• Question: what do you think the world will be like in 100years from now?

    Asked by telle to Davie, Gemma, James P, James V, Nuala on 27 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: James Pope

      James Pope answered on 27 Jun 2012:


      Hi telle,

      I expect that in 100 years, the world will be about 3°C to 4°C on average warmer than today. This will create a world very different from the one we live in today. Perhaps, possibly like the below@

      The warming means that there is now now summer sea ice in the Arctic and that a lot of glaciers are getting smaller very rapidly.

      This level of warming will also have caused 80% of the 2012 Amazon rainforest to die as it gets too dry and some of this land will be at risk of becoming a desert. The southern central states of the USA will be uninhabitable, except at the coasts, as there won’t be enough fresh water, but these coasts will be battered by a greater number of strong hurricanes.

      For the UK, farming will have boomed as we become one of the regions (along with Scandinavia and Russia) that are really able to produce a lot of food. Due to the amount of land and feed they need, we will no longer eat meat from living animals, but synthetic meat grown from proteins in laboratories.

      Thankfully, India and China will not have become completely uninhabitable and the monsoon hasn’t stopped, and so it is still possible for India to feed themselves. However, most of Africa and the Middle East is now completely uninhabitable and large parts of this land have been turned into huge solar power stations with this energy being pumped into Europe and out to India and China.

      Another country doing well from the changes is Canada, which supplies a lot of food to the USA and South America in much the same way as the UK and Scandinavia are doing.

    • Photo: Nuala Carson

      Nuala Carson answered on 28 Jun 2012:


      Hey telle,

      James Pope has give you are really detailed answer of lots of different things that could happen. Essentially if we carry on the way we are going now in 100 years from now the world is going to be a very different place. the most important change is the the global temperatures will have increased. This effect will be most noticeable by the almost complete removal of polar sea ice and glaciers. Lots of things will also happen that you wouldn’t actually be able to see but you will feel their effect. Atmospheric winds and oceanic circulation will have changed. Large parts of the world will be uninhabitable, which means they will have to move to different countries putting more stress on smaller amounts and land and food and other resources.

      Some countries would do better as the changing conditions would mean they are able to produce new crops to sell but all in all it wouldn’t be a very nice place to live.

    • Photo: James Verdon

      James Verdon answered on 28 Jun 2012:


      Hi telle,
      I’m not really sure to be honest. The worry is that if humans carry on the way we’re going on at the moment, huge numbers of species of animals will have gone extinct. Natural habitats will have been destroyed due to both global warming and exploitation (like the deforestation of the Amazon as people cut down all the trees). The world could be a much less pleasant place to live, with food and fresh water supplies running short.

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