun
taking steps to lower their emissions,
warming projections have
shifted downwards.
In less than a decade,
we’ve reduced our projected emission rates
so that we’re no longer on track
to hit nearly 4 degrees of warming.
Policies that invest
in renewable energy sources,
cut fossil fuel production,
support electric transportation,
protect our forests,
and regulate industry
can help mitigate the worst effects
of climate change.
But climate experts have also stressed
that current policies and pledges
don’t go far enough—
in speed or scale.
Enacting real change will
require bold solutions,
innovations, and collective action.
There’s still time to rewrite our future,
and every tenth of a degree counts.
