What will 2050

Contaminated water supplies, sea salt intrusions, and agricultural runoff are the order of the day. Because multiple disasters are always happening simultaneously in every country, it can take weeks or even months for basic food and water relief to reach areas pummeled by extreme floods. Diseases such as malaria, dengue, cholera, respiratory illnesses, and malnutrition are rampant. Now all eyes are on the western Antarctic ice sheet. If and when it disappears, it could release a deluge of freshwater into the oceans, raising sea levels by over five meters.

Cities like Miami, Shanghai, and Dhaka will be uninhabitable—ghostly Atlantises dotting the coasts of each continent, their skyscrapers jutting out of the water, their people evacuated or dead.

Those around the world who chose to remain on the coast because it had always been their home have more to deal with than rising water and floods— they must now witness the demise of a way of life-based on fishing. As oceans have absorbed carbon dioxide, the water has become more acidic, and the pH levels are now so hostile to marine life that all countries have banned fishing, even in international waters.

Many people insist that the few fish that are left should be enjoyed while they last— an argument, hard to fault in many parts of the world, that applies to so much that is vanishing.

As devastating as rising oceans have been, droughts and heatwaves inland have created a special hell. Vast regions have succumbed to severe aridification followed by desertification, and wildlife has become a distant memory. These places can barely support human life; their aquifers dried up long ago, and their groundwater is almost gone. Marrakech and Volgograd are on the verge of becoming deserts.

Hong Kong, Barcelona, and Abu Dhabi have been desalinating seawater for years, desperately trying to keep up with the constant wave of immigration from areas that have gone completely dry. Extreme heat is on the march. If you live in Paris, you endure summer temperatures that regularly rise to 44 degrees Celsius degrees Fahrenheit. This is no longer the headline-grabbing event it would have been thirty years ago. Everyone stays inside, drinks water, and dreams of air conditioning.

You lie on your couch, a cold wet towel over your face, and try to rest without dwelling on the poor farmers on the outskirts of town who, despite recurrent droughts and wildfires, are still trying to grow grapes, olives, or soy— luxuries for the rich, not for you. You try not to think about the 2 billion people who live in the hottest parts of the world, where, for upward of forty-five days per year, temperatures skyrocket to 60 degrees Celsius degrees Fahrenheit — a point at which the human body cannot be outside for longer than six hours because it loses the ability to cool itself down.

Places such as central India are becoming uninhabitable. Mass migrations to less hot rural areas are beset by a host of refugee problems, civil unrest, and bloodshed over diminished water availability. Inland glaciers around the world are almost gone. The millions who depended on the Himalayan, Alpine, and Andean glaciers to regulate water availability throughout the year are in a state of constant emergency: there is no more snow turning to ice atop mountains in the winter, so there is no more gradual melting for the spring and summer.

Now there are either torrential rains leading to flooding or prolonged droughts. The most vulnerable communities with the least resources have already seen what ensues when water is scarce: sectarian violence, mass migration, and death. Even in some parts of the United States, there are fiery conflicts over water, battles between the rich who are willing to pay for as much water as they want and everyone else demanding equal access to the life-enabling resource.

The taps in nearly all public facilities are locked, and those in restrooms are coin-operated. At the federal level, Congress is in an uproar over water redistribution: states with less water demand what they see as their fair share from states that have more. Government leaders have been stymied on the River and the Rio Grande shrink further. Looming on the horizon are conflicts with Mexico, no longer able to guarantee deliveries of water from the depleted Rio Conchos and Rio Grande.

Similar disputes have arisen in Peru, China, and Russia. Food production swings wildly from month to month, season to season, depending on where you live. More people are starving than ever before. Climate zones have shifted, so some new areas have become available for agriculture Alaska, the Arctic , while others have dried up Mexico, California.

Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire, and tornadoes. This makes the food supply in general highly unpredictable. Global trade has slowed as countries such as China stop exporting and seek to hold on to their own resources.

Disasters and wars rage, choking off trade routes. The tyranny of supply and demand is now unforgiving; because of its scarcity, food is now wildly expensive. Income inequality has always existed, but it has never been this stark or this dangerous. Whole countries suffer from epidemics of stunting and malnutrition. Reproduction has slowed overall, but most acutely in those countries where food scarcity is dire.

Infant mortality is sky high, and international aid has proven to be politically impossible to defend in light of mass poverty. Countries with enough food are resolute about holding on to it. In some places, the inability to gain access to such basics as wheat, rice, or sorghum has led to economic collapse and civil unrest more quickly than even the most pessimistic sociologists had previously imagined.

Scientists tried to develop varieties of staples that could stand up to drought, temperature fluctuations, and salt, but we started too late. As developed countries seek to seal their borders from mass migration, they too feel the consequences. Stock markets are crashing, currencies are wildly fluctuating, and the European Union has disbanded. Desperate people will always find a way. Some countries have been better global Good Samaritans than others, but even they have now effectively shut their borders, their wallets, and their eyes.

When the equatorial belt became mostly uninhabitable just a few years ago, you watched the news with disbelieving eyes.

Undulating crowds of migrants, half a billion people, were moving north from Central America toward Mexico and the United States.

Others moved south toward the tips of Chile and Argentina. The same scenes played out across Europe and Asia. Most people who lived between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn were driving or walking away in a giant band of humanity.

Enormous political pressure was placed on northern and southern countries to either welcome migrants or keep them out. Some countries let people in, but only under conditions approaching indentured servitude.

It will be years before the stranded migrants are able to find asylum or settle into new refugee cities that have formed along the borders. Even if you live in areas with more temperate climates such as Canada and Scandinavia, you are still extremely vulnerable. Severe tornadoes, flash floods, wildfires, mudslides, and blizzards are always in the back of your mind.

Depending on where you live, you have a fully stocked storm cellar, an emergency go-bag in your car, or a six-foot fire moat around your house. People are glued to oncoming weather reports. No one shuts their phones off at night.

When the emergency hits, you may only have minutes to respond. The alert systems set up by the government are basic and subject to glitches and irregularities depending on access to technology. The rich, who subscribe to private, reliable satellite-based alert systems, sleep better. Because of the alarming spike in suicides, and under increasing pressure from public health officials, news organizations have decreased the number of stories devoted to genocide, slave trading, and refugee virus outbreaks.

You can no longer trust the news. Social media, long the grim source of live feeds and disaster reporting, is brimming with conspiracy theories and doctored videos. Overall, the news has taken a strange, seemingly controlled turn toward distorting reality and spinning a falsely positive narrative. Everyone living within a stable country is physically safe, yes, but the psychological toll is mounting.

With each new tipping point passed, they feel hope slipping away. There is no chance of stopping the runaway warming of our planet, and no doubt we are slowly but surely heading toward human extinction. Diseases spread by mosquitoes and ticks are rampant as these species flourish in the changed climate, spreading to previously safe parts of the planet, overwhelming us.

Worse still, the public health crisis of antibiotic resistance has only intensified as the population has grown denser in the last inhabitable areas and temperatures continue to rise. As she hurries to get into an air-conditioned, self-driving car, she wonders if the temperature will finally dip below 90 degrees today—for the first time this November.

One hundred miles northwest, a third-generation vineyard owner finishes packing up his family and saying goodbye to the land. It has become too hot to produce his Pinot Noir grapes anymore—all the nearby vineyards now grow wheat to fit the hotter weather. He is heading to Oregon's cooler climes to start again. Meanwhile, on the coast, a boy and his grandfather walk along the beach, careful not to touch the water. A telltale bright red stain in the waves warns them of a toxic algal bloom.

The water level has risen a little bit over the years, and the grandfather wonders how much land will still be above water when his grandson reaches his age. By , climate change and its reality will no longer be up for debate. The subtle signs we're starting to see around us will be more pronounced, scientists say, and their impact will be easy to spot in everyday life.

The warming trend can feel overwhelming to understand, much less confront—especially with so many factors believed to affect how the planet is changing. But there's good news: Humanity has tools to shape our future, USC researchers say, and some are already working in places across the globe.

The 20th century was Earth's warmest period in nearly 2, years, he says. Data he examined from a wide variety of sources, including ice cores, tree rings and coral reefs , show that the warming trend began after the industrial revolution—the s. For most of the globe, the warmest temperatures have come within the past years.

He agrees with the broad scientific consensus that if the trend continues—and physics says it will—sea level rise and droughts could render areas of the planet unsafe or even uninhabitable. Refugees leaving their homes for livable climates could lead to geopolitical instability. The World Bank predicts as many as million people could be displaced by In the Southern California of , Angelenos could spend a quarter of the year sweating it out in temperatures of 90 degrees or more.

That's 95 days of dangerously hot weather a year, significantly higher than the 67 days we see in Air conditioning will raise energy bills, but researchers anticipate costs to health as well. Research suggests that uncomfortable heat stresses the body, increasing risk of heart problems and stroke, especially in the elderly. High temperatures have also been linked to an increase in pre-term births and infant mortality. Studies on students and stockbrokers and other workers have shown that temperatures above 80 degrees slow down thinking processes, making it harder to focus and make decisions.

These problems disproportionately harm people with the fewest resources to deal with the discomfort and health risks. Several researchers raise the alarm that any climate plan has to address our society's systemic inequalities. The climate is likely to become extreme in several ways, including an increase in both fires and floods, rainy days and droughts, cold snaps and temperature spikes.

In California, unpredictable fluctuations could devastate the agricultural sector, which accounts for an eighth of the country's agricultural production.

It's likely that some crops, like grapes and apples, could only be grown farther north. Farmers who opt to stay in California might switch products—say, from corn to wheat—to better match the new climate reality. We don't need to time travel to to imagine the impact of climate change on the air. When temperatures rise, so does "bad" ozone.

Don't confuse this ozone with the ozone layer in the upper atmosphere, which shields Earth from the sun's radiation. Bad ozone forms at ground level when pollutants from cars and other industrial sources react to sunlight. In Los Angeles, it's one of the biggest reasons climate change endangers human health: More days above 90 degrees means more ozone, more asthma, more lung damage and more deaths.

By , if climate mitigation strategies and air pollution regulation don't halt rising temperatures, the skies of Los Angeles could revert to the soupy smog of the s, Bento says. That was a time before the Clean Air Act, when more than half the days in the city had unsafe levels of pollution. As with any kind of change, there will be pros and cons.

Those who work in routine jobs are likely to struggle to make sure they can stay relevant in the new world of work. The advantage is that this will give us more time to focus on the human aspects of work such as building relationships, being creative, deep thinking, and practicing skills like empathy and self-awareness. Technology will help us make organizations more personable. This also means that we need to get more comfortable with using technology such as bots and AI in our work, a cause of tension and fear for some.

And what about working hours? Flexible work arrangements are already being implemented at organizations around the world.

The advantages are far-ranging, from improving employee satisfaction, productivity and tenure, to being able to attract and retain top talent. I think the pros outstrip the cons: when managed effectively, flexible work arrangements can be a huge benefit to the organization and its people.

Predicted by: Edney Souza, digital culture and business and technology teacher, speaker and entrepreneur, Brazil. For sure, work will become more fun and those repetitive activities in our day-to-day life will be done by robots and artificial intelligence. Knowing programming logic will be as important as English and mathematics. User experience design UX will be more important than other technical components of a project to ensure its success with customers.

Skills in solving problems and serving customers will continue to be competitive advantages for the work of the future. Visit Earth: to explore and vote for your favorite expert predictions and upload your own crystal-ball vision for the future.

Earth: Suggested articles How will cybersecurity change by ? The taps in nearly all public facilities are locked, and those in restrooms are coin-operated. At the federal level, Congress is in an uproar over water redistribution: states with less water demand what they see as their fair share from states that have more.

Government leaders have been stymied on the issue for years, and with every passing month the Colorado River and the Rio Grande shrink further. Food production swings wildly from month to month, season to season, depending on where you live.

More people are starving than ever before. Climate zones have shifted, so some new areas have become available for agriculture Alaska, the Arctic , while others have dried up Mexico, California. Still others are unstable because of the extreme heat, never mind flooding, wildfire, and tornadoes.

Global trade has slowed as countries such as China stop exporting and seek to hold on to their own resources. Disasters and wars rage, choking off trade routes. The tyranny of supply and demand is now unforgiving; because of its increasing scarcity, food can now be wildly expensive.

Income inequality has never been this stark or this dangerous. Desperate people will always find a way. Ever since the equatorial belt started to become difficult to inhabit, an unending stream of migrants has been moving north from Central America toward Mexico and the United States.

Others are moving south toward the tips of Chile and Argentina. The same scenes are playing out across Europe and Asia. Some countries have been better global Good Samaritans than others, but even they have now effectively shut their borders, their wallets, and their eyes. Even if you live in areas with more temperate climates such as Canada and Scandinavia, you are still extremely vulnerable. Severe tornadoes, flash floods, wildfires, mudslides, and blizzards are often in the back of your mind.

Depending on where you live, you have a fully stocked storm cellar, an emergency go-bag in your car, or a six-foot fire moat around your house. People are glued to weather forecasts.